RBT Competency Assessment

Indirect Measurement

interviews, rating scales, questions, surveys

Direct Measurement

observation of the behavior and recording it as it occurs

Behavioral Definitions

operational, includes verbs describing behavior, objective + unambiguous, does not rely on internal states (happy, sad), does not use labels (bad or good)

Operational

describes what the behavior looks like so two independent observers can recognize + record the same behavior

Indirect Outcome Recording

measures results that produces an observable product in the environment. main advantage is that it's easy to use

Direct Outcome Recording

instead of relying on memory data is gathered immediately as the behavior occurs or as it produces results

Event Recording

behavior is observed continuously throughout the observation period, and each instance of the behavior is recorded immediately as it occurs. Must meet two criteria: Does the behavior look the same every time? Does the behavior have a clear beginning and end?

Frequency Recording

used for behaviors that have a clear beginning and end, tally the number of times the behavior occurs

Intensity

magnitude or force of response (only record if this is the aspect of the behavior you are trying to change)

Duration

how long a behavior persists, should be used if you are trying to decrease how long a behavior lasts

Latency

time that occurs between the SD and the response (ex. how long to respond to a peer's question). You record this when the goal is to decrease the time between SD and response

Partial Interval Recording

involves checking off an interval if the behavior occurs at ANY point within the interval - even if it only occured for 1 second. You can use this for self-stimulatory behaviors or behaviors that don't look the same every time. An overexaggeration of the behavior, you use this method to decrease behavior.

Whole Interval Recording

involves checking off the interval if the behavior occurs throughout the WHOLE interval. Use when it is difficult to tell when the behavior begins or ends, when it occurs at such a high rate it is difficult to keep count. An under-exaggeration of behavior, you use this method to increase behavior.

Momentary Time Sampling Recording

data is less representative than intervals, looking for a behavior's occurrence during a specific part of the interval and recording if it is occurring at that precise moment. Ex: setting a timer to go off every minute for a 30 minute interval, only checking for behavior and marking it down as the timer goes off.

Reinforcement

follows a behavior that increases that behavior

Punishment

follows a behavior that decreases that behavior

Positive Reinforcement

addition of a pleasant stimulus

Negative Reinforcement

removal of an aversive stimulus

Positive Punishment

addition of an aversive stimulus

Negative Punishment

removal of a pleasant stimulus

Motivating Operations

Variables in the environment that alter the relative value of a particular reinforcer at a particular time.

Deprivation

when a person hasn't had access to a particular reinforcer for a significant period of time, makes it more potent

Immediacy

the time between the occurrence of the behavior and the delivery of the reinforcer. The more immediate, the more effective

Size

the magnitude of the reinforcer changes the effectiveness. You want to not give too much or the reinforcer will lose its value, but too little will not be motivating enough.

Contingency

when the reinforcer is delivered only for the target behavior it is more effective

Schedules of Reinforcement

specifies how often particular behaviors receive reinforcement

Continuous schedule

used for learning new behaviors, the behavior is reinforced every time

Intermittent Schedule

used to maintain behavior once a skill is acquired. Behavior is only reinforced some of the time. They generate high response rates and prevent behavior from stopping.

Fixed Ratio Schedule

a schedule of reinforcement after a fixed level of responses. Ex: reinforce after every 5th correct response.

Variable Ratio Schedule

An average number of responses must be made before delivery of reinforcement. Ex: slot machine

Fixed Interval Schedule

it doesn't matter how many times the behavior occurred, the person only gets the reinforcer once the response is given after a fixed amount of time. Ex: receiving a paycheck.

Variable Interval Schedule

the reinforcer is delivered for the first response that occurs after an unpredictable amount of time has passed. Ex: checking your email - you probably do this periodically throughout the day without a set schedule

Extinction

when the response no longer produces reinforcement.

Extinction burst

when the behavior is no longer reinforced, it will briefly increase in frequency, intensity and duration. This is because the learner wants to see if performing the behavior more intensely will produce reinforcement.

