Section 3: Foundational Knowledge: Super Hard Flashcards
Discrimination vs. Generalization
Discrimination
- occurs when a limited spectrum of stimuli occasion a response
- narrow stimulus control
- Ex: child says “mommy” only to her mom and not other women
Generalization
- occurs when a large spectrum of stimuli occasion certain responses
- critical element to survival of species
- Ex: child says “woman” when she sees any female even though they all look different
2 Types of Generalization
- Stimulus Generalization
- Response Generalization (Response Induction)
Stimulus Generalization
- Responding to antecedent stimuli sharing certain aspects of the original SD; broadening of the spectrum of stimuli that occasion a certain response
- The individual responds to something in the same way that resembles the original thing from which they learned
- 1 response to various SDs
- Ex: child sees any animal with a tail and says kitty
- Ex. You say “what’s up” to all of your friends
- To program for stimulus generalization, you want to use multiple exemplars
Overgeneralization
(referring to stimulus generalization)
- emitting a response appropriate to some concept in an inappropriate context
- Ex: calling all women mommy
Response Generalization
(Response Induction)
- The extent to which an individual exhibits novel responses that are functionally equivalent to the trained target response
- The effects of intervention are expanded from a targeted response to a similar non-targeted response
- the form of the response changes but the SD remains the same
- INDUCTION = INTRODUCTION of new responses
- ex. taught to fold socks into a ball and generalizes to folding them in a knot
- Response generalization is how we SHAPE behavior
- Ex. teaching a child to draw a line. Initially, you will reinforce crooked lines but then will only reinforce closer approximations to a straight line
How to Plan for Generalization
-
Select Target Behaviors that will meet with Natural Contingencies of Reinforcement
- behaviors must be functional
- behaviors must generate reinforcers after intervention ends (Relevance of Behavior Rule)
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Specify all desired variations of the behavior and the situations in which it should (and should not) occur after intervention has ended
- list all behaviors that need to be changed
- list all situations and whether it should or should not occur
- do this in the PLANNING stage
Two Types of Contingencies
Naturally Existing Contingency- any contingency of reinforcement or punishment that operates independent of your efforts in the generalization setting
Contrived Contingency - any contingency designed by you to acheive acquistion, maintenace, and/or generalization of a behavior change
7 Strategies to Promote Generalization
CLEMING
- Program Common Stimuli
- Train Loosely
- Multiple Exemplars
- Mediation
- Indiscriminable Contingencies
- Negative Teaching Examples
- General Case Analysis (General Case Strategy)
Program Common Stimuli
(one of the 7 Stratigies to Promote Generalization)
- The likelihood that the correct response will be occasioned in the generalization setting is increased if there is a lot of similarity between the instructional setting and the generalization setting
- ensuring the same SDs exist in the instructional and generalization settings
- Ex. if you are teaching someone how to make a purchase in the store, you need to create a mini store in the instructional setting with has many realistic elements as possible
Train Loosely
(one of the 7 Stratigies to Promote Generalization)
- Expanding the heterogeneity of SDs
- non critical elements of the teaching setting are altered in arbitrary ways
- Decreases the likelihood narrow or non critical stimulus control occurs
- Methods- teach in different areas of the client’s house, teach wearing different clothes and hair styles, vary your tone of voice when you say SDs
Multiple Exemplars
(one of the 7 Stratigies to Promote Generalization)
(Teach Suffcient Examples; Multiple Exemplar Training)
- provide the client with opportunities to respond correctly to multiple examples of antecedent stimuli
- Ex. teach bye, see you later, peace out. and farewell
- provide multiple response examples
Mediation
(one of the 7 Stratigies to Promote Generalization)
- instruct others (MEDIATORS) who will help maintain and generalize the newly acquired behaviors
- ETHICS WARNING: it is your responsibility to collaborate with others to maintain the client’s progress after your services terminate
- Ex. after teaching greetings at home, make sure it is practiced in school with teachers and peers
Indiscriminable Contingencies
(one of the 7 Stratigies to Promote Generalization)
- contingencies in which an individual is NOT able to discriminate (INDISCRIMINABLE) when his/her responses will be reinforced
- this way behaviors continue at a high rate
- making contingencies unclear in the generalization setting
- 2 ways to create:
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Intermittent Schedules of Reinforcement
- use CRF initially then switch to INT
- all indiscriminable contingencies involve INT schedules but not all INT schedules are indiscriminable
- Delayed Rewards
-
Intermittent Schedules of Reinforcement
Negative Teaching Examples
(one of the 7 Stratigies to Promote Generalization)
- instructing clients regarding settings, times, and conditions in which it is NOT appropriate to dispay a certain behavior
- “don’t do it” exemplars strengthen discrimination skills
- ex. when it’s appropriate to say a dirty joke
General Case Analysis
(General Case Strategy)
- Ensuring that you are teaching all the different stimulus variations and response variations the individual may encounter in the generalization, post intervention enviornment
- helps the individual to learn the similarities of stimuli within a stimulus class and the differences of stimuli within that same stimulus class
- Ex. If you are teaching doing laundry, you need to train on multiple laundry machine variations
Terminating Successful Interventions
- must systematically terminate successful interventions
- one should assess:
- how intricate the intervention is
- how quickly did the intervention produce the desired change for the individual
- the availability of natural contingencies of reinforcement for that newly acquired skill
- from the very beginning, you want to attempt to reduce the need to plan for generalization at the end
- prior to, during, and following an intervention, probe for generalization
- mediators should have responsibility in the generalization process
Maintenance
(Response Maintenance)
- following the removal of an intervention, the extent to which a particular response remains in the individual’s repertoire over time
- Program for maintenance:
- use intermittent/variable reinforcement because these schedules are more resistent to extintion
Private Events
- events taking place inside the skin
- thoughts and feelings
- private events ARE behaviors too
- they are accessible only to the individual
- ex. headache
Verbal Behavior
- Behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of another person’s behavior
- communication that helps individuals get what they desire and avoid what is undesireable
- Verbal behavior is defined by the function of the response, not the topography
- Any response form (vocal, non-vocal, written, sign language, etc) are verbal behavior
- Verbal behavior involves the social interaction between the speaker and listener:
- Speaker- gains access to reinforcement and controls their environment through the behavior of the listener (Skinner’s VB focuses on the listener)
- Listener- must learn how to reinforce the speaker’s verbal behavior (responds to words and interact with the speaker)
Form vs. Function of Verbal Behavior
Form
The formal properties of language involve their topographies (classifying words as nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc)
Function
The effects of the response
Verbal Operant Definition and 6 types
- A verbal operant is the unit of analysis in verbal behavior
- MO/SD → Response → Consequence
6 Types of ELEMENTARY Verbal Operants: EMITTT
- Echoic
- Mand
- Intraverbal
- Tact
- Textual
- Transcription
Verbal Repertoire
a set of verbal operants emitted by someone
How are verbal operants used as the basis for language assessment?
