RBT Study Guide (From training)

Behavior reduction plan/Behavior intervention plan

A written set of instructions for teaching behavioral skills to replace problem behavior

Function

How a behavior is used to meet the reinforcement needs of the person exhibiting it. The purpose of a behavior.

Functional behavior assessment

A process for determining the environmental events that elicit problem behavior.

Behavior

Any human action that can be observed and measured

Behavior analysis

The science of human behavior

Applied behavior analysis

The scientific practice of applying the principles of behavior analysis to solve socially meaningful human problems

Science

Systematic study of worldly phenomena through observation and experiment

Skill acquisition plans

A set of teaching procedures for achieving goals that have been broken down into benchmark objectives.

BCaBA

Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst

BCBA/BCBA-D

Board certified behavior analyst

Empiricism

Theory that knowledge derives from sensory experiences

Law of Effect

Behaviors followed by pleasant consequences are likely to be repeated. Behaviors followed by unpleasant consequences are not likely to be repeated.

Classical conditioning

Learning process in which a neutral stimulus (NS) becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) through repeated pairing with an unconditioned stimulus (US)

Stimulus

Any environmental event that elicits a behavioral response

Unconditioned stimulus

A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response

Conditioned stimulus

A previously neutral stimulus that takes on the eliciting properties of an unconditioned stimulus through repeated pairings with that unconditioned stimulus

Neutral stimulus

A stimulus that does not elicit the response of interest

Reflex

An automatic response to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs in all members of species. Also called unconditioned response (UR)

Generalization

Conditioned responding that happens with novel neutral stimuli that was never paired with other conditioned or unconditioned stimuli.

Operant conditioning

Responding is conditioned through manipulation of consequences according to the law of effect

Reinforcer

Desired consequences that result in repetition of the behavior that led to them

Punisher

Undesirable consequences that result in decreases in the behavior that led to them

Operant

The basic unit of behavior

Radical Behaviorism

School of behaviorism that views behavior as a natural event resulting exclusively from interactions with the environment.

Three-Term Contigency

Behavior is explained by analyzing it according to the antecedent stimuli and the consequences that follow; i.e., antecedent-behavior-consequence