4 Phases of Intervention

(A PIE)

1. Assessment
2. Planning
3. Implementation
4. Evaluation

Assessment

(FBA)

• A systematic method for obtaining information about the FUNCTION challenging behaviors serve for an individual.

• Allows us to make empirically-based hypotheses for WHY behaviors occur.
• Involves a variety of methods including direct observations, interviews, checklists, and tests to identify targets for behavior change.
• Discover resources, assess, significant others, competing contingencies, maintenance and generalization factors, and potential reinforcers and / or punishers that may be included in intervention plans. 

• Identifies and defines targets for behavior change.
• Guides us to create effective and positive interventions.

1. Screening and general deposition
2. Defining and quantifying problems or desired achievement criteria
3. Pinpointing target behaviors to be treated
4. Monitoring progress
5. Following-up

• Indirect Measures: Data obtained from recollections, reconstructions, or subjective ratings of events.
  • Interviews
  • Checklists
  • Are not as reliable
  • Supplemental purposes only
  • starts hypothesis process

• Direct Measures: Provide information about person's behavior as it occurs.
  
  • Preferred over indirect
  • Tests
  • Direct Observations

4 Ways to Acquire Information for Assessment

(COIT; Come On Its Theory)

1. Checklists
2. Observations
3. Interviews
4. Tests

4 Ways to Acquire Information for Assessment

(COIT; Come On Its Theory)

1. Checklists

• Likert Scales
• Alone or with interview rating scales
• Asks about antecedent and consequences of target behavior. 

• Ex: CBCL Child Behavior Checklist, ABS-S Adaptive Behavior Scale-School, ABS-RC Adaptive Behavior Scale- Residential & Community

4 Ways to Acquire Information for Assessment

(COIT; Come On Its Theory)

2. Observation

• Direct and repeated in the natural environment
• Identifies potential target behaviors
• Preferred method
• ANECDOTAL OBSERVATION: Basic form of direct observation.
• Temporally sequences description of behavior patterns.
• Requires total attention of observer for at least 20-30 minutes continuously.
• Not a good option for a classroom teacher
• Write ONLY what is observed & measured, NOT interpretations
• When carried out for several days, reactivity effects can decrease

4 Ways to Acquire Information for Assessment

(COIT; Come On Its Theory)

3. Interviews

• First step in identifying list of behaviors, which can be used later in direct observation
• Can interview 2 sources: Individual or Significant other
  • Individual: Ask "What" "When" etc. questions, NOT "Why"
  • Identify primary concerns for individual
  • Give individual questionnaire, or have them record self-monitoring data
  • Significant Other: Sometimes you cannon interviews individual directly, or need information from important others
  • Interviewing others is a way to assess the participation of significant others in intervention plan.

4 Ways to Acquire Information for Assessment

(COIT; Come On Its Theory)

4. Tets

• Standardized tests
• Consistent administration is key: Each time a standardized test is administered, teh same questions and tasks are presented in a specified way and the same scoring criteria and procedures are used.
• Most standardized tests do NOT work well with functional behavior assessments because results are not translated directly into target behaviors.
• Only licensed psychologists can administer some intelligence test (NOT BCBAs).

• Review all records and available data
• This is part of INDIRECT FBA.

• RULE OUT MEDICAL CAUSES FOR BEHAVIOR.
• Refer client to undergo medical evaluation.
• If biological / medical factors are affecting the behavior, there may be no need for behavior analytic services.
• Recommend seeking medical consultation if referred behavior is a result of medication side effect or biological cause. 

• There is a need for intervention and no identified medical cause...
• Conduct indirect assessment →start identification and hypothesis process
• Information gathered 'indirectly
•  through interviews, rating scales, screening forms etc.
• Ask yourself is there a need for intervention?:
  • Is behavior dangerous?
  • Does behavior affect client's well-being?
  • Does behavior prevent access to least restrictive environment? 
  • How does behavior compare to typical same-aged peers?

