What is systematic ignoring and how does it work?
- Purposely withholding one’s attention from a child when they are undergoing inappropriate behaviour.
- Only works if it is consistently applied. Most people apply it inconsistently.
- Expect to see an extinction burst and then extinction of behaviour.
What did we learn from Iwata et al (1982)?
- (Experimental) Functional analysis relationship between self-injury and environment
- 9 subjects - unstructured play, demand (escape), social disapproval (attention), alone (sensory)
- Low levels of SIB occurred with unstructured play
- By manipulating conditions, they were able to show that self-injury served different functions across subjects
What is the difference between functional assessment and functional analysis?
- Functional assessment - assessing function of behaviour, involves many methods, including direct observation, functional analysis and interviews
- Functional analysis - A technique within functional assessment where antecedents and consequences are manipulated to understand their effects
What are the general order of steps in developing a behavioural intervention?
- Define the behavior in terms of being measurable and observable
- Collect the data in terms of frequency or rate etc and then use this to make graphs or visuals
- Analyze using a FBA to identify the main triggers which are causing that behavior.
- Treatment plan, develop intervention/ triadic model to train the correct people.
- Evaluate so making sure that is going as planned and adjust accordingly.
What is social validity and how is it assessed?
- The goals, procedures, and results of an intervention are socially acceptable to the client, the behavior analyst, and society.
- Ask the parents, teachers, student about whether they are comfortable with treatment/intervention and get them to evaluate treatment acceptability.
What is the triadic model?
Training the teacher to help the student.
What is the difference between the topography of behaviour vs. function?
- Topography = shape and form of the behaviour
- Function = why it is happening, effect on the environment
What are the skills required to be a behavioural analyst?
- Relate to people
- Problem-solving and open-minded
- Positive feedback
- Self-evaluate and prioritize
- Manage deadlines
- Good at writing
- Be flexible
What are the main tenants of behaviour?
Behaviour is a function of the environment. Behaviours being maintained by an aspect of the environment.
What is the difference between the topographical and functional definition of punishment?
Topographical = what was done Functional = if it decreased the probability of the response
We are interested in the functional definition, and that is how punishment is defined.
What are some of the potential side effects of punishment?
- Emotional reaction
- Aggression
- No generalisation
- Disrupts social relationships
- Has to be continuous in order to be effective
What’s the difference between extinction and sensory extinction?
- Extinction = probability of occurrence of response is decreased if the reinforcer is withheld contingent upon its occurrence
- Sensory extinction = extinction on behaviours maintained by automatic reinforcement
What is prompting?
- an alternative/additional antecedent to normal one in order to increase the likelihood that the student will provide the desired response
What is the difference between respondent, adjunctive, operant and reflexive behaviour?
- Respondent = conditioned behaviours like fears and phobias
- Adjunctive = behaviours that seem irrelevant, occur when another behaviour has been disrupted e.g. stretching at the lights
- Operant = learned behaviour linked to environment
- Reflexive = natural responses to stimuli e.g. squinting
What’s the underlying principle underlying Torelli et al. (2017) with raising hands?
- Taught to raise hand under certain stimulus, and to not raise hand under certain stimulus
- Multiple schedules of reinforcement, mate!
- Principle: discrimination training to achieve stimulus control (SD; SΔ)
What is resistance to extinction and how does it relate to schedules of reinforcement?
- Intermittent reinforcement increases resistance to extinction, as well as weak reinforcers
- More likely to persist with behaviour in expectation that the reinforcement may resume again, as it has in the past.
What are the different conditions that are tested for with FBA?
- Social (social positive - attention)
- Demand (social negative - avoidance)
- Alone (automatic positive - sensory)
- Play (automatic negative - avoidance of stimuli)
What are the different types of motivators and maintainers?
Attention, escape, tangible, sensory.
What did the Hall, Lund and Jackson (1968) study demonstrate in terms of study and non-study behaviours?
- Attention when doing good study, and ignored when ignoring, bad study behaviour, then overall study increased (and vice versa).
What did Hegel and Ferguson (2000) show?
- DRO, in reducing aggressive behaviour.
- Multiple-baseline
- Used shaping by getting him to sit quietly for longer and longer periods of time
What is the difference between DRO, DRA, DRI and FCT
DRO = differential reinforcement of other behaviour - reinforcer given if absence of targeted behaviour
DRA = differential reinforcement of alternative behaviour - reinforcer given for more appropriate alternative behaviour
DRI = differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviour
- e.g. reinforcing sitting if you want the child to stop running
FCT = functional communication training - teaching them a different way to communicate what they want
What is the difference between reactive and proactive behaviour?
Reactive = Reprimand child when their disruption escalates to an unacceptable level
- Ignore appropriate behaviour
- Infrequent reinforcement for appropriate behaviour
- Weak reinforcers, lean schedules
- Too much behaviour required for too little reinforcement
- Behavioural expectations are often beyond child’s existing level
- Praise/rewards
Proactive
- Environmental alterations/modifications
Why is reactive more prevalent?
-Easier, immediate result
What are some variables that influence the efficacy of DRO?
- The reinforcement chosen (as part of the reinforcement component of DRO) must be powerful enough to compete with the already successful reinforcing inappropriate behavior and should be varied in order to avoid satiation
- For DRO to be most effective, the other behavior needs to be reinforced before the target behavior occurs i.e. shorter interval is preferred
What are the purposes of a functional behavioural assessment?
- identify conditions in which behaviour is likely to occur
- identify antecedents
- identify reinforcers
- hypothesise function of behaviour
