BCBA 5th Edition Exam

BCBA 5th Edition Exam Goal of ABA as a science - Description, Prediction, Control Description - Lowest level, describing what happened that is observable. Ex. repeated movements of the hand up and down for more than 5 seconds. Prediction - predicting what will happen in something in the environment changes. Repeated observations that show these events correlate with each other (no causal relation). One of your main jobs, you need to be a good predictor of behavior. Control - Highest level of understanding. When we have control, we know for a fact what stimuli are controlling our behavior. We have now demonstrated a functional relationship. Ex. you know if you add pepper to your fries, your bf wont eat them, even though he always does. So you change the DV (pepper) and the IV (BF eating fries) changes. 5 Philosophical Assumptions underlying the science of behavior. - Determinism, Empiricism, Pragmatism, Parsimony, Selectionism Determinism - -Upon what Science is based The universe is lawful and orderly, nothing happens by accident, there is always an explanation. You can always explain why something happened. Empiricism - -Upon what Knowledge is built. Objective observation of events based on data. We make decisions based on data. Ex. we don't say " I think the behavior happens in 5 minutes." We take out a stopwatch and time it exactly. We need to use empirically based interventions.