• When conducting an assessment and talking to various people about the client, you should speak in behavioral language. 
• Do NOT discuss problems in mentalistic terms (e.g., "he is aggressive because he has autism")
• DOES NOT OFFER SOLUTIONS

• Information is gathered about the individual and the various settings in which that individual lives and works.
  • Physiological conditions, physical settings, interactions with others, home environment etc.
• Creates a lot of descriptive data
• Costly; time & money

• The effects of the assessment process on the behavior of the individual being assessed.
• Most likely when observation method is OBTRUSIVE: obvious to the individual.
• Self Monitoring: most obtrusive data collection method.
• Effects are usually temporary.
• To reduce Reactivity:
  • Be as UN-obtrusive as possible 
  • Repeat observations until reactivity effects subside.
  • *Take reactivity effects into account when interpreting data.

• Consider whose behavior is being changed and why.
• *NOT OK to change behavior for benefit of others (e.g., Be still, Be quiet!)
• ASK YOURSELF 'TO WHAT EXTENT WILL BEHAVIOR CHANGE IMPROVE THE PERSON'S LIFE?'

Habilitation

AKA Adjustment

• Occurs when a person's repertoire has been changed such that reinforcers are maximized, and punishers are minimized.

• Assesses meaningfulness of change.
• Is this change really useful to the client?

1. Is this behavior likely to produce S^R in the client's natural environment after intervention ends.

2. Is this behavior a prerequisite for a more complex functional skill

3. Will this behavior increase the client's access to environments

4. Will changing this behavior predispose others to interact with the client in a more supportive way

5. Is this behavior  a pivotal behavior or a behavior cusp

6. Is this an age appropriate behavior

7. If this behavior is meant to be reduced or eliminated, has a functional replacement behavior been selected to replace it

8. Does this behavior represent the actual goal, or is it only indirectly related

9. Is this 'just talk' or is it the real behavior of interest

10. If the goal itself is not a specific behavior, will this behavior help achieve it

• The belief that people with disabilities should to the maximum extent possible be physically and socially integrated into mainstream society regardless of the degree or type of disability.
• The use of progressively more typical settings and procedures to establish personal behavior which are as culturally normal as possible. 

• Behaviors that open a person's world to new contingencies

• Behavior that exposes the individual's repertoire to new environments, reinforcers & punishers, contingencies, responses, stimulus controls, communities of maintaining or destructive contingencies. When the person's repertoire expands; it encounters a differentially selective maintenance of the new and old repertoires and leads to some further cusps.

• A behavior that once learned produces corresponding modifications or covariation in other adaptive untrained behaviors.

• So critical, that once learned, it will lead to more complex behaviors.
• Reduces intervention time

• Ex: Self-initiate; presence of initiations may be indicator of more favorable outcomes, and appear to resulting positive changes (i.e., untrained response classes, diversity of talking) 

Compare & Contrast: 

Behavior Cusps & Pivotal Behaviors

• Compare:
  • Behaviors you want to teach first.
  • Behaviors upon which other behaviors are built.

• Contrast:
  • Cusps- About accessing new contingencies of reinforcement.
  • Pivotal- About experiencing corresponding changes in other untrained behaviors (not contingencies).

• Enhancing comprehension of new material due to previous learning.

4 Functions of Problem Behavior

(SEAT)

1. Sensory
2. Escape
3. Attention
4. Tangible

• Coercive punishment-based interventions often selected arbitrarily
• Conducting FBAs decreases reliance on default technologies. 

• Ex: "Go to your room!"

• Hardest; Yields most precise Information

1. Analog Assessment / Functional Analysis
2. Descriptive Direct Assessment
3. Indirect Assessment

• Easiest; Yields least precise information

• Antecedents and consequences are arranged so that their separate effects on behavior can be observed.

• The only FBA method that allows us to confirm hypotheses regarding functional relations between behaviors and environmental events.
• "Analogs"- The arrangement of variables (not the setting in which the assessment occurs).
  • Analog conditions allow for better control of variables.
• Research shows functional analyses done in natural environment yields same results as those done in simulated settings.
• 2 types of functional analyses
  1. Extended Functional Analysis
  2. Brief Functional Analysis

4 Typical Conditions of Functional Analysis

(A.CA.CE.C)

1. Alone
2. Contingent Attention................Social disapproval
3. Contingent Escape...................Academic demand
4. Control...................................Play

• 5th condition- Tangible is used when problem behavior is suspected to be attributed to access to tangibles. 
• Each test condition contains an MO and. potential source of reinforcement for behavior.
• Conditions are presented systematