Prompting

A stimulus prompt is a cue that makes the Sd for the target behavior more prominent.  For example, in order to encourage someone to push a button, you could make it big and a bright color.  Stimulus shaping is a changing of the physical dimensions of the stimulus over time.  For example, making the button to push smaller and more duller color over time.

Response prompts are verbal, modeling or physical guidance.  A prompt is a stimulus that assists the subject to evoke a correct response.  If the response is not correct, then it is not a prompt.

A generic response prompt is a cue with a general item such as a string around your finger that leads you to engage in some specific target behavior.

Matching Law

According to matching law, organisms distribute their behavior between two or more concurrent schedules of reinforcement.  That is, if a behavior is reinforced 60 percent of the time in one situation and 40 percent of the time in the other situation, the behavior will occur 60 percent of the time in the first situation and 40 percent of the time in the second.

Alternating Treatment Design

Alternating treatment design has the following advantages:

  1. Efficiently compares intervention effectiveness
  2. It does not require withdraw
  3. It can be used to assess generalization effects
  4. It does not include a return to baseline
  5. It often doesn’t include a baseline to begin with

Differential Reinforcement

Differential reinforcement in general is a scheduled procedure where the target behavior is being put on extinction by reinforcing something else than the original target behavior.  It is not a punishment of the target procedure but does act to reduce that target behavior.  The important thing is that the target behavior that is being reduced should not be reinforced during this procedure.

DRO (Differential Reinforcement of Other behaviors) is a time-based procedure in which reinforcement is delivered at the end of an interval if the target behavior is not occurring.  Any other behavior, as long as it is not the target behavior for reduction, is rewarded.

DRL (Differential Reinforcement of Lower rates of behavior) Reinforcing a lower rate of the target behavior to decrease.

DRD (Differential Reinforcement of Diminishing Rates) Lowering rates of behavior using a progressively decreasing criteria

DRI (Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Behavior) Reinforcing any behavior that would preclude the ability to engage in the targeted behavior.

Analysis of Data

Parametric analysis is used to evaluate a range of values for an intervention (independent variable).  For example, if you were determining the range of values for “time out” that are most effective.  You would conduct a parametric analysis using 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and so on.  Parametric analysis can be thought of as the quest for “how much” intervention is needed to be effective.

Visual analysis is used to look at graphed data.

Component analysis attempts to determine which part of an independent variable is responsible for behavior change.  Component analysis can be thought of as “which part” of the intervention was effective.

 

3 Conditioned Motivating Operations – CMOs

What are conditioned motivating operations (CMOs)?  First we need to discuss motivating operations (MOs).  MOs  or sometimes called establishing operation (EOs) refers to a state that changes the value of consequences and elevates their status as reinforcers.  For example, not having eaten lunch in a while creates a state of hunger which is a motivating operation that elevates the value of food as a reward for doing work.   If someone is told that after they finish their homework, they will get a snack, they will work very hard to finish if they are sufficiently hungry.  The MO creates a state of value for the reward of eating the snack.  Conversely, if someone has just eaten a big lunch, they may not be very motivated to work for a snack, as there is little motivation to acquire that snack because one is satiated on food and it does not momentarily serve as a reinforcement.

Unconditioned motivating operations are the MOs that one naturally has acquired without being taught a value to them.  These are unlearned states of motivating operations and include states such as being tired, hungry, thirsty and wanting of activity.

Conditioned motivating operations (CMOs) are the MOs that one learns to place a value.  These are otherwise neutral states that now have value because they have been paired with a UMO, another CMO or with reinforcement or punishment in order to learn the value of the given CMO.  There are 3 types of CMOs: surrogate CMOs (CMO-S), reflexive CMOs (CMO-R), and transitive CMOs (CMO-T).

CMO-S (SURROGATE)
A stimulus that has acquired its effectiveness by accompanying some other MO and has come to have the same value-altering and behavior-altering effects as the MO that it has accompanied.  A pairing process has to take place here with another MO.

Example: Mom usually puts baby to sleep. One day, dad tried to put the baby to sleep, but the baby doesn’t fall asleep.  Mom usually wears a certain fuzzy house robe that the baby has paired with sleep.  Dad wears mom’s house robe and the pairing of the robe with dad helps the baby fall asleep.

