Basics of ABA

Question 1

ABA attempts to solve … by providing … and/or … to change …

Answer 1

Attempts to solve behaviour problems by providing antecedents and/or consequences to change behaviour.

Question 2

What are the two types of behaviour problems according to ABA?

Answer 2

Deficits or excesses

Question 3

What are the 3 steps to ABA/how does it work?

Answer 3

1. Define the target behaviour
2. Identify functional relations between target and its antecedents/consequences
3. Identify effective intervention: only tentative

Question 4

What does defining the target behaviour involve?

Answer 4

Being precise.
Done with the client through observations, interviews, questionnaires.

Question 5

How do we identify functional relations between a target behaviour and its antecedents/consequences?

Answer 5

Complete a functional analysis (testing hypotheses)

Question 6

What is the 4-term contingency?

Answer 6

Antecedents (establishing/motivating operations), behaviour, consequences

Question 7

What are the two types of antecedents

Answer 7

Motivating operations and discriminative stimuli

Question 8

What are motivating operations/establishing operations?

Answer 8

EO = the extent to which someone finds something reinforcing changes depending on the context. MOs work on the consequence; temporary state/feeling; makes the consequence more/less reinforcing; makes it more/less likely that a person will do something to achieve the consequence.

Question 9

What are discriminative stimuli?

Answer 9

SD is the signal in the environment that a behaviour may result in the reinforcing consequence – all about the availability of the consequence.

Question 10

What are consequences and what are the types?

Answer 10

Why we do the behaviour.
Reinforcer: increases likelihood of something happening; make things better in some way; positive = add something good; negative = take something unwanted away.
Punisher: makes something less likely to happen; positive = give something unwanted; negative = remove something wanted.

Question 11

What 9 variables that impact choice/how reinforcing a stimulus will be?

Answer 11

1. rate of reinforcement
2. quality of reinforcement
3. amount of reinforcement
4. delay to reinforcement
5. response effort
6. history of reinforcement
7. learning history
8. novelty
9. deprivation state (EOs)

Question 12

What interventions increase behaviour?

Answer 12

Reinforcement

Question 13

What interventions decrease rate of behaviour?

Answer 13

Extinction = withholding the reinforcers that maintain a target behaviour
Punishment