FREE Procedures and Intervention Questions and Answers Flashcards

A behavior analyst observes that a client's problem behavior temporarily increases at the onset of an extinction procedure before decreasing. This phenomenon is known as:

Answer: Extinction burst

An extinction burst is a temporary increase in the frequency, intensity, or duration of a behavior when extinction is first implemented.

A BCBA is using video modeling to teach social skills to a child with autism. The child watches a peer perform the target skill and then imitates it. This procedure relies primarily on which behavioral principle?

Answer: Observational learning and imitation

Video modeling uses observational learning, where the learner acquires behavior by watching and imitating a model rather than through direct reinforcement of their own responses.

A behavior analyst arranges the environment so that a skill taught in the clinic occurs naturally in the home and community settings. The MOST important element of this generalization strategy is:

Answer: Training sufficient exemplars across settings, materials, and people

Training sufficient exemplars—varying the people, settings, and materials during instruction—is one of the most effective strategies for promoting generalization.

A practitioner is teaching a nonverbal child to request preferred items by pointing to picture symbols. Over time, the child begins to use the picture symbols in novel situations without prompting. This demonstrates:

Answer: Generalization

Generalization occurs when a learned behavior spreads to new stimuli, settings, or situations beyond those in which it was originally trained.

Which of the following best describes the role of an establishing operation (EO) in a behavior intervention plan?

Answer: It alters the effectiveness of a reinforcer and the current frequency of behavior it maintains

An establishing operation (a type of motivating operation) temporarily increases the value of a reinforcer and the frequency of behaviors that have produced that reinforcer in the past.

A BCBA notices that a client's tantrums occur most frequently on Monday mornings after the weekend. A sleep diary reveals the client sleeps poorly on weekends. The poor sleep most likely functions as:

Answer: An establishing operation increasing the reinforcing value of escape

Poor sleep is a setting event/establishing operation that increases the aversiveness of demands and therefore increases the reinforcing value of escape, making escape-motivated tantrums more likely.

A behavior analyst is designing an intervention for a client who engages in property destruction maintained by tangible reinforcement. Which antecedent modification would MOST directly address this function?

Answer: Providing non-contingent access to preferred tangibles on a fixed-time schedule

Providing non-contingent access (NCR) to preferred tangibles reduces the establishing operation for tangible-maintained problem behavior by pre-satisfying the motivation.