Intro to ABA Flashcards
The development of a new behavior through reinforcement.
Acquisition
A reinforcer that is related to access to desired actions, such as playing games, leisure time, or listening to music.
Activity reinforcer
Reinforcement that occurs independent of the social mediation of others (for example, scratching an insect bite relieves the itch).
Automatic reinforcement
The activity of living organisms, or what a person does and says.
Behavior
A previously neutral stimulus change that functions as a negative reinforcer because of prior pairing with one or more negative reinforcers.
Conditioned negative reinforcer
A previously neutral stimulus change that functions as a punisher because of prior pairing with one or more punishers.
Conditioned punisher
A previously neutral stimulus that has been paired a number of times with an established reinforcer and consequently functions as a reinforcer itself.
Conditioned reinforcer
A stimulus change that follows a behavior of interest.
Consequence
Refers to dependent and/or temporal relations between operant behavior and its controlling variables.
Contingency
A reinforcer that can be eaten, such as a sip of a preferred drink or a bite of preferred food.
Edible reinforcer
A schedule of reinforcement in which the reinforcer is delivered for the first response that occurs after an interval of time has elapsed.
Fixed interval
A schedule of reinforcement in which a specific number of responses must occur before the reinforcer is delivered.
Fixed ratio
F
Negative reinforcement
A stimulus whose termination or reduction in intensity functions as reinforcement.
Negative reinforcer
A behavioral effect associated with abrupt increases in ratio requirements when moving from denser to thinner reinforcement schedules. Common effects include avoidance, aggression, and unpredictable pauses or cessation in responding.
Ratio strain
Occurs when a stimulus change immediately follows a response and increases the future frequency of that type of behavior in similar conditions.
Reinforcement
A process in which an item from a preference assessment is delivered contingent on a behavior to see if the behavior increases.
Reinforcer assessment
A group of responses of varying typography, all of which produce the same effect on the environment.
Response class
A socially mediated reinforcer, such as physical contact, proximity, attention, or praise.
Social reinforcer
A group of stimuli that all have the same functional effect on a particular behavior. For example, each stimulus in a stimulus class may function as a discriminative stimulus for a particular behavior.
Stimulus class
A variety of procedures used to determine the stimuli that a person prefers, the relative preference values (high versus low) of those stimuli, the conditions under which those preference values remain in effect, and their presumed value as reinforcers.
Stimulus preference assessment
A reinforcer that is related to access to physical items, such as stickers, trinkets, school materials, trading cards, or small toys.
Tangible reinforcer
A stimulus that functions as a negative reinforcer as a result of the evolutionary development of the species.
Unconditioned negative reinforcer
A stimulus change that decreases the frequency of any behavior that immediately precedes it, irrespective of the organism’s learning history with the stimulus.
Unconditioned punisher
A stimulus change that increases the frequency of any behavior that immediately precedes it, irrespective of the organism’s learning history with the stimulus.
Unconditioned reinforcer
A schedule of reinforcement in which the first response that occurs after a specified and variable time interval is reinforced.
Variable interval
A schedule of reinforcement in which a specified but variable number of responses is needed for the delivery of the reinforcer.
Variable ratio
A stimulus change or condition that functions to evoke a behavior that has terminated it in the past, as a punisher when presented following behavior, and/or as a reinforcer when withdrawn following behavior.
Aversive stimulus
A behavior that prevents an aversive event.
Avoidance behavior
A contingency in which a response prevents or postpones the presentation of a stimulus.
Avoidance contingency
A technologically consistent behavior modification method that possesses sufficient generality across subjects, settings, and/or behaviors to warrant its codification and dissemination.
Behavior change tactic
Disruptive behaviors which represent a major obstacle to habilitation. Severe aggression, self-injurious behavior, and violent tantrums are some of the behaviors that significantly restrict the lives of those who engage in them.
Challenging behavior
A schedule of reinforcement in which each instance of the behavior is followed by the reinforcer.
Continuous reinforcement
Behavior that results in the termination of an aversive stimulus.
Escape behavior
A contingency in which a response terminates (produces escape from) an ongoing stimulus.
Escape contingency
Behaviors maintained with negative reinforcement are placed on escape extinction when those behaviors are not followed by termination of the aversive stimulus; emitting the target behavior does not enable the person to escape the aversive situation.
Escape extinction
The process by which, when a previously reinforced behavior is no longer followed by the reinforcing consequences, the frequency of the behavior decreases in the future.
Extinction
An increase in the frequency of responding when an extinction procedure is initially implemented.
Extinction burst
A process of withholding the maintaining reinforcer of a behavior to decrease its occurrence in the future.
