Assessment Flashcards
Four phases of Intervention
- Assessment
- Planning
- Implementation
- Evaluation
Purpose of an Assessment
- To identify and define targets for behavior change
2. Guides us to create effective and positive interventions.
Five Phases of Assessment
- Screening and General Deposition
- Defining and Quantifying Problems or Desired Achievement Criteria
- Pinpointing Target Behaviors to be Treated
- Monitoring Progress
- Following-up
A systematic method for obtaining information about the FUNCTION challenging behaviors serve for an individual.
Involves a variety of methods including direct observations, interviews, checklists, and tests to identify targets for behavior change.
Assessment (Functional Behavior Assessment)
Before you conduct an assessment, you must:
Ask this critical question: Who has the Authority, Permission, Resources, and Skills to complete an assessment and intervene with the behavior ?
And obtain the client’s or client-surrogate’s approval in writing of the behavior assessment procedures before implementing them.
Data obtained from recollections, reconstructions, or subjective ratings of events.
- Interviews
- Checklists
Indirect Measures
Allows us to make empirically-based hypotheses for WHY behaviors occurs.
Discovers resources, assets, significant others, competing contingencies, maintenance and generalization factors, and potential reinforcers and/or punishers that may be included in intervention plans.
Assessment (FBA)
Provide information about a person’s behavior as it occurs.
PREFERRED CHOICE over indirect measures.
- Tests
- Direct Observations
Direct Measures
Starts the hypotheses development process.
Should only be used as a supplement to other FBA methods.
Indirect Measures
Four ways to acquire information for assessment:
- Checklists (Behavior Checklist)
- Observation (Direct Observation)
- Interviews (Structured Behavioral Interviews)
- Tests (Standardized Tests)
Review all records and available data (data collected from a previous agency, from the school, etc.).
This is part of your INDIRECT FBA.
Review records and data at the outset of the case
Likert scales.
Alone or with interview and rating scales.
Asks about antecedents and consequences of the target behavior.
Checklists
Direct and repeated in the natural environment
Identifies potential target behaviors
Preferred method
Observation (Direct Observation)
Basic form of direct observation
Temporally sequenced description of behavior patterns
Requires total attention of observer for about 20-30 minutes
Carried out for several days to decrease reactivity effects
ANECDOTAL OBSERVATION (ABC Recording)
Consistent Administration is key!
Most _________ ________ do NOT work well with functional behavior assessments because results are not translated directly into target behaviors.
Test/Standardized Tests
First step in identifying list of behaviors, which can be used later in direct observation.
Interviews/Structured Behavioral Interviews
RULE OUT MEDICAL CAUSES FOR PROBLEM BEHAVIOR.
Refer client to undergo medical evaluation.
If biological/medical variables are affecting the behavior, then there may be NO need for behavior analytic services.
If NO biological/medical variables are affecting the behavior, then there may be a need for behavior analytic services.
You should recommend seeking a medical consultation if there is any reasonable possibility that a referred behavior is a result of a medication side effect or some biological cause.
Consider Biological/Medical Variables that may be Affecting the Client
Review all records and available data (data collected from a previous agency, from school, etc.)
Part of the indirect assessment
Review Records and Data at the Outset of the Case
Conduct an indirect assessment to start your identification and hypothesis process.
Ask yourself these questions, to see if there is a need for intervention:
1) Does the individual’s behavior pose a danger to self or others?
2) Does the behavior affect the client’s well-being?
3) Does the behavior prevent the client from accessing less restrictive environments in various settings?
- Is the client separated from same-aged peers?
- Is the client in jeopardy of losing placement?
4) How does the behavior compare to same-aged, typically developing peers?
Conduct A Preliminary Assessment of the Client in Order to Identify the Referral Problem
When speaking with others, you want to be careful about using very complicated, technical behavior-analytic language. (but be careful: DON’T USE MENTALISTIC LANGUAGE EITHER).
Using language that is fully understandable to the recipient of the service.
Explain Behavioral Concepts using Non-Technical Language
When conducting assessments and talking to various people about the client, you should speak in behavioral language.
Do NOT discuss the problems in mentalistic terms (e.g., He is aggressive because he has Autism)
Speaking in mentalistic terms does not offer a solution.
