Behavioral Interventions & Techniques Flashcards

A practitioner wants to decrease a problem behavior using extinction. The client's behavior is maintained by escape from demands. Which extinction procedure should be used?

Answer: Continue demands regardless of the behavior (escape extinction)

Escape extinction involves preventing the learner from escaping or avoiding the demand when the problem behavior occurs, removing the negative reinforcer that maintains the behavior.

In Functional Communication Training (FCT), the appropriate communicative response must be:

Answer: Reinforced on the same schedule as the problem behavior it replaces

FCT is most effective when the communicative response produces the same reinforcer, with equal or greater ease, than the problem behavior it is designed to replace.

Which prompting strategy involves waiting a set amount of time after an SD before delivering a prompt, allowing the learner the opportunity to respond independently?

Answer: Time delay prompting

Time delay prompting inserts a pause (constant or progressive) between the discriminative stimulus and the prompt, creating an opportunity for independent responding.

A BCBA implements a token economy. Tokens should function as which type of conditioned reinforcer?

Answer: Generalized conditioned reinforcer

Tokens function as generalized conditioned reinforcers because they can be exchanged for a variety of backup reinforcers, making them effective across many motivating conditions.

Which behavioral technique involves presenting an aversive stimulus contingent on a behavior to decrease future occurrences of that behavior?

Answer: Positive punishment

Positive punishment involves adding an aversive stimulus following a behavior, which decreases the probability that the behavior will occur again in the future.

A practitioner is using backward chaining to teach handwashing. What is the FIRST step the learner performs independently?

Answer: Drying hands (the last step in the chain)

Backward chaining teaches the final step of the chain first, reinforcing the learner for completing the last response while the practitioner completes all preceding steps.

An antecedent intervention designed to reduce problem behavior by pre-emptively providing access to a reinforcer on a fixed time schedule is called:

Answer: Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR)

Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) delivers the maintaining reinforcer on a time-based schedule independent of behavior, which reduces the motivating operation for problem behavior.