Functional form of extinction
A schedule of reinforcement in which not every instance of the behavior is followed by the delivery of the reinforcer. Includes fixed ratio, fixed interval, variable ratio, and variable interval schedules.
Intermittent schedule of reinforcement
A response behavior is followed immediately by the removal of a stimulus, or a decrease in the intensity of the stimulus, that decreases the future frequency of similar responses under similar conditions.
Negative punishment
A behavior is followed immediately by the presentation of a stimulus that decreases the future frequency of the behavior.
Positive punishment
A type of reinforcement in which, contingent on the behavior, a stimulus or event is presented and the probability of the behavior increases in the future.
Positive reinforcement
A statement describing a functional relation between behavior and one or more of its controlling variables with generality across organisms, species, settings, behavior, and time.
Principle of behavior
The occurrence of a previously punished type of response without its punishing consequence.
Recovery from punishment procedure
The relative frequency with which operant behavior is emitted during extinction.
Resistance to extinction
Behavior that is elicited, or induced, by antecedent stimuli.
Respondent behavior
A process in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus, which elicits an unconditioned response.
Respondent conditioning
The process by which, when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned stimulus gradually ceases to elicit the conditioned response.
Respondent extinction
A single instance of an occurrence of a specific class or type of behavior.
Response
The process by which behaviors maintained by automatic reinforcement are placed on extinction by masking or removing the sensory consequence.
Sensory extinction
A behavioral effect associated with extinction in which the behavior suddenly begins to occur after its frequency has decreased to its pre-reinforcement level or stopped entirely.
Spontaneous recovery
A decrease in the current frequency of behavior that has been reinforced by the stimulus that is increased in reinforcing effectiveness by the same motivating operation.
Abative effect
A motivating operation that decreases the reinforcing effectiveness of a stimulus, object, or event.
Abolishing operation
An alteration in the current frequency of behavior that has been reinforced by the stimulus that is altered in effectiveness by the same motivating operation.
Behavior-altering effect
The state of an organism with respect to how much time has elapsed since it has consumed or contacted a particular type of reinforcer.
Deprivation
A procedure in which a specific desirable behavior is followed by a reinforcer but other behaviors are not. The result is an increase in the desirable behavior and extinction of the other behaviors.
Differential reinforcement
An opperant that occurs more frequently under some antecedent conditions than others.
Discriminated opperant
A stimulus in the presence of which responses of some type have been reinforced and in the absence of which the same type of responses have occurred and not been reinforced.
Discriminative stimulus
A motivating operation that increases the effectiveness of some stimulus, object, or event as a reinforcer.
Establishing operation
An increase in the current frequency of behavior that has been reinforced by the stimulus that is increased in reinforcing effectiveness by the same motivating operation.
Evocative effect
An inclusive term referring in general to all of a person’s learning experiences, and more specifically to past conditioning with respect to particular response classes or aspects of a person’s repertoire.
History of reinforcement
An environmental variable that (a) alters (increases or decreases) the reinforcing or punishing effectiveness of some stimulus, object, or event; and (b) alters (increases or decreases) the current frequency of all behavior that has been reinforced or punished by that stimulus, object, or event.
Motivating operation
Occurs when a behavior in a particular situation is followed by a reinforcing consequence, thus making the behavior more likely to occur in similar circumstances in the future.
Operant conditioning
The absence of responding for a period of time following reinforcement. This effect is commonly produced by fixed interval (FI) and fixed ratio (FR) schedules of reinforcement.
Post-reinforcement pause
A decrease in the reinforcing effectiveness of a stimulus, object, or event caused by a motivating operation.
Reinforcer-abolishing effect
An increase in the reinforcing effectiveness of a stimulus, object, or event caused by a motivating operation.
Reinforcer-establishing effect
A behavior change produced by differential reinforcement, resulting in the emergence of a new response class.
Response differentiation
Progressive (and ultimately total) loss of effectiveness of a reinforcer.
Satiation
A systematic approach to the understanding of natural phenomena that relies on determinism as its fundamental assumption, empiricism as its primary rule, experimentation as its basic strategy, replication as a requirement for believability, parsimony as a value, and philosophical doubt as its guiding conscience.
Science
A situation in which the frequency, latency, duration, or amplitude of a behavior is altered by the presence or absence of an antecedent stimulus.
Stimulus control
A stimulus in the presence of which a given behavior has not produced reinforcement in the past.
Stimulus delta
The conventional procedure requires one behavior and two antecedent stimulus conditions.
Stimulus discrimination training
An alteration in the reinforcing effectiveness of a stimulus, object, or event as a result of a motivating operation.
Value-altering effect