Describe and Explain Behavior, Including Private Events, In Behavior-Analytic (NON-Mentalistic Terms)
Collaborate with the client’s mediators (the people who will be implementing the plan and who support the client).
It is your role as the behavior analyst to initiate and maintain the “Collabo” so that they will consistently and correctly implement your plan.
Cooperating with other professionals in order to serve your clients effectively and appropriately.
Provide Behavior-Analytic Services in Collaboration with Others who Support and/or Provide Services to One’s Client
Get to know the physical, material, and human resources in the family or organization within which change is to occur.
Learn about the values and concerns of the key stakeholders.
Look to see what adjustments might be required within the system to encourage, monitor, and sustain the kinds of changes being sought.
If the resources are not available for us, then we must return to the drawing board to adjust our goals and/or methods.
Select Intervention Strategies Based on Environmental and Resource Constraints
The effects of the assessment process on the behavior of the individual being assessed.
Most likely when observation methods are OBTRUSIVE (obvious to the individual)
Effects are usually temporary
Reactivity
Most obtrusive data collection method:
Self-Monitoring
Sometimes you do not have to create a complicated treatment package for the client’s inappropriate behavior. Sometimes simply changing the environment is enough.
By changing the ecology and/or how others engages with your client, your client’s behavior can be changed.
When conducting an indirect FBA, you should identify:
- Environmental variables that may trigger the behavior and that occur after a behavior that may be reinforcing the behavior.
If the environmental conditions hamper implementation of the behavior analytic program, you seek to eliminate the environmental constraints, or identify in writing the obstacles to doing so.
Identify and make Environmental Changes that Reduce the need for Behavior Analysis Services
A great deal of information is gathered about the individual and the various settings in which that individual lives and works.
Includes information about physiological conditions, physical settings, interactions, with others, home environment, etc.
Creates a lot of DESCRIPTIVE data
Costly in terms of time, money, etc.
One should know when it is appropriate to use
Ecological Assessment
AKA: Ecology
Not just the physical setting in which the client lives and/or works, but the people inside there as well.
Environment
To reduce reactivity, you should:
- ) Be as unobtrusive as possible
- ) Repeat observations until reactive effects subside.
- ) Take reactivity effects into account when interpreting your data.
Consider whose behavior is being assessed and why.
Not OK to change behavior for benefit of others or because you want to
Always ask yourself, “To what extent will the proposed change improve the person’s life?”
Assessing Social Significance of Potential Target Behaviors
AKA: Adjustment
Assessing meaningfulness of change
Is this change really useful to the client?
Occurs when a person’s repertoire has been changed such that short- and long-term reinforcers are maximized and short- and long-term punishers are minimized.
Habilitation
10 Questions to Ask Yourself when Evaluating the Habilitation/Social Significance of Target Behaviors
- ) Is the behavior likely to produce reinforcement in the client’s natural environment after intervention ends? (AKA: Relevance of Behavior Rule)
- ) 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 others to interact with the client in a more supportive manner?
- ) Is this behavior a pivotal behavior or a behavioral cusp?
- ) Is this an age-appropriate behavior?
- ) If this behavior is to be reduced/eliminated from the client’s repertoire, has an adaptive and functional behavior been selected to replace it?
- ) Does this behavior represent the actual goal, or is it only indirectly related?
- ) Is this “just talk”, or is it the real behavior of interest?
- ) If the goal itself is not a specific behavior, will this behavior help achieve it?
The belief that people with disabilities should, to the maximum extent possible, be physically and socially integrated into mainstream society regardless of the degree or type of disability.
The use of progressively more typical settings and procedures to establish personal behavior which are as culturally normal as possible.
Normalization (Mainstreaming)
Behaviors that open a person’s world to new contingencies.
Ex. Reading, Generalized imitation, and a baby crawling and being able to have contact to toys and parents
Has sudden and dramatic consequences that extend well beyond the idiosyncratic change itself
Behavior Cusps
A behavior that, once learned, produces corresponding modifications or covariations in other adaptive untrained behaviors.
Once you learn them, it will lead to more complex behaviors.
Ex. Self- management, Choice-making
Pivotal Behaviors
Exposes the individuals repertoire to new environments, especially new reinforcers, and punishers, new contingencies, new responses, new stimulus controls, and new communities of maintaining or destructive contingencies.
