RBT Competency Assessment questions with complete solutions

RBT Competency Assessment Indirect Measurement ans: interviews, rating scales, questions, surveys Direct Measurement ans: observation of the behavior and recording it as it occurs Behavioral Definitions ans: operational, includes verbs describing behavior, objective + unambiguous, does not rely on internal states (happy, sad), does not use labels (bad or good) Operational ans: describes what the behavior looks like so two independent observers can recognize + record the same behavior Indirect Outcome Recording ans: measures results that produces an observable product in the environment. main advantage is that it's easy to use Direct Outcome Recording ans: instead of relying on memory data is gathered immediately as the behavior occurs or as it produces results Event Recording ans: behavior is observed continuously throughout the observation period, and each instance of the behavior is recorded immediately as it occurs. Must meet two criteria: Does the behavior look the same every time? Does the behavior have a clear beginning and end? Frequency Recording ans: used for behaviors that have a clear beginning and end, tally the number of times the behavior occurs Intensity ans: magnitude or force of response (only record if this is the aspect of the behavior you are trying to change) Duration ans: how long a behavior persists, should be used if you are trying to decrease how long a behavior lasts Latency ans: time that occurs between the SD and the response (ex. how long to respond to a peer's question). You record this when the goal is to decrease the time between SD and response Partial Interval Recording ans: involves checking off an interval if the behavior occurs at ANY point within the interval - even if it only occured for 1 second. You can use this for self-stimulatory behaviors or behaviors that don't look the same every time. An overexaggeration of the behavior, you use this method to decrease behavior. Whole Interval Recording ans: involves checking off the interval if the behavior occurs throughout the WHOLE interval. Use when it is difficult to tell when the behavior begins or ends, when it occurs at such a high rate it is difficult to keep count. An under-exaggeration of behavior, you use this method to increase behavior. Momentary Time Sampling Recording ans: data is less representative than intervals, looking for a behavior's occurrence during a specific part of the interval and recording if it is occurring at that precise moment. Ex: setting a timer to go off every minute for a 30 minute interval, only checking for behavior and marking it down as the timer goes off. Reinforcement ans: follows a behavior that increases that behavior Punishment ans: follows a behavior that decreases that behavior Positive Reinforcement ans: addition of a pleasant stimulus Negative Reinforcement ans: removal of an aversive stimulus Positive Punishment ans: addition of an aversive stimulus Negative Punishment ans: removal of a pleasant stimulus Motivating Operations ans: Variables in the environment that alter the relative value of a particular reinforcer at a particular time. Deprivation ans: when a person hasn't had access to a particular reinforcer for a significant period of time, makes it more potent Immediacy ans: the time between the occurrence of the behavior and the delivery of the reinforcer. The more immediate, the more effective Size ans: the magnitude of the reinforcer changes the effectiveness. You want to not give too much or the reinforcer will lose its value, but too little will not be motivating enough. Contingency ans: when the reinforcer is delivered only for the target behavior it is more effective Schedules of Reinforcement ans: specifies how often particular behaviors receive reinforcement Continuous schedule ans: used for learning new behaviors, the behavior is reinforced every time Intermittent Schedule ans: used to maintain behavior once a skill is acquired. Behavior is only reinforced some of the time. They generate high response rates and prevent behavior from stopping. Fixed Ratio Schedule ans: a schedule of reinforcement after a fixed level of responses. Ex: reinforce after every 5th correct response. Variable Ratio Schedule ans: An average number of responses must be made before delivery of reinforcement. Ex: slot machine Fixed Interval Schedule ans: it doesn't matter how many times the behavior occurred, the person only gets the reinforcer once the response is given after a fixed amount of time. Ex: receiving a paycheck. Variable Interval Schedule ans: the reinforcer is delivered for the first response that occurs after an unpredictable amount of time has passed. Ex: checking your email - you probably do this periodically throughout the day without a set schedule Extinction ans: when the response no longer produces reinforcement. Extinction burst ans: when the behavior is no longer reinforced, it will briefly increase in frequency, intensity and duration. This is because the learner wants to see if performing the behavior more intensely will produce reinforcement. Response Cost ans: taking away a reinforcer as a result of behavior (ex: taking car keys away after missing curfew) Behavior Intervention Plan ans: plans developed to guide parents, teachers and other paraprofessionals on how to decrease inappropriate behvaiors and teach or increase replacement behaviors in all settings. Everyone who interacts with the individual should follow the plan Functional Behavior Assessment ans: a collection of different procedures of gathering information on antecedants, behaviors, and consequences