ABA Chapter 3 Seleting and Defining Target Beh. Flashcards
What is the four phases of assessment?
( A PIE) Assessment Planning Implementation Evaluation
Behavior Assessment (aka?)
AKA ( Function Behavioral Assessment- FBA)
Laymens: To figure out what is wrong and to change it for the better.
Technical Term: IDs and defines behavior by using a variety of methods including direct observations, interviews, checklists, and tests.
Also, discovers resources, assets, significant others, competing contingencies, maintenance and generalization factors, and potential reinforcers and/or punishers that maybe be informed or added to the invention plan.
What is the shape of assessment?
A funnel.
It goes from a broad scope that narrows focus as you conduct the assessment process.
5 Phases or functions of behavioral assessment:
(Often overlap)
- Screening and general dispositions
- Defining and generally quantifying problems or desired achievement criteria
- Pinpointing the target behavior(s) to be treated
- Monitoring progress
- Follow Up
Before conducting a formal or informal assessment to pinpoint a target behavior; analyst must address the fundamental question.
Who has the authority, permission, resources and skills to complete an assess and intervene with the behavior?
4 major methods for obtaining assessment information:
AKA COIT ( come on it is theory)
- Interviews (indirect approach)
- Checklists (indirect approach)
- Direct observation (direct approach)
- Test (standardized) (direct approach)
Anecdotal observation
Anecdotal observation or ABC Recording- 1st for of direct and continous observation. Observer records a descriptive and temporally sequenced account of all behavior(s) of interest and the antecedent conditions and consequences for those behaviors that occur in natural environment.
Ecological Assessment
Great deal of information is gathered about the person and the various environments in which the person lives or works.
Reactivity
Effects of an assessment procedure on the behavior being assessed.
When does reactivity happen?
When assessment is obtrusive.
What is the most obtrusive assessment procedure?
Those that require the subject to monitor and record his own data.
Is reactivity temporary or permanent?
Temporary.
Just because reactivity is temporary does it mean we can use the most obtrusive methods?
No you use the most unobtrusive assessment as possible. (try to blend and not be seen/noticed)
When changing client’s behavior what needs to be opened to critical examination by the consumers (clients and their families)?
Both goals and rational supporting the behavior change
When changing a client’s behavior who needs to be the critical examiner for the rational of the goal and behavior change?
The consumers (clients and their families)
When selecting target behaviors practitioners should consider _____?
whose behavior is being assessed and change and why.
Targets should not be selected by the primary____.
Benefits of others. “be quiet, be docile.” To maintain status quo.
What question do you ask when selecting a target behavior?
To what extent will the proposed behavior change improve the person’s life experience? Think of habilitation.
Habilitation
AKA Adjustment
Person’s repertoire maximizes short and long term reinforcers for that individual and for others and minimizes short and long term publishers.
Any behavior change targeted for change must benefit the person how?
Either directly or indirectly
Relevance of behavior rule
The target behavior should be selected only when it can be determined that the behavior is likely to produce reinforcement in the person’s environment.
10 Questions to Ask Yourself When Evaluating the Habilitation/Social Significance of Target Behaviors
- Is this behavior likely to produce reinforcement in the client’s natural environment after the intervention ends?
- Is this behavior a prerequisite for a more complex functional skill?
- Will this behavior increase the client’s access to environments?
- Will changing this behavior predispose other to interact with the client in a more supportive manner?
- Is this behavior a pivotal behavior or a behavior cusp?
- Is this an age-appropriate behavior?
- If this behavior is to be reduced/eliminated from the client’s repertoire, has an adaptive & functional behavior been selected to replace it?
- Does this behavior represent the actual goal or is it only indirectly related? EX. increasing on task beh when you should be have increased work output behavior.
- Is it just talk or is it the real behavior of interest?
- Is the goal itself not a specific behavior, will this behavior help achieve it?
How does one determine if the behavior will be maintained?
When new behavior appears after the behavior treatment is terminated.
How do you determine if the behavior change is helpful for the client and not for others?
Judging whether occurrences of the target behavior will be reinforced in the absence of the intervention.