Behavior Cusps
Prerequisite AKA:
Component
Strategy used to teach Pivotal Behaviors
Pivotal Response Training (PRT)
When you are creating goals for intervention, you should select?
Behavior Cusps and Pivotal Behaviors
AKA: Derived Relations
Enhancing comprehension of new material due to previous learning.
Achieved through teaching material to ensure the client is FLUENT with the material and through teaching the client behavior cusps and pivotal behaviors
Generative Learning
Prioritizing Target Behaviors: 9 Questions to Consider
- Threat to the health or safety of clients or others.
- Frequency: # of opportunities to use new behavior. Are there a lot of opportunities so that the behavior is maintained in the natural environment? - Occurrence of problem behavior
- Longevity of problem: Chronic problem should come before new one.
- Potential for higher rates of reinforcement.
- Relative importance of this target behavior to future skill development and independent functioning.
- Reduction of negative attention from others.
- Reinforcement for significant others: Exercise caution when considering this.
- Likelihood of success: Some behaviors are harder to change than others.
- Cost-benefit ratio to change client’s behavior: Costs include time and effort. Cost should be LOW and benefit should be HIGH.
4 Functions of Problem Behavior
HINT: SEAT
Sensory
Escape
Attention
Tangible
Coercive, punishment-based interventions often selected arbitrarily.
Conducting FBAs decreases reliance on:
Default Technologies
The only FBA method that allows us to confirm hypotheses regarding functional relations between behaviors and environmental events.
AKA: FA; Experimental Analysis: Analog Assessment
The “GOLD” standard of assessment procedures
Functional Analysis
The arrangement of variables (not the setting in which assessment occurs).
Allows for better control of variables.
Analogs
Two types of functional analyses:
- Extended Functional Analysis
2. Brief Functional Analysis
Antecedents and consequences are arranged (manipulated) so that their separate effects on behavior can be observed.
Functional Analysis
Four Typical Original Conditions of Functional Analysis:
- ) Contingent Attention (AKA: Social Disapproval Condition)
- ) Contingent Escape (AKA: Academic Demand Condition)
- ) Alone
- ) Control (AKA: Play Condition)
Problem behavior is low in this UNSTRUCTURED condition because reinforcement is freely available and no demands are placed on the person.
CONTROL/PLAY CONDITION
Each _______ condition contains an MO and a potential source of reinforcement for behavior.
TEST
The 5th condition added to the functional analysis.
Only used when you suspect the client’s problem behavior to serve the function of attaining access to a item/activity.
TANGIBLE
Condition that test for positive reinforcement.
In this condition the client is given attention and then attention is removed to establish the MO.
If the problem behavior occurs, a mild reprimand is given (NO) and attention is removed again.
Each time the problem behavior occurs, a reprimand is given and attention is again removed. (If rates of problem behavior are higher in this condition, attention is the maintaining reinforcer.)
Interpreting Functional Analyses: Attention Function
Condition that test for negative reinforcement.
The client is given non-preferred demands repeatedly to establish the MO (putting the client in a state of satiation for an aversive task).
If the client makes no response to the demand or emits an incorrect response, you prompt a correct response.
If the problem behavior occurs, the demands are removed. You say, “OK, we don’t have to do this “; then reintroduce the demand.
Each time the problem behavior occurs, demands are removed and then started again after some time has passed. (If rates of problem behavior are higher in this condition, escape is the maintaining reinforcer).
Interpreting the Functional Analyses: Escape Function
Contingent Attention Condition =
Positive Reinforcement
Contingent Escape Condition =
Negative Reinforcement
This condition tests for automatic reinforcement.
In this condition the client stays in a room without demands and with no social interaction.
If the problem behaviors occur, no consequences are given. If the problem behavior occurs in the absence of social consequences, automatic reinforcement is the maintaining reinforcer.
Interpreting Functional Analyses: Automatic Reinforcement
The SPIDER WEB Graph
Means that problem behavior is occurring across all conditions (including play) or is variable across conditions.
Means one of the 2 possibilities:
- INCONCLUSIVE RESULTS or
- Problem behavior is maintained by AUTOMATIC REINFORCEMENT
Interpreting Functional Analyses: Undifferentiated Pattern
This condition tests for automatic reinforcement and serves as a control condition.
