10 Key Questions Clarifying Social Significance and Habilitative Value

Question 1

What are the 10 key questions that clarify social significance and habilitative value?

Answer 1

1) Will the behavior produce reinforcement in the client’s natural environment after treatment ends? 2) Is the behavior a necessary prerequisite for a useful skill? 3) Will this behavior increase the client’s access to environments where other important behaviors can be learned and used? 4) Will changing this behavior predispose other to interact with the client in a more appropriate and supportive manner? 5) Is this behavior a behavioral cusp or a pivotal behavior? 6) Is this an age appropriate behavior? 7) If the proposed target behavior is to be reduced or eliminated, what adaptive behavior will replace it? 8) Does this behavior represent the actual problem or goal, or is it only indirectly related? 9) Is this just talk, or is it the real behavior of interest? 10) What if the goal of the behavior change is not a behavior?

Question 2

What nine questions help to prioritize target behaviors?

Answer 2

1) Does the behavior pose any danger to the client or to others. 2) How frequent is the behavior of interest? 3) How long-standing is the problem or skill deficit? 4) Will changing the behavior produce higher rates of reinforcement? 5) What will be the relative importance of this target behavior to future skill development and independent functioning? 6) Will changing this behavior reduce negative or unwanted attention from others? 7) Will this new behavior produce positive reinforcement for significant others? 8) How likely is success? 9) How much will it cost?

Question 3

What can be used to determine the priority of target behaviors?

Answer 3

Developing and using a target behavior ranking matrix. (Figure 3.9)

Question 4

What is one way to minimize conflicts in selecting target behaviors?

Answer 4

o obtain cl.ient, parent,
and staff/administration participation in the goal determination
process.

Question 5

What is the relevance of behavior rule?

Answer 5

A target behavior should be selected only when it can be determined that the behavior is
likely to produce reinforcement in the person’s natural environment. (maintained)

Question 6

Why are prerequisites important?

Answer 6

Prerequisites lead to learning other functional behaviors.

Question 7

Why are access behaviors important?

Answer 7

Produce indirect benefits to clients.

Question 8

Why are behaviors that predispose others to interact with the client in a more appropriate and supportive manner important?

Answer 8

Increasing behaviors that are important to S.O.’s will increase the likelihood that S.O.’s will be more likely to help with other behaviors.

Question 9

What is a behavioral cusp?

Answer 9

When a learner performs a new
behavior that sets the occasion to access reinforcers that otherwise would not have been available. (See figure 3.8 for determining cusps)

Question 10

What are the determinations of a behavioral cusp?

Answer 10

1. Contacts new reinforcers 2. Access to new environments 3. Meets demands of social community 4. Reinforces audience 5. Interfering with/replacing inappropriate behaviors 6. Facilitates subsequent learning by being prerequisite or component 7. Impacts large number of people 8. Failure is costly

Question 11

What is a pivotal behavior?

Answer 11

A behavior that, once learned, produces
corresponding modifications or covariations in other adaptive untrained behaviors. (self-initiation)

Question 12

What can improvements in self-initiations produce?

Answer 12

Improvement in self-initiations may be critical for the emergence of untrained response classes, such as asking questions and increased production and diversity of talking.

Question 13

What advantages do pivotal behaviors give the client and the practitioner?

Answer 13

1. Prac.: Requires relatively few sessions to generalize settings or responses 2. Clien: Reduce intervention time, new repertoire, efficiency of learning, increase reinforcement contact.

Question 14

What is the principle of normalization?

Answer 14

The use of progressively more typical environments, expectations, and procedures “to establish and/or maintain personal behaviors which are as culturally normal as possible.” (Wolfensberger, 1972, p. 28)

Question 15

What must a practitioner do when reducing/eliminating a behavior?

Answer 15

1. Fair pair rule (determine an adaptive behavior that will take its place) 2. Design an intervention plan to ensure that the replacement behavior is learned

Question 16

What approach should be used for problem behaviors?

Answer 16

GoIdiamond ( 1997) recommended that a “constructional”approach-as opposed to an eliminative approach-be used for the analysis of and intervention
into behavioral problems.

Question 17

What is the constructional approach?

Answer 17

The “solution to problems is the construction of repertoires (or their
reinstatement or transfer to new situations) rather than the elimination of repertoires.” (Goldiamond 1974)

Question 18

What is the fair pair rule?

Answer 18

An adaptive behavior takes the place of a problem behavior.

Question 19

When should indirect behaviors be taught?

Answer 19

1. Prerequisite to terminal behavior 2. Behavior is what the instructional program is all about.

Question 20

What is a common error in targeting problem behaviors?

Answer 20

teaching a related behavior instead of the behavior of interest.

Question 21

What is the difference between talk and behavior of interest?

Answer 21

Focusing on what people do instead of what they say.

Question 22

What if the goal of the behavior change program is not a behavior?

Answer 22

Focus on behaviors that lead to the intended goal.