Skill Acquisition and Teaching Procedures Flashcards

Shaping involves reinforcing:

Answer: Successive approximations toward the target behavior

Shaping reinforces responses that progressively resemble the target behavior, gradually raising the criterion until the final behavior is achieved.

Which teaching arrangement uses naturally occurring opportunities distributed throughout the day rather than massed trials?

Answer: Naturalistic teaching (incidental teaching)

Naturalistic or incidental teaching embeds learning trials within the child's natural environment and daily routines rather than structured table-top sessions.

What is the main difference between massed practice and distributed practice?

Answer: Massed practice runs many trials back-to-back; distributed practice spaces trials across time

Massed practice presents many consecutive trials for one skill, while distributed practice intersperses trials with other activities or skills over time.

A token economy uses tokens as:

Answer: Conditioned generalized reinforcers exchangeable for backup reinforcers

Tokens are conditioned generalized reinforcers that acquire value through pairing with multiple backup reinforcers and can be exchanged for those reinforcers.

Stimulus control refers to:

Answer: A behavior occurring more frequently in the presence of a specific antecedent stimulus

Stimulus control exists when a behavior reliably occurs in the presence of a discriminative stimulus (SD) and not in its absence.

What is errorless teaching designed to prevent?

Answer: Learner errors during acquisition of new skills

Errorless teaching provides immediate, intrusive prompts so the learner always responds correctly, minimizing errors and the reinforcement of incorrect responses during acquisition.