AKA: Control
Play Condition
Only use this condition when you hypothesize access to tangibles to be the function of the behavior.
Tangible Condition
In this condition, leisure materials are freely available while attention is given on average 30 seconds.
No consequences is given for the occurrence of problem behavior with the exception of withholding attention until the problem behavior has ceased if it occurred at the 30-sec mark where attention was to be given.
If the problem behavior occurs in the presence of preferred items, in the absence of demands, and with intermittent attention, automatic reinforcement is the maintaining reinforcer OR another functional analysis may be needed.
Play Condition
In this condition the client is given access to highly preferred items and/or activities for a set amount of time and then you tell the client to give back those items or you remove the items to establish the MO.
If the problem behavior occurs, the tangible item is returned immediately for a set amount of time and then removed again (occurs repeatedly).
If the problem behavior increases, access to tangibles is the maintaining reinforcer.
Tangible Condition
Clear demonstration of variables that relate to problem behavior.
Standard to which all other forms of FBA are evaluated.
Enables development of effective reinforcement-based evaluated.
Advantages of Functional Analysis
Systematically manipulating environmental variables to trigger the problem behavior and reinforce it when it happens. Conducted in a short period of time.
Each condition (escape, attention, alone, and play) except for the alone condition, must include an MO an Sd that signal reinforcement is available. Within each condition, you purposely trigger the problem bx and reinforce it when it occurs to observe if it increases.
If the consequence is the function, it will increase.
If that consequence is NOT the function, it will not increase or occur again at all.
Brief Functional Analysis
May Temporarily Strengthen the Problem Behavior.
May result in the behavior acquiring new functions.
Acceptability is low.
Difficult to use for Serious, Low Frequency Behaviors.
If conducted in contrived settings, may not identify idiosyncratic variables related to problem behavior.
Requires time, effort, and professional expertise.
Disadvantages of Functional Analysis
AKA: Descriptive assessment; direct assessment
Direct observation of problem behavior under natural conditions.
Provides data on the occurrence of the problem behavior within the context of the natural environment in which it occurs and also the environmental events that surround it.
Direct Descriptive FBA
Record occurrences of targeted problem behaviors and selected environmental events within the natural routine during a specified period of time
Should be recorded for a minimum of 20-30 minutes.
ABC Continuous Recording
Approximations of functional analyses.
Involves baseline data collection methods: ABC continuous recording, ABC narrative recording and scatter plot.
Events are NOT arranged in a systematic manner.
Direct Descriptive FBA
Uses precise measures.
Provides useful contextual information and correlations regarding environmental events and the problem behavior, which can provide useful information for later functional analyses.
Calculates conditional probabilities:
-Proportion of the occurrence of problem bx preceded by a specific antecedent.
-Proportion of the occurrence of problem bx followed by a specific consequence.
-Can be misleading
Advantages of ABC Continuous Recording
Disadvantages of ABC Continuous Recording:
Often antecedents and consequences do not reliably precede and follow behavior, making correlation difficult to detect.
3 Data Collection Methods for Descriptive FBAs:
- ) ABC Continuous Recording
- ) Scatter Plot
- ) ABC Narrative Recording
The probability that a target behavior will occur in a specific circumstance.
Taken from ABC data. Is reported in decimal form.
Helps us to hypothesize function of behavior.
Can be misleading.
Conditional Probability
Looks at the proportion of the occurrence of problem behavior:
- Preceded by a specific antecedent and/or
- Followed by a specific consequence.
The closer the _________________ is to 1.0, the more convincing your hypothesis is that the behavior is functionally related to the antecedents and consequences; and the the farther the __________ is from 1.0, the less convincing it is.
Conditional Probability
AKA: Sequence Analysis: A-B-C Descriptive Narrative Data
Data are collected only when behaviors of interest are observed.
Recording is open-ended.
You can calculate conditional probability with this method too.
Difficult to discriminate which environmental events actually occasion the problem behavior.
ABC Narrative Recording
Advantages of ABC Narrative Recording:
Less time-consuming than continuous recording.
AKA: Pattern Analysis
Procedure for recording the extent to which a target behavior occurs more often at particular times than others.
