ABA Basics
What does ABA stand for?
Applied Behavior Analysis
A client screams until they receive an iPad. What is the function?
Access to Tangibles
A behavior occurs because it has historically produced access to something. What is the general behavioral principle involved?
Reinforcement.
What is the primary purpose of baseline data?
To establish the current level, trend, and variability of behavior before intervention.
What is the difference between a topography and a function?
Topography is what the behavior looks like; function is the environmental outcome maintaining it.
What is reinforcement?
Anything that increases the future likelihood of a behavior.
A client runs away from table work. What is the likely function?
Escape
A condition that decreases the value of a consequence as reinforcement.
Abolishing Operation (AO).
Which single-case design is often used when withdrawing an effective intervention would be unethical or impractical?
Multiple Baseline Design.
A behavior increases after a demand is removed. Is the behavior being positively or negatively reinforced?
Negatively reinforced because something was removed following the behavior.
What are the four functions of behavior?
Attention, Escape, Access to Tangibles, Automatic
A client repeatedly flaps their hands with no social consequence. What function is most likely?
Automatic
The value-altering effect of an event that changes how effective a reinforcer is.
Motivating Operation (MO).
In a multiple-baseline design, what demonstrates experimental control?
Behavior changes only after intervention is introduced across each tier, at different points in time.
A therapist gives attention after screaming, and screaming increases over time. What is the likely behavioral relation?
The attention is functioning as positive reinforcement for screaming.
What does ABC stand for?
Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence
A child jokes loudly during group and peers laugh. Function?
Attention
What is the first step in the three-term contingency?
Antecedent
In an ABAB design, what does the second “A” represent?
Withdrawal or reversal of the intervention to evaluate experimental control.
A client’s challenging behavior temporarily increases when reinforcement is withheld. What is this called?
An extinction burst.
What is prompting?
Assistance provided to help a learner perform a behavior correctly.
Name two ways to determine the function of behavior.
Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA), ABC data, Functional Analysis, interviews, etc.
How many dimensions of ABA did Baer, Wolf, and Risley originally describe?
Seven
What is a major limitation of a changing-criterion design?
It requires behavior to change gradually and predictably in response to systematically changing performance criteria.
A client begins engaging in a previously reduced behavior when reinforcement for an alternative response is discontinued. What is this called?
Resurgence.