Response Cost

taking away a reinforcer as a result of behavior (ex: taking car keys away after missing curfew)

Behavior Intervention Plan

plans developed to guide parents, teachers and other paraprofessionals on how to decrease inappropriate behvaiors and teach or increase replacement behaviors in all settings. Everyone who interacts with the individual should follow the plan

Functional Behavior Assessment

a collection of different procedures of gathering information on antecedants, behaviors, and consequences in order to determine the factors that lead to maintaining problem behavior.

Antecedant

an environmental condition existing or occurring immediately before the behavior of interest (ex: the setting, people they are around, the actions of people around them)

Visual Schedules

a set of pictures that communicate a series of activities or steps of a specific schedule. Gives a sense of control, predictability and choice over their schedule

Means to an end visual

shows the individual when they are finished or when something new is going to happen, like a transition. Ex: timer, token board, first/then board. More likely to stay on task if they can see when they get a break

Functional Communication training

the use of appropriate communicative behavior to replace the inappropriate behavior. If we make it easier to communicate through words, sign, or pictures than the problem behavior, it is more likely they will use they functional behavior instead.

Social Stories

a tool to teach children with autism how to act in social situations

Systematic Desensitization

treatment that practices engaging in successive approximations toward the target behavior. This treatment is often paired with anxiety reduction exercises and positive reinforcement.

Demand Fading

incrementally increase demands you place on the student across several sessions

Non-Contingent Reinforcement

reinforcing the child without any specific demands in place. This causes you to be associated with reinforcement and become a reinforcer.

Pairing

when the child has associated you with reinforcement, or good things.

Pace

increasing pace of instruction decreases escape behaviors

Interspersing

mixing up easy and more difficult tasks

Wait program

teaches a student to accept the denied request and wait for access to the item. It does this by using visuals and timers. The student is taught to wait for items or an activity for incremental periods of time.

Transition program

teaches student to easily transition by reinforcing systematic steps. First, you contrive transition by situations such as moving from one chair to another.

Sensory diet

the use of sensory activities or exercises to calm certain sensory needs. Ex: activity schedule, replacement behavior that serves the same purpose

Differential Reinforcement of Alternate Behaviors (DRA)

reinforcing an appropriate alternative to the problem behavior and extinguishing the problem behavior through extinction. Do not acknowledge attempts to gain (x) through undesirable behavior. Prompt, than immediately reinforce.

Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Reinforcers (DRI)

reinforces a behavior that is incompatible to the problem behavior and put the target problem behavior on extinction. The incompatible behavior is response blocked while correct behavior is reinforced

Differential Reinforcement of Other Behaviors (DRO)

reinforcing the absence of the problem behavior for a specific amount of time. Always uses interval schedules, usually fixed. First take baseline data of the target behavior. Start with an interval that will ensure success. Every interval without the behavior is reinforced.

Overcorrection

contingent on the target behavior, the individual must engage in a tedius task directly related to the problem.

Restitutional overcorrection

the learner is required to repair the situation to its original state

Positive practice overcorrection

the learner is required to practice the correct form of the behavior or a behavior that is incompatible as a result of the problem behavior

Time out

the withdrawal of the opportunity to receive positive reinforcement for a specific amount of time

Prompting

a cue or an action to assist or encourage the desired response from an individual

Physical Prompt

physically manipulating the individual to practice the desired response, eventually the degree of touch can be lessened until the student performs it independantly

Verbal prompt

using vocalizations to indicate the desired response, can be an utterance such as a sound or part of a word, many words, or even as long as a paragraph.

Phoneme

the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language, help shape articulation

Intraverbal prompt

a question that leads the child to the correct response

Visual prompt

a visual clue or picture, can be any object or printed material that can be used to teach a new behavior

Gestural prompt

using a physical gesture to indicated the desired resposne

Positional prompt

when the target is placed closer to the individual. As the response becomes more independant the target is moved farther away from them

Modeling

physical display of the desired response

Video modeling

children who already readily imitate videos may benefit from specially made videos that demonstrate target behaviors. Used to teach social skills, daily living skills, language aquisition or play skills

Video self modeling

when the student views videos of themselves as examples of behavior

Time delay

transfers stimulus control to the natural stimulus by delaying the presentation of the prompt after that natural stimulus has been presented