Analyze for patterns to identify temporal distributions of behavior and events that occur at that time.
Scatter Plot
Utility in identifying behavioral function NOT established.
May yield false positives because data are collected only when behavior occurs.
The same antecedent and consequent events may be present when problem is absent.
Reliability is low.
Observers may report “inferred states” rather than events.
Disadvantages of ABC Narrative Recording
Advantages of Scatter Plot:
- Identifies time periods when the problem behavior occurs.
2. Can be useful for pinpointing periods of the day when more focused ABC assessments can be conducted.
Subjective
Does not determine the function of problem behavior
Does not offer any replacement behaviors
Disadvantages of Scatter Plots
Identifying potential events in the natural setting that correlate with the challenging behavior.
Comes from gathering information from others who know the individual displaying the challenging behaviors; via rating scales, checklists and structured interviews.
Indirect FBA
- Contributes to hypothesis development about what may be maintaining problem behavior.
- Simple to use because thy do not require observations.
- Informants may not be accurate.
- Little research supports the reliability of information obtained.
- Best used for hypothesis development.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Indirect FBA
Your intervention must match the function of the behavior.
When you decrease a behavior, you MUST select an ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVE BEHAVIOR to be established or increased for your client.
1 of the 6 basic client rights: teaching functional skills. (AKA: Functionally Equivalent Behaviors)
Functional Equivalence
If your FBA indicates the client is in need of their behavior being:
ESTABLISHED: Results show client does not have skill/target behavior in their repertoire, teach your client the new skill.
MAINTAINED: Work on MAINTENANCE in the natural environment after the skill has been established in their repertoire.
INCREASED: When results show the problem is that the rate of the target bx is too low; the you increase the target bx to a level that is acceptable (DRH).
DECREASED: When results show the problem is that the rate of the target bx is too high; the you decrease the target bx to a level that is acceptable (DRD or DRL).
If need to eliminate the target behavior, you would generate a plan to do that (DRO).
Make a Recommendation Regarding Behaviors that must be Established, Maintained, Increased, or Decreased
- Tells you if problem behavior is at problematic levels.
- Helps you to determine the behavioral standard for acceptability.
Discrepancy Analysis
Continue to monitor how effective your interventions are over time.
Functions of challenging behavior are dynamic and change over time.
Is another 1 of the 6 basic rights of client: Ongoing evaluation and assessment.
Assessment is Ongoing
Definitions are required for replication
Replication is required for research.
Accurate evaluation requires explicit definition of behavior
Accurate and believable evaluation of effectiveness.
Why Defining Target Behaviors is Important for Researchers and Practitioners
- Objective: Refer only to the observable
- Clear: Readable and unambiguous
- Complete: Delineates boundaries of a definition (included and excluded)
3 Characteristics of Good Operational Definitions
Not only should you should define target behaviors as objective, clear and complete, but you should also define ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES using complete, clear and objective terms.
Define Environmental Variables in Observable and Measurable Terms
Validity that asks this question: Is the person’s life changed in a positive and meaningful way?
Social Validity
Involves 3 factors:
- Social significance of goals.
- Social appropriateness of the procedures.
- Social importance of the effects.
- Are consumers satisfied with the results of your work?
Social Validity
When you decide on what interventions you will use, you want to determine if the mediators (people implementing your plan) and others in the client’s environment agree with the procedures.
If they do NOT view the interventions as acceptable, then they will NOT adhere in the future.
Select Interventions Strategies Based on the Social Validity of the Intervention
Identifies stimuli that are likely to function as reinforcers.
Stimulus Preference Assessment
3 Basic Methods of Stimulus Preference Assessments:
- ) Asking about stimulus preferences
- ) Free-operant observation
- ) Trial-based methods
A variety of procedures used to determine:
- Stimuli that a person prefers.
- The relative preference value of stimuli (high vs low).
- The conditions under which those preferences values change when tasks demands, deprivation states, or schedules of reinforcement change.
Stimulus Preference Assessment
Open-ended questions (orally or written) Choice format: "Which would you work for?" Ranking objects on a list Ask significant others Offer a Pre-Task Choice
Asking About Stimulus Preferences
- Approach
- Contact
- Engagement
The more a person approaches, touches, or engages with a stimulus, the more likely the stimulus is preferred.
Preferred stimuli is labeled as:
- High Preference (HP)
- Medium Preference (MP)
- Low Preference (LP)
3 Ways to Measure How a Learner Responds to Stimuli (Behavior)
Stimuli are presented to the learner in a series of trials and the learner’s responses to the stimuli are measured as an index of preference.
3 Types: Paired Stimulus (Forced Choice), Multiple Stimulus and Single Stimulus (Successive Choice)
Trial-Based Methods
-Simultaneous presentation of 2 stimuli.
Observer records which of the two stimuli the learner chooses.
Data reflects how many times each stimulus is chosen.
The more efficient than single stimulus presentation.
Takes more time because every pair must be presented.
Stimulus are ranked from high, medium, or low preference.
Paired Stimulus (Forced Choice)
Simultaneous presentation of an array of 3 or more stimuli.
Reduces assessment time.
2 Variations: With or Without Replacement
Multiple Stimulus
The chosen item is removed from the array, the order or placement of the remaining items is rearranged and the next trial begins.
Multiple Stimuli WITHOUT Replacement
The item chosen remains in the array and the items not chosen are replaced with new items.
Multiple Stimuli WITH Replacement
- Most basic method for assessing preference. Well suited for individuals who have a hard time electing among 2 or more stimuli (choices).
- Target stimuli among all sensory systems (visual, auditory, vestibular, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and multisensory).
- Presented 1 at a time in random order and the person’s reaction to each stimulus is recorded.
- Approach or rejection responses are recorded in terms of occurrence (yes/no), frequency, or duration.
Single Stimulus (successive choice)
- Monitor the learner’s activities during the time period before the stimulus preference assessment session to be aware of MOs.
- Use the methods that balance the cost-benefit of brief assessments with more prolonged assessments that may delay reinforcement identification.
- When time is brief conduct a brief stimulus preference assessment with fewer items in an array.
- When possible combine data from multiple assessment methods and sources of stimulus preference (asking the learner and significant others, free-operant observation, and trial-based methods).
Guidelines for Selecting and Using Stimulus Preference Assessments
Two or more contingencies of reinforcement operate independently ans simultaneously for 2 or more behaviors.
Concurrent Schedule
Pits two stimuli against each other to see which will produce the larger increase in responding when presented as a consequence for responding.
Shows the relative effectiveness of high preference and low preference stimuli as reinforcers.
Think MATCHING LAW
Concurrent Schedule Reinforcer Assessment
A variety of direct, data-based methods used to present one or more stimuli contingent on a target response and then measuring the future effects on the rate of responding.
Used to determine the relative effects of a given stimulus as reinforcement under different and changing conditions and to assess the comparative effectiveness of multiple stimuli as reinforcers for a given behavior under certain conditions.
Reinforcer Assessment
Puts the potential reinforcers to a direct test by presenting them contingent on occurrences of behavior and measuring any effects on response rates.
The only way to know for sure whether a given stimulus serves as a reinforcer is to present it immediately following the occurrence of the behavior and note its effects on responding.
Reinforcer Assessment
Consists of presenting 2 or more component schedules of reinforcement for a single response, with only one component schedule (FI, FR, VI, VR) in effect at any given time.
An Sd signals the presence of each component schedule and that stimulus is present as long as the schedule is in effect.
Multiple Schedule Reinforcer Assessment
Provides a frame work for assessing the relative effectiveness of a stimulus as reinforcement as response requirements increase.
Requirements for reinforcement are increased systematically over time independent of the participant’s behavior.
The practitioner gradually requires more responses per presentation of the preferred stimulus until a breaking point is reached and the response rate declines.
Progressive-Ratio Schedule Reinforcer Assessment
Identifying potential Punishers is the same as
Identifying Potential Reinforcers
Conducted by measuring negative verbalizations, avoidance movements, and escape attempts associated with each potential punishing stimulus.
The sooner an effective punisher can be identified, the sooner it can be used as treatment for the problem behavior.
Informs us of the INTENSITY of the punisher needed to effectively decrease or eliminate the problem behavior. We want to use the SMALLEST INTENSITY OF THE PUNISHER, but that is still effective.
Punisher Assessment