in order to determine the factors that lead to maintaining problem behavior. Antecedant ans: an environmental condition existing or occurring immediately before the behavior of interest (ex: the setting, people they are around, the actions of people around them) Visual Schedules ans: a set of pictures that communicate a series of activities or steps of a specific schedule. Gives a sense of control, predictability and choice over their schedule Means to an end visual ans: shows the individual when they are finished or when something new is going to happen, like a transition. Ex: timer, token board, first/then board. More likely to stay on task if they can see when they get a break Functional Communication training ans: the use of appropriate communicative behavior to replace the inappropriate behavior. If we make it easier to communicate through words, sign, or pictures than the problem behavior, it is more likely they will use they functional behavior instead. Social Stories ans: a tool to teach children with autism how to act in social situations Systematic Desensitization ans: treatment that practices engaging in successive approximations toward the target behavior. This treatment is often paired with anxiety reduction exercises and positive reinforcement. Demand Fading ans: incrementally increase demands you place on the student across several sessions Non-Contingent Reinforcement ans: reinforcing the child without any specific demands in place. This causes you to be associated with reinforcement and become a reinforcer. Pairing ans: when the child has associated you with reinforcement, or good things. Pace ans: increasing pace of instruction decreases escape behaviors Interspersing ans: mixing up easy and more difficult tasks Wait program ans: teaches a student to accept the denied request and wait for access to the item. It does this by using visuals and timers. The student is taught to wait for items or an activity for incremental periods of time. Transition program ans: teaches student to easily transition by reinforcing systematic steps. First, you contrive transition by situations such as moving from one chair to another. Sensory diet ans: the use of sensory activities or exercises to calm certain sensory needs. Ex: activity schedule, replacement behavior that serves the same purpose Differential Reinforcement of Alternate Behaviors (DRA) ans: reinforcing an appropriate alternative to the problem behavior and extinguishing the problem behavior through extinction. Do not acknowledge attempts to gain (x) through undesirable behavior. Prompt, than immediately reinforce. Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Reinforcers (DRI) ans: reinforces a behavior that is incompatible to the problem behavior and put the target problem behavior on extinction. The incompatible behavior is response blocked while correct behavior is reinforced Differential Reinforcement of Other Behaviors (DRO) ans: reinforcing the absence of the problem behavior for a specific amount of time. Always uses interval schedules, usually fixed. First take baseline data of the target behavior. Start with an interval that will ensure success. Every interval without the behavior is reinforced. Overcorrection ans: contingent on the target behavior, the individual must engage in a tedius task directly related to the problem. Restitutional overcorrection ans: the learner is required to repair the situation to its original state Positive practice overcorrection ans: the learner is required to practice the correct form of the behavior or a behavior that is incompatible as a result of the problem behavior Time out ans: the withdrawal of the opportunity to receive positive reinforcement for a specific amount of time Prompting ans: a cue or an action to assist or encourage the desired response from an individual Physical Prompt ans: physically manipulating the individual to practice the desired response, eventually the degree of touch can be lessened until the student performs it independantly Verbal prompt ans: using vocalizations to indicate the desired response, can be an utterance such as a sound or part of a word, many words, or even as long as a paragraph. Phoneme ans: the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language, help shape articulation Intraverbal prompt ans: a question that leads the child to the correct response Visual prompt ans: a visual clue or picture, can be any object or printed material that can be used to teach a new behavior Gestural prompt ans: using a physical gesture to indicated the desired resposne Positional prompt ans: when the target is placed closer to the individual. As the response becomes more independant the target is moved farther away from them Modeling ans: physical display of the desired response Video modeling ans: children who already readily imitate videos may benefit from specially made videos that demonstrate target behaviors. Used to teach social skills, daily living skills, language aquisition or play skills Video self modeling ans: when the student views videos of themselves as examples of behavior Time delay ans: transfers stimulus control to the natural stimulus by delaying the presentation of the prompt after that natural stimulus has been presented Prompt fading ans: to reduce assistance to a least intrusive prompt Stimulus fading ans: highlighting a physical dimension of a stimulus to increase the likelihood of a correct response then the highlighted or exaggerated dimension is eventually faded out (ex: using traffic safety cones to mark a boundary to stay within and removing them slowly after the learner knows the boundaries) Most