BCAT Treatment-Skill Acquisition

BCAT Treatment-Skill Acquisition Discrimination Training and Teaching Strategies 1. Discrimination Training This is the process of reinforcing a target response only when the specific antecedent or discriminative stimulus (SD) is present. 2. Simultaneous Discrimination Training In this method, multiple objects are presented to the child, who is then asked to touch, point to, or pick up one of the items. 3. Successive Discrimination Training Here, the target stimulus and distractors are not shown at the same time; rather, they alternate across different trials. 4. Expanded Trials This technique involves systematically increasing the intervals between presentations of the target SD by gradually incorporating a greater number of previously mastered targets in between trials. 5. Graduated Random Rotation In this strategy, mastered items are systematically introduced, one at a time, into the random rotation with the target item. 6. Discrete Trial Training (DTT) This is a teaching method that isolates a specific task and teaches it through repeated trials. Each trial includes a specific antecedent, an expected response, and a consequence that follows the response. 7. Natural Environment Training (NET) This approach focuses on teaching procedures in the client’s natural environment, utilizing familiar situations and items to teach relevant skills while capitalizing on the client’s motivation. 8. Fluency-Based Instruction This method focuses on enhancing the accuracy and speed of an existing skill's performance to develop overall competence. 9. Generalization This refers to the ability of a learned behavior to occur in different environments, with various objects, people, or instructions. 10. Maintenance This concept addresses the extent to which a learner continues to demonstrate the target behavior after the intervention has been partially or completely withdrawn. 11. Caregiver Training This involves the time caregivers spend learning with the Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) about ASD, understanding its effects on their child, and acquiring strategies to address areas of deficiency and excess behaviors. 12. Premack Principle This principle states that a highly preferred activity can be used to reinforce a less preferred activity. For example, "If you clean your room, you can go to the mall." 13. Preference Assessments This entails providing clients with free access to potentially reinforcing items to observe their preferences, which can be structured (formal) or informal. These assessments should be conducted frequently. Prompting Techniques 14. Prompt A prompt is any additional stimulus provided along with the SD to assist the client in responding correctly. 15. Errorless Learning This technique involves early and immediate prompting to ensure that the learner's response is always correct, especially when they are encountering a new task and scoring between 0-79% independently. 16. Most-to-Least Prompting This strategy involves starting with the most intrusive prompt and systematically fading to less intrusive prompts to assist the learner. It’s used when teaching a new skill. 17. Least-to-Most Prompting In this approach, the instructor begins with the least intrusive prompt and only increases the level of prompting if the client is unsuccessful, typically used after the skill has already been learned. 18. Time Delay Prompt This involves gradually increasing the interval between the presentation of the target SD and the prompts, allowing the transfer of control from the prompt to the target SD. 19. Prompt Fading This is a systematic reduction of any prompts used to assist the client in responding correctly. 20. Chaining Chaining involves a sequence of SDs and responses where each response triggers the SD for the subsequent response. A task analysis data sheet is often utilized to collect data for teaching the chain. There are three types of chaining: - Forward Chaining This begins with the first SD-response component in the chain and progresses forward through the remaining components. Backward Chaining ️Begin with the final step, or the last SD-Response component, then move backwards towards the remaining components Total Task Presentation ️All of the SD response components of the chain are taught during every learning trial. Shaping ️Systematically reinforcing successive approximations of a target behavior while extinguishing previous approximations. The successive approximations become increasingly more similar to the target behavior.