CMO-R (REFLEXIVE)
A condition or object that acquires its effectiveness as an MO by preceding a situation that either is worsening or improving.  This signals to us that an aversive event may be occurring soon.  Achtung. It is exemplified by the warning stimulus in a typical escape-avoidance procedure, which establishes its own offset as reinforcement and evokes all behavior that has accomplished that offset.

Example: The punishing coworker. In the presence of this person you “can’t seem to do anything right” and are constantly punished. She is always finding fault with you.  Because of this, you want to spend less time with this person and you avoid her. Soon the office associated with her takes on these aversive qualities and you avoid going anywhere near where this person might be. Even hearing their voice down the hallway may signal you to take an early lunch and avoid running into them (and therefore avoid possible punishment).

CMO-T (TRANSITIVE)
An environmental variable that establishes (or abolishes) the reinforcing effectiveness of another stimulus and thereby evokes (or abates) the behavior that has been reinforced by that other stimulus.  You CANNOT have access to the stimulus you want until you solve the problem.

Example: Someone puts a lock on the fridge.  This establishes the reinforcing value of a key (key becomes the CMO-T) when access to food is valuable as a source of reinforcement.

5 ABA Instructional / Educational Methodologies

Discrete Trial (DT)
Lovaas
1960
SD – Prompt Response – Sr+

Direct Instruction (DI)
Siegfried Engelmann
Choral Responses
Fast Paced
Highly reinforcing teaching technique
Small groups

Direct instruction is small group, face-to-face lessons.  It includes immediate error correction.  It is highly structured scripted lessons, fast paced and frequent assessments and regrouping based on those assessments.

Precision Teaching (PT)
Lindsley
Fluency
Celeration Charts
“Student is always right”

The charting of student responding on a celeration chart is a component of Precision Teaching.  Based on charting students’ frequency of responding.

Personalized System of Instruction (PSI)
Keller
1963
Self paced
90% mastery criteria
Proctors
Personalized Instruction
Subject matter is broken down into meaningful units.

Incidental Teaching (I)
McGee, Daly, Jacobs
1994
Natural environment
Throughout the day
Generalize
Examples
Focused on student-initiated interactions and is primarily used to teach communication

One of the hallmarks of Incidental Teaching is setting up the environment to encourage child-initiated conversations and activities by placing highly preferred items out of reach, but in sight.  This requires the child to initiate an interaction by mading (asking for the item).  Mands are under the control of motivational operations.  Positive reinforcement comes in the form of praise coupled with receiving the item being asked for.

6 Attitudes of Science

Determinism: Is based on cause and effect relations and lawfulness.  Everything can be determined.

Empiricism: Is based on facts, observation, and experimentation.  An emperor obserserves from his throne.

Experimentation: Manipulation of variables and taking measurements and collecting data yields answers.  When you are experimenting, you are conducting an experiment.

Replication: Experiments can be repeated to check for errors and ensure that data was collected reliably.  Replication is the act of repeating an experiment with the SAME results.

Parsimony: The simplest and most logical explanation is often the correct explanation.

Philosophical Doubt: A true scientist maintains doubt and seeks the truth through scientific means.

 

Schools of Behaviorism

Methodological Behaviorism

S-O-R Stimulus organism variable response

Occurs in response to stimuli in the physical environment as mediated through presumed internal processes according to an S-O-R model of psychology.  Methodological behaviorists believe that human behavior results from the action of presumed organic variables that determines how a person responds to external stimuli.

According to Methodological Behaviorism, talking is an overt response to stimuli mediated through organismic variables. Early Methodological Behaviorists ignored both private events and internal processes.  Modern Methodological Behaviorists may use their data to make inferences about hypothetical mental processes, although they do not incorporate those into their data analysis.

Radical Behaviorism

According to Radical Behaviorism, thinking is the private act of talking to oneself.  Radical Behaviorism accounts for “private events” by attributing them to environmental considerations. Environmental factors (ie, social settings and social skills) are thought to be the potential causal factors related to anxiety levels.  According to Radical Behaviorism, thinking is the private act of privately talking to oneself.

Consequent stimulus changes are part of the equation of Radical Behaviorism and one of the key differentiators from Behaviorism.  This is the idea that behavior occurs due to antecedent and consequent events that occur in the physical environment.

Skinner was a radical behaviorist.

S-R-S Model of Psychology

Metallism – encourages clients to examine ones thoughts through introspection to determine the reason for their behaviors and state of mind.

John Watson S-R Early behaviorists