to least prompting ans: usually used with teaching new behaviors because it provides little opportunity for errors Least to most prompting ans: usually used for behaviors that have already been learned, but for some reason the student is not responding. Sometimes used for more complex behaviors like problem solving to allow students to independantly work through each step. It is also used when you are trying to avoid rote or memory induced responses Shaping ans: reinforcing successive approximations of a target behavior. can be used to improve articlation Task analysis ans: involves breaking down a complex skill into smaller, teachable units, the products of which is a series of sequentially ordered steps or tasks Chaining ans: a specific sequence of responses with each sequence associated with a particular stimulus condition Forward chaining ans: the behaviors identified in the task are taught in their naturally occurring order. Only targets one step at a time from the beginning. Backward chaining ans: when all the behaviors that are identified in the task analysis are done by the teacher except for the final behavior (Ex: drawing a smiley face) Total task presentation ans: a variation of forward chaining in which the student is taught each of the steps in the task analysis at once. The student helps with every step. (ex: tying your shoes) Discrimination training ans: requires one response and two antecedant stimulus conditions. The response in the presence of one stimulus is reinforced while a response in the presence of the other is not. We are teaching them to make choices. Isolation ans: teaches the student to pair the stimulus with reinforcement. Once it is paired you mix it up with other stimuli (distractors). Mixed trials ans: mixing mastered SD's with target SD's to ensure discrimination Discrete trial instruction ans: working one on one with a student, breaking tasks down into small steps until mastery. Errorless learning ans: ensures success, early immediate prompts, prompts faded over time, decreases frustration/increases motivation Trial by trial data ans: data is collected after each trial on whether or not the response was correct, incorrect, or mastered Probe data ans: data is collected on the initial trial. Only checks the initial trial of each program or target item to see whether the teaching and prompting of the previous session was enough to maintain the target skill or item the following day Naturalistic teaching ans: the reinforcer is always related to the item being taught. Behavior should be taught in the environment in which it is used, the learners items and activities of interest should set the occassion for teaching, teaching sessions should be across a variety of settings, materials, types of responses and verbal operants, teaching should focus on functional language and skills Stimulus control ans: when certain aspects of the environment impact our behaviors (ex: being quiet in a library). Multiple exemplar training ans: teaching with many different examples of the same item or activity Transfer trial ans: when we re-present the original SD and then use a lesser prompt than the first Error correction ans: if a child begins to emit an incorrect response, do not allow them to finish if possible. You can prompt and show correct response as soon as you see them answering incorrectly. Than use your transfer trial to fade out the prompt, do a distractor trial and come back to the SD as a test to see if they got it. Cold Probe ans: used to record whether the student was able to independently provide the correct response upon the first presentation of the SD (3 consecutive yes probes = mastered skill) Toy Imitation ans: useful when teaching play skills, start with items student has shown interest in, use two identical sets so that teacher + student have one, SD= non specific "do this" Gross motor imitation ans: imitation of body movements, no materials are necessary, SD= non specific "copy me" Fine motor imitation ans: imitation of detailed, precise movements, may use materials, SD= non specific "do this" Oral motor imitation ans: imitation of movement of the mouth, tongue, lips, face, head, often a prerequisite to verbal imitation and speech, helps to shape articulations, increase vocalizations, provides reinforcement for "pre-speech" behaviors, helps build momentum, SD= non specific Echoic ans: repeating what was heard, auditory SD/discriminative stimulus, the consequence is non specific reinforcement--anything that increases the behavior that is not the object being said Mand ans: demand, command, asking or requesting. Asking for what one wants, then as a consequence getting it, acts as immediate reinforcement for using communication. The training directly benefits the learner Tact ans: coming in contact with the environment through one of our senses. The antecedant is a nonverbal stimulus in the environment ex: saying "popcorn" when you see popcorn. Follow with nonspecific reinforcement Intraverbal ans: responding to conversation, or a question, the antecedant is verbal stimulus, and the consequence is nonspecific reinforcement Listener responding ans: responding to the mands of another. This is receptive language, it is not verbal behavior. (ex looking at an item when it is named) Stimulus Stimulus pairing ans: repeated pairing of a neutral stimulus with a reinforcing stimulus, neutral stimulus becomes conditioned as a reinforcer, increase in responding partially attributed to automatic reinforcement 4 Functions of Behavior ans: to gain attention to escape or avoid a task or situation to gain an item or tangible to gain automatic reinforcement