EX. Would be not wise to teach math skill to a sever mentally disabled child. Even is parent want it
Sometimes target behavior are selected appropriately not for their direct benefit, but their ______.
indirect benefit
Indirect benefits can occur in several ways as described by what 3 questions?
. Is this behavior a necessary prerequisite for a more complex functional skill?
Will this behavior increase the client’s access to environments?
Will changing this behavior predispose other to interact with the client in a more supportive manner?
Behavior Cusp
A behavior that has consequences beyond the change itself, some of which may be considered important.. what makes it a cusp is when it exposes the person’s repertoire to new environments, especially new reinforcers and punishers, new contingencies, new responses, stimulus control, and new communities of maintaining or destructive contingencies.
Pivotal Behavior
Behavior that once it is learned, produces corresponding modifications or co-variations in other adaptive untrained behaviors.
- Social Skills
- By Koegel and Koegel
Is advantageous to whom to assess and target pivotal behavior?
Client and practitioner
Normalization
Refers to the use of progressively more typical environment, expectation, and procedures “to establish and/or maintain personal behaviors which are as culturally normal as possible.” (AKA: mainstreaming)
What kind of approach should one used for analysis of intervention into behavioral problems when eliminated a inappropriate behavior?
construction approach
- never decrease a behavior without give the person a replacement adaptive behavior.
What makes a behavior a real of interest and not just talk?
Determination must be made of exactly which behavior is the desired functional outcome of the program: Is it a skill or motor performance, or is it verbal behavior?
* Target behavior must be functional!
Once a pool of eligible targets has been ID what comes next?
Decisions must be made about their relative priority.
- Direct observation, along with a behavioral interview, and needs assessment, may produce a long list of important behavior change.
What behavior should be changed first? Name the nine things.
- Threat to health of safety of client or others?
- Frequency:
- opportunities to use new behavior. Are there a lot of opportunities so the behavior is maintained i the natural environment?
- occurrence of problem? (4 X a day? ) - Longevity of problem: Chronic problem should come before new one.
- Potential of higher rates of reinforcement
- Relative importance of this target behavior to future skill development.
- Reduction of neg. attention from peers
ex. not eating with a fork may attract neg. attention. - Reinforcement for significant others.
- Likelihood of success: some behavior are harder to change
- Cost-benefit ratio to change clients behavior: Cost include time and effort. Cost should be low and benefit should be high.
When looking at how difficult to change a behavior, where should you look?
In the literature. Help predict the level of difficulty or chance with success.
For cost/benefit ratio. It is not only about dollar and cents. What are other things that are considered?
How much of the client’s time the behavior change program will demand.
Target Behavior Ranking Matrix
A method in which one assigns a numerical rating of potential target behaviors so as to produce priority ranking of those behaviors.
- good working out conflicts on what is important
What does target behavior ranking matrix do in terms of with the client, parent and staff?
It increases it.
Defining Target must be?
OCC
objective- refer to only that is observable
clear- readable & unambiguous
Complete/ concise- delineate boundaries of a definition (included & excluded).
Two Types of Target Behavior Definition
Function- Based Definition and Topography based definition
Function- based target behavior definition
Designates response as members of the targeted response class solely by their common effect on the environment. e.g, hand mouthing: contact of the fingers, hand, or wrist with the mouth, lips, or tongue.
Topography- based definition
IDs instances the target behavior by the shape or form of the behavior.
e. g correct swing: position and movement of the golf club and golfer’s feet, hips, head and hands.
- should encompass all response forms that would typically produce relevant outcome in the natural environment.
When should topography based definition should be used?
When the behavior analyst does not have direct, reliable, or easy access to the functional outcome and/or cannot rely on the function of the behavior because each instance of the target behavior does not produce the relevant outcome in the natural environment or the outcome might produce by other events.
Social Validity
Refers to the extent to which target behaviors are appropriate, intervention procedures are acceptable and important and significant change in target and collateral behavior are produced.
What should one do before modifying the target behavior?
The criteria of what is a socially significant behavior.
- specificity treatment goals (helps guide for continuing or terminating a treatment)
e. g 0 aggression vs 2-5 aggression a day.
