FREE Procedures and Intervention Questions and Answers Flashcards

A behavior analyst is using a multiple schedule to teach a client to discriminate between reinforcement and extinction conditions. During the S-delta component, the client continues to respond at a high rate even after 15 sessions. Which procedural modification is MOST likely to improve stimulus control most efficiently?

Answer: Implement errorless learning by briefly superimposing the SD over the S-delta stimulus before fading

Superimposing the SD briefly over the S-delta stimulus (a stimulus fading/errorless technique) helps transfer stimulus control gradually without generating many errors. Errorless learning procedures minimize error responding during discrimination training, making it the most efficient modification when the client persistently responds under the S-delta. A DRO could reduce responding but doesn't directly build the discrimination, and extending extinction merely increases error trials.

During discrete trial training, a therapist delivers a vocal prompt simultaneously with the SD on every trial across 20 sessions. The client responds correctly only when the prompt is present. This outcome BEST illustrates which procedural problem?

Answer: Overshadowing, because the vocal prompt is more salient than the SD

When the vocal prompt is delivered simultaneously with the SD and is more salient, the prompt overshadows the SD — the client's behavior comes under control of the more salient stimulus (the prompt) rather than the intended SD. While prompt dependency is a related outcome, the mechanism causing it here is overshadowing, a classical conditioning phenomenon where a more salient stimulus prevents a less salient one from acquiring control. Blocking requires prior conditioning to the less salient stimulus.

A practitioner implements a progressive ratio (PR) schedule to assess the reinforcing value of a preferred item. The client's 'break point' drops significantly from session 1 to session 4 with the same item. Which interpretation is MOST parsimonious?

Answer: Satiation is reducing the reinforcing efficacy of the item across sessions

A declining break point across sessions using the same item most parsimoniously indicates satiation — repeated access to the reinforcer within and across sessions reduces its motivating value (abolishing operation). Ratio strain would produce pausing and low responding within a single session's increasing ratios but wouldn't explain a cross-session decline in break point when the schedule resets. The question specifies the same item, ruling out a ratio-speed mismatch as the primary cause.

A BCBA is treating self-injurious behavior (SIB) maintained by automatic reinforcement. She implements a competing items assessment and identifies two items that suppress SIB to near-zero levels. She then designs an NCR procedure using those items. After 3 weeks, SIB resurges. The MOST likely reason for resurgence in this context is:

Answer: The competing items have lost their novelty and their value as abolishing operations has decreased

With automatic reinforcement maintained SIB, NCR via competing items works by providing alternative sensory stimulation that serves as an abolishing operation (AO) for the automatic reinforcer maintaining SIB. Over time, habituation reduces the novelty and stimulatory value of the competing items, weakening their AO effect and allowing SIB to re-emerge. This is a well-documented limitation of competing item interventions for automatically maintained behavior. Spontaneous recovery typically occurs much earlier and after a rest period, not after 3 weeks of continued intervention.

A behavior analyst uses a behavioral skills training (BST) package to teach a staff member to implement a new intervention. After training, the staff member performs the skill flawlessly in the training room but implements it incorrectly in the actual therapy room. Which component of BST was MOST likely insufficient?

Answer: Rehearsal and feedback, because these were not conducted in the natural environment

The staff member demonstrated the skill correctly in the training context but failed to generalize to the natural environment — a classic failure of setting generalization. BST is most effective when rehearsal and feedback occur across the relevant contexts, including the actual therapy environment. When rehearsal is limited to a training room, stimulus control over the correct behavior remains bound to that setting. The issue is not a lack of modeling or poor instructions, but insufficient in-situ practice where the skill must ultimately be performed.

During a functional analysis, a child's problem behavior occurs at high rates across all conditions, including the control (play) condition. A behavior analyst hypothesizes automatic reinforcement. Before concluding this, which additional analysis is MOST critical to conduct?

Answer: An alone condition and an ignore condition to differentiate automatic from social reinforcement

High rates across all FA conditions — including the control — suggest automatic reinforcement, but this pattern can also occur when the behavior is on a very lean schedule of social reinforcement that is inadvertently provided even in the control condition. Adding an 'alone' condition (no people present) and an 'ignore' condition (people present but providing no attention) allows the analyst to differentiate: if rates remain high when alone, automatic reinforcement is supported; if rates drop when no people are present, a social function may be operating. Conducting these conditions is the critical next step before drawing the automatic conclusion.