Prompt fading

to reduce assistance to a least intrusive prompt

Stimulus fading

highlighting a physical dimension of a stimulus to increase the likelihood of a correct response then the highlighted or exaggerated dimension is eventually faded out (ex: using traffic safety cones to mark a boundary to stay within and removing them slowly after the learner knows the boundaries)

Most to least prompting

usually used with teaching new behaviors because it provides little opportunity for errors

Least to most prompting

usually used for behaviors that have already been learned, but for some reason the student is not responding. Sometimes used for more complex behaviors like problem solving to allow students to independantly work through each step. It is also used when you are trying to avoid rote or memory induced responses

Shaping

reinforcing successive approximations of a target behavior. can be used to improve articlation

Task analysis

involves breaking down a complex skill into smaller, teachable units, the products of which is a series of sequentially ordered steps or tasks

Chaining

a specific sequence of responses with each sequence associated with a particular stimulus condition

Forward chaining

the behaviors identified in the task are taught in their naturally occurring order. Only targets one step at a time from the beginning.

Backward chaining

when all the behaviors that are identified in the task analysis are done by the teacher except for the final behavior (Ex: drawing a smiley face)

Total task presentation

a variation of forward chaining in which the student is taught each of the steps in the task analysis at once. The student helps with every step. (ex: tying your shoes)

Discrimination training

requires one response and two antecedant stimulus conditions. The response in the presence of one stimulus is reinforced while a response in the presence of the other is not. We are teaching them to make choices.

Isolation

teaches the student to pair the stimulus with reinforcement. Once it is paired you mix it up with other stimuli (distractors).

Mixed trials

mixing mastered SD's with target SD's to ensure discrimination

Discrete trial instruction

working one on one with a student, breaking tasks down into small steps until mastery.

Errorless learning

ensures success, early immediate prompts, prompts faded over time, decreases frustration/increases motivation

Trial by trial data

data is collected after each trial on whether or not the response was correct, incorrect, or mastered

Probe data

data is collected on the initial trial. Only checks the initial trial of each program or target item to see whether the teaching and prompting of the previous session was enough to maintain the target skill or item the following day

Naturalistic teaching

the reinforcer is always related to the item being taught. Behavior should be taught in the environment in which it is used, the learners items and activities of interest should set the occassion for teaching, teaching sessions should be across a variety of settings, materials, types of responses and verbal operants, teaching should focus on functional language and skills

Stimulus control

when certain aspects of the environment impact our behaviors (ex: being quiet in a library).

Multiple exemplar training

teaching with many different examples of the same item or activity

Transfer trial

when we re-present the original SD and then use a lesser prompt than the first

Error correction

if a child begins to emit an incorrect response, do not allow them to finish if possible. You can prompt and show correct response as soon as you see them answering incorrectly. Than use your transfer trial to fade out the prompt, do a distractor trial and come back to the SD as a test to see if they got it.

Cold Probe

used to record whether the student was able to independently provide the correct response upon the first presentation of the SD (3 consecutive yes probes = mastered skill)

Toy Imitation

useful when teaching play skills, start with items student has shown interest in, use two identical sets so that teacher + student have one, SD= non specific "do this"

Gross motor imitation

imitation of body movements, no materials are necessary, SD= non specific "copy me"

Fine motor imitation

imitation of detailed, precise movements, may use materials, SD= non specific "do this"

Oral motor imitation

imitation of movement of the mouth, tongue, lips, face, head, often a prerequisite to verbal imitation and speech, helps to shape articulations, increase vocalizations, provides reinforcement for "pre-speech" behaviors, helps build momentum, SD= non specific

Echoic

repeating what was heard, auditory SD/discriminative stimulus, the consequence is non specific reinforcement--anything that increases the behavior that is not the object being said

Mand

demand, command, asking or requesting. Asking for what one wants, then as a consequence getting it, acts as immediate reinforcement for using communication. The training directly benefits the learner

Tact

coming in contact with the environment through one of our senses. The antecedant is a nonverbal stimulus in the environment ex: saying "popcorn" when you see popcorn. Follow with nonspecific reinforcement