ABAT - Applied Behavior Analysis Test Applied Behavior Analysis Antecedent-Based Interventions 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Before a student transitions to a non-preferred subject, a behavior technician briefly reviews what will happen during that class and shows the student a sample activity. This antecedent strategy is best described as:
- Noncontingent reinforcement
- Priming (Correct answer)
- Differential reinforcement of other behavior
- Stimulus fading
Correct answer: Priming
Priming involves exposing an individual to upcoming stimuli or activities ahead of time so that the actual event is more predictable and less aversive, thereby reducing problem behavior during transitions or difficult tasks.
Question 2: A BCBA recommends that a caregiver offer a child a choice between two non-preferred tasks before requiring task completion. The primary mechanism by which this reduces escape-motivated problem behavior is:
- It eliminates the aversive quality of both tasks entirely
- It increases the individual's sense of control and predictability over the environment (Correct answer)
- It provides contingent access to a preferred item after compliance
- It alters the consequence delivered following problem behavior
Correct answer: It increases the individual's sense of control and predictability over the environment
Choice-making as an antecedent intervention reduces the aversiveness of demands by giving the individual some degree of control, which decreases the motivating operation for escape-motivated behavior without changing the task itself.
Question 3: A student who engages in self-injurious behavior during unexpected transitions is provided with a picture schedule displayed throughout the day. This intervention primarily reduces problem behavior by:
- Reinforcing appropriate behavior contingent on schedule-checking
- Providing a competing motor response that is incompatible with self-injury
- Increasing predictability and reducing uncertainty about upcoming events (Correct answer)
- Delivering preferred items noncontingently throughout the day
Correct answer: Increasing predictability and reducing uncertainty about upcoming events
Visual schedules are antecedent interventions that increase environmental predictability, thereby reducing the aversiveness of transitions as an antecedent trigger for problem behavior.
Question 4: A student consistently engages in disruptive behavior in one teacher's classroom but behaves appropriately in every other setting. A BCBA would describe the teacher's presence as:
- A conditioned punisher
- A discriminative stimulus (SD) for problem behavior (Correct answer)
- An unconditioned motivating operation
- An establishing operation for preferred items
Correct answer: A discriminative stimulus (SD) for problem behavior
When behavior reliably occurs in the presence of one stimulus but not others, that stimulus has acquired discriminative control. The teacher's presence functions as an SD signaling that problem behavior has been reinforced in that context.
Question 5: A child frequently reaches for food items left on the kitchen counter. Rather than relying solely on consequence-based strategies, the BCBA recommends removing all food from visible surfaces. This approach targets:
- The reinforcing consequence maintaining the behavior
- The motivating antecedent stimulus that evokes the behavior (Correct answer)
- The topography of the target response
- The child's communication repertoire
Correct answer: The motivating antecedent stimulus that evokes the behavior
Removing the visible food eliminates the antecedent stimulus that triggers food-seeking behavior, addressing the environmental cue that sets the occasion for the response before it can occur.
Question 6: Before entering the cafeteria, where a student has a history of grabbing peers' food, a paraprofessional verbally reminds the student of the expected behavior and briefly practices the correct routine. This strategy is known as:
- Response blocking
- Precorrection (Correct answer)
- Behavioral momentum
- Stimulus control transfer
Correct answer: Precorrection
Precorrection involves prompting the expected behavior immediately before entering a context associated with a history of problem behavior, proactively preventing errors rather than correcting them after the fact.
ABAT - Applied Behavior Analysis Test Applied Behavior Analysis Antecedent-Based Interventions 1
Before a student transitions to a non-preferred subject, a behavior technician briefly reviews what will happen during that class and shows the student a sample activity.
This antecedent strategy is best described as: