- Applied Behavior Analysis Prompting and Fading Procedures Questions and Answers Flashcards

A practitioner is using a most-to-least prompting hierarchy to teach a learner with ASD to tie their shoes. After three sessions at full physical guidance, the learner begins showing prompt dependency — correctly completing the task only with the prompt present but making no independent attempts during probes. Which adjustment is MOST appropriate?

Answer: Implement a prompt delay procedure and differentially reinforce unprompted responses at a higher magnitude

Prompt dependency occurs when the learner waits for the prompt rather than responding independently. Introducing a time delay (prompt delay) creates a response opportunity before the prompt is delivered, and differentially reinforcing unprompted correct responses with higher-magnitude reinforcement motivates the learner to respond independently. Switching hierarchies may help but does not directly address the reinforcement contingency maintaining prompt dependency. Immediate removal of all prompts without an error-correction plan would likely produce high error rates.

During transfer of stimulus control, a trainer uses a textual prompt ('WASH') displayed on a card to help a learner initiate hand-washing. The goal is for the natural discriminative stimulus (the dirty hands / sink) to gain control. Which fading strategy specifically addresses transferring control FROM an added antecedent stimulus TO the natural SD?

Answer: Superimposition and fading of an extrastimulus prompt

The textual card is an extrastimulus prompt — an antecedent added outside the natural stimulus. Superimposition involves pairing this added prompt with the natural SD, then fading (reducing salience of) the extrastimulus prompt across trials until the natural SD alone controls responding. Within-stimulus fading manipulates features of the natural SD itself. Graduated guidance and backward chaining are response-prompting strategies, not stimulus-fading strategies.

A behavior analyst is comparing progressive time delay (PTD) and constant time delay (CTD) for teaching receptive labels to a 5-year-old. Which of the following is an empirically supported advantage of PTD over CTD for learners who frequently engage in error responses early in training?

Answer: PTD systematically reduces error rates in early trials by beginning with a 0-second delay and gradually increasing it, limiting exposure to prompted error opportunities

PTD begins with a 0-second delay (simultaneous prompting) and gradually increases the interval (e.g., 1s → 2s → 4s → 6s), which limits early error opportunities while the learner is still acquiring the behavior. This makes PTD particularly beneficial for learners who generate many errors when given immediate response opportunities. CTD jumps directly to the fixed delay interval after the 0-second baseline phase, increasing early error risk for some learners. Neither procedure eliminates the need for error correction, and PTD is not universally faster.

A BCBA is supervising a program in which stimulus prompts are being faded using a within-stimulus fading procedure to teach color discrimination. The initial training stimuli exaggerate the critical feature (hue saturation) and gradually reduce this exaggeration across steps. A practitioner reports that the learner is performing perfectly during fading steps but failing probes with the natural, unmodified stimuli. What is the MOST likely explanation for this outcome?

Answer: The exaggerated feature used was not the relevant feature controlling the discrimination, so transfer to natural stimuli did not occur

Within-stimulus fading works only if the exaggerated feature is the relevant dimension that should control the discrimination. If the critical feature (e.g., exaggerated saturation) does not correspond to the actual controlling property of the natural SD, the learner's responding comes under the control of the exaggerated, artificial feature — not the natural one — and responding collapses when natural stimuli are introduced. This is a stimulus control trap specific to within-stimulus fading when the wrong feature is manipulated.

A practitioner is teaching a complex vocational chain using backward chaining. After the learner achieves criterion on the final link, then the final two links, they demonstrate unusual regression — mastered earlier-trained links deteriorate when newer links are added. Which factor is MOST likely responsible, and what is the recommended adjustment?

Answer: Reinforcement for earlier links has been thinned too rapidly as links are added, reducing the conditioned reinforcing value of chain stimuli; reintroduce maintenance probes and re-establish conditioned reinforcer value

In backward chaining, each link's completion stimulus (S-delta for the next link) derives its conditioned reinforcing value from its proximity to the terminal reinforcer. As new links are added to the beginning of the chain, the distance from previously trained links to the terminal reinforcer effectively increases and reinforcement for early links is no longer provided consistently during training. This erodes the conditioned reinforcer value of those stimuli and weakens earlier links. The solution is to include maintenance trials of the full mastered chain and ensure the conditioned reinforcing properties of intermediate stimuli are maintained.

In a graduated guidance procedure, a practitioner uses 'shadowing' as one component. A learner is being taught to sort objects by category. During shadowing, the practitioner's hands hover 1 cm from the learner's hands without contact. The learner begins moving their hands erratically to avoid the practitioner's proximity. According to behavior analytic principles, this avoidance response indicates what, and what should be done?

Answer: Physical proximity has acquired aversive stimulus properties; assess whether the guidance procedure itself functions as an aversive stimulus and consider pairing proximity with reinforcement or selecting an alternative prompting strategy

The learner's avoidance of the practitioner's hands indicates that proximity has acquired conditioned aversive properties — it functions as an aversive antecedent stimulus. This is a significant concern because graduated guidance involves physical contact and proximity that the learner is now actively escaping. The ethical and empirically correct response is to assess whether the entire guidance procedure is functioning as an aversive stimulus and, if so, pair proximity with potent reinforcers to countercondition aversiveness, or shift to a less intrusive prompting strategy (e.g., gestural or model prompts). Continuing an aversive procedure without modification violates ethical standards.