ABA Vocabulary Lecture Notes Fall 2024

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the key concepts, principles, and historical cases of Applied Behavior Analysis from the Fall 2024 lecture notes.

ABC recording

A form of direct, continuous observation in which the observer records a descriptive, temporally sequenced account of all behavior(s) of interest and the antecedent conditions and consequences for those behaviors as those events occur in the client's natural environment.

Adjunctive Behaviors

Behavior that occurs as a collateral effect of a schedule of periodic reinforcement for other behavior; time-filling or interim activities (Ex. Doodling, drinking).

Analytic

Demonstrating a functional relation between a manipulated variable/ event and a reliable change in some measurable dimension of the targeted behavior.

Applied Behavior Analysis

The science in which tactics or methods derived from the principles of behavior are applied to improve socially significant behavior and experimentation is used to identify the variables responsible for the behavior change.

Autoclitic

A secondary verbal operant in which some aspect of a speaker's own verbal behavior functions as an $S^d$ or an $MO$ for additional speaker verbal behavior; verbal behavior about verbal behavior.

Avoidance Contingency

A contingency in which responding delays or prevents the presentation of a stimulus.

Behavior-altering effect

Alteration in the current frequency of behavior as a result of value-altering effect of a motivating operation; either evocative or abative.

Behavioral Contrast

The phenomenon in which a change in one component of a multiple schedule that increases or decreases the rate of responding on that component is accompanied by a change in the response rate in the opposite direction on the other, unaltered component of the schedule.

Behavioral Cusp

A behavior change that has consequences beyond the change itself, some of which may be important; exposes individual to new environments, new contingencies, or new responses.

Behavioral Momentum

A type of antecedent intervention in which high-probability request sequences are delivered before a low probability request.

Bidirectional Naming (BiN)

A higher-order verbal cusp consisting of the fusing together of the speaker and listener repertoires in bidirectional relations where a new word acquired as a listener can generate a tact without further training, and a new word acquired as a tact can generate a listener relation without further training.

Blue Ribbon Committee

Committee put together following the Miami/ Sundland abuse investigation that helped to draft the first set of guidelines and recommendations to protect and provide oversight to those with disabilities.

Celeration

A measure of how response rate changes over time; how fast change occurs.

Chained Schedules

A schedule of reinforcement in which the response requirements of two or more basic schedules must be met in specific sequence before reinforcement is delivered; a discriminative stimulus is correlated with each component of the schedule.

Codic

A type of verbal behavior where the form of the response is under the functional control of a verbal stimulus with point-to-point correspondence, but without formal similarity; there is also a history of generalized reinforcement.

Conceptually Systematic

Deriving procedures to change behavior that are based on basic (proven) principles of behavior.

Concurrent Schedule

Two or more contingencies operate independently and simultaneously for two or more behaviors; each schedule is correlated with a distinct stimulus.

CMO-R

A stimulus that acquires $MO$ effectiveness by preceding some form of worsening or improvement.

CMO-S

A stimulus that acquires its $MO$ effectiveness by being paired with another $MO$ and has the same value-altering and behavioral-altering effect as the $MO$ with which it was paired.

CMO-T

An environmental variable that, as a result of a learning history, establishes (or abolishes) the reinforcing effectiveness of another stimulus and evokes (or abates) the behavior that has been reinforced by that other stimulus.

Contingency Adduction

Behaviors independently learned under different conditions coming together to form a new behavior under a new condition that may combine prior stimulus features.

Convergent Multiple Control

When multiple discriminative stimuli contribute to the strength of a single verbal response topography.

Determinism

The assumption that the universe is a lawful and orderly place in which phenomenon occur in relation to other events and not willy-nilly, or in accidental fashion.

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA)

A procedure in which the practitioner reinforces occurrences of a behavior that provides a desirable and functionally-equivalent alternative to the problem behavior but is not necessarily incompatible with it and withholds reinforcement following instances of the problem behavior.

Differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior (DRI)

A procedure in which the practitioner reinforces a behavior that can not occur simultaneously with the problem behavior and withholds reinforcement following instances of the problem behavior.

Differential reinforce of zero rates (DRO)

A procedure in which the practitioner reinforces whenever the problem behavior has not occurred during or at specific times; also referred to as omission training.

Duplic

A type of verbal behavior where the form of the response is under the functional control of a verbal stimulus with formal similarity, and a history of generalized reinforcement.

Empiricism

The objective (direct) observation of the phenomenon of interest.

Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EAB)

A natural science approach to the study of behavior as a subject matter in its own right; founded by BF Skinner.

Functional Analysis (FA)

An analysis of the purposes (functions) of problem behavior, typically consisting of four conditions: three test conditions (contingent attention, contingent escape, and alone) and a control condition (play).

Generality

Producing behavior change that lasts over time, appears in new environments other than the one in which the intervention initially took place, or spreads to other behaviors not directly treated by the intervention.

Generalized Conditioned Reinforcer

A conditioned reinforcer that has been paired with many other reinforcers and as a result, does not depend on an establishing operation for its effectiveness.

Interresponse Time (IRT)

The amount of time that elapses between two consecutive instances of a response.

Matching Law

The allocation of responses to choices available on concurrent schedules of reinforcement; rates of responding across choices are distributed in proportions that match the rates of reinforcement received from each choice alternative.

Mentalism

An approach to explaining behavior that assumes that a mental or inner dimension exists that differs from a behavioral dimension and that the phenomena in this dimension either directly causes or in some way influences some forms of behavior.

Miami Sunland Investigation

A $1972$ abuse case that resulted in major overhaul of ethical guidelines for the field of $ABA$.

Mixed Schedules

A compound schedule of reinforcement consisting of two or more basic schedules that occur in an alternative sequence; no discriminative stimuli are correlated with the presence or absence of each element.

Ontogeny

The history of the development of an individual organism during its lifetime.

Parsimony

The practice of ruling out simple, logical explanations before considering more abstract or complex explanations.

Phylogeny

The history of the natural evolution of a species.

Pivotal Behavior

A behavior, once learned, that produces corresponding modifications or covariations in other adaptive untrained behaviors.

Point to point correspondence

In verbal behavior, occurs when the beginning, middle, and end of the stimulus control the corresponding beginning, middle, and end of the response or response-product.

Radical Behaviorism

A form of behaviorism that attempts to understand all human behavior, including private events such as thoughts and feelings, in terms of controlling variables in the history of the person (ontogeny) and the species (phylogeny).

Reflexivity

A type of stimulus-to-stimulus relation in which the learner, without any prior training, selects a comparison stimulus that is the same as the sample stimulus (e.g. $A=A$); also called generalized identity matching.

Spontaneous Recovery

A behavioral effect associated with extinction in which the behavior suddenly begins to occur after its frequency has decreased to its prereinforcement level or stopped entirely.

Symmetry

A type of stimulus-to-stimulus relationship in which the learner, without prior training, demonstrates the reversibility of matched sample and comparison stimuli (e.g., if $A=B$, then $B=A$).

Tandem Schedules

A schedule of reinforcement in which the response requirements of two or more basic schedules must be met in specific sequence before reinforcement is delivered; a discriminative stimulus is NOT correlated with each component.

Technological

Detailing procedures for behavior change in sufficient detail so that replication can occur.

Transitivity

Describes derived stimulus-stimulus relations (e.g., $A = C$) that emerge as a product of training two other stimulus-stimulus relations ($A=B$ and $B=C$).

Wyatt v Stickney

A ruling stating that institutionalized patients have a right to effective and individualized care or else they should be released / referred elsewhere.