ABA Fundamentals
These are the outcomes that follow a behavior and serve to reinforce or maintain its future occurrence.
What is a consequence?
This refers to the reason why behaviors are occurring—the consequence that is maintaining the behavior.
What is the function of behavior?
These are the two types of reinforcement used to increase the likelihood of a behavior occurring again.
What are positive and negative reinforcement?
A continuous measurement method that counts each time a behavior occurs
What is frequency recording?
These are events or conditions that occur immediately before a behavior and can influence its occurrence.
What are antecedents?
This is what you're observing if a dead man can't do it, according to the 'Dead Man’s Test' used to define behavior in ABA.
What is behavior?
A student bangs their desk every time math work is given and is sent to the hallway. This behavior is likely maintained by this function.
What is escape?
This occurs when a behavior is strengthened by the receipt, addition, presentation, or increased intensity of a stimulus following the behavior.
What is positive reinforcement?
The process of directly observing and recording antecedents, behavior, and consequences in the natural environment.
What is ABC recording?
This involves starting with tasks a learner is likely to complete, then introducing more challenging tasks.
What is behavioral momentum?
Establishing operations like attention deprivation or aversive events can evoke problem behavior by increasing the value of certain reinforcers
What are motivating operations?
This behavior function is often the hardest to assess because reinforcement comes from the behavior itself.
What is automatic reinforcement?
This involves reinforcing only those responses within a response class that meet a specific criterion while placing all other responses on extinction.
What is differential reinforcement?
This data type measures the time between a given stimulus and the initiation of a behavior.
What is latency?
This intervention involves exposing a learner to an expectation prior to an event to reduce problem behavior
What is priming?
This basic principle of behavior involves withholding reinforcement for a previously reinforced behavior.
What is extinction?
If a behavior is maintained by attention, this intervention involves ignoring problem behavior while reinforcing appropriate attempts to get attention.
What is differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA)?
When a reinforcer is only available after a specific behavior is emitted, it is said to be this.
What is contingent?
This refers to the physical form or observable shape of a behavior—what it looks like.
What is the topography of behavior?
When using high-probability request sequences to build behavioral momentum, this principle is being leveraged.
What is the Premack Principle?
This strategy involves making the problem behavior more difficult and the desired behavior easier, thereby altering the likelihood of each occurring.
What is response effort?
Giving frequent, noncontingent praise throughout the day may reduce problem behavior maintained by this function.
What is attention?
When a reinforcer no longer increases behavior because it's overused or the learner is no longer motivated.
What is satiation?
A behavior must meet these three criteria to be considered a valid behavioral target in ABA.
What are observable, measurable, and socially significant?
This term refers to introducing stimuli that signal the availability of reinforcement for appropriate behavior and non-availability for problem behavior.
What is discriminative stimulus (SD) control?