- You should assess the current effectiveness of each verbal operant your client has
- individual operants constitute the basis for building more advanced language behavior
- start by obtaining information about the client’s mand repoirtoire before moving onto the other elementary operants
- may need to firmly establish repertoires for each verbal operant before moving onto the next
- conduct a VB MAPP
- funtional analysis of verbal behavior is ongoing
- you must demonstrate what the correct source of control should be and how that source can be established
Echoic
(Verbal Imitation)
(one of the 6 elementary verbal operants)
- A type of verbal operant that occurs when the speaker repeats the verbal behavior of another speaker
- repeating, echoicing, vocally imitating
- The echoic operant is controlled by the VERBAL DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULUS (Verbal SD)
- whatever the speaker said controls what the listener is going to say
- Echoic behavior produces generalized conditioned reinforcement (GCSR)- praise, attention, etc.
- The Verbal SD has two things in common with the response:
- Point to point correspondence
- Formal Similarity
Point to Point Correspondence
(as related to echoics)
When the beginning, middle, and end of the verbal stimulus match the beginning, middle, and end of the response
ex. Saying “fox” as the result of seeing the word “fox” is an example of point-to-point correspondence. It makes no difference whether the stimulus is auditory or visual. It also makes no difference whether the response is vocal or written. Writing “fox” as the result of hearing someone say “fox” still illustrates point-to-point correspondence.
Formal Similarity
(as it relates to echoics)
- When the controlling antecedent stimulus and the response share the same sense mode (visual, auditory, tacticle) and phsyically look exactly the same
- can be sign language or written as well
Echoic Training
- Echoic training involves bringing verbal responses under the functional control of verbal SDs that have point to point correspondence and formal similarity with the response
- Goal- enable the speaker to repeat your sounds and eventually transfer the response form to other more advanced verbal operants
- Teach echoics using SHAPING
- the teacher presents a vocal verbal stimulus and reinforcers the individual’s successive approximations toward the sample
- Ex: Teacher says “hat” and differentially reinforces sounds that progressively match the same “h,” “ha,” until “hat” is achieved
- the teacher presents a vocal verbal stimulus and reinforcers the individual’s successive approximations toward the sample
- For beinging echoics, choose simple one syllable sounds that are in the client’s repertoire
- Echoics are taught systematically
- start with oral motor imitation- build physical strength (blowing, etc)
- Prompt Levels
- Physical (hands on face to gradually shape mouth formations)
Mand
(one of the 6 elementary verbal operants)
- A type of verbal operant in which the speaker asks for what they want
-
CONTROLLED BY MOs–not SDs
- occurs due to a state of deprivation or aversive stimulation
- Manding is reinforced by attaining the manded items
- Allows the listener to infer what EO may be affecting the speaker (“close the window” = the speaker is cold)
- Mands are the first verbal operants acquired by humans
Mand Training
- this is the first verbal operant to teach because it is the first we acquire as human beings and it leads to more language development
- Mand training involves bringing verbal responses under the functional control of MOs
- How to Initiate Mand Training
- Assess:
- client’s motivation
- the time when motivation is strong
- if you can control and contrive the motivation
- Next, make a list of potential motivators and their reinforcers and select beginning mands:
- items that have strong motivation and do not lose effectiveness quickly
- items that you can control access to
- items that can be available for a short period of time initially
- items that are easy to deliver and/or remove
- words involving a response form already in the client’s repertoire (e.g. echoic)
- Assess:
- Complex Mands:
- using mands with adjectives and prepositions
- increased length
- Manding for:
- information “whats your name”
- attention “watch me jump”
- people to do things for you “get me water”
2 Types of Mands
-
Regular Mand
- mands that can actually be reinforced
-
Extended Mand
- emitting mands to objects or animals that cannot possibly supply an appropriate response
- Two types:
- Supersitious Mand
- Magical Mand
- Two types:
- emitting mands to objects or animals that cannot possibly supply an appropriate response
Superstitious Mand
- an extended mand in which reinforcement sometimes occurs incidentally
- Ex: your car won’t start and you say, “Come on!” and sometimes it starts so you are intermittently reinforced for manding
Magical Mand
- an extended mand in which the reinforcement has NEVER occured in the past
- wishing
- Ex: “I wish I had a million dollars”
- Ex: Telling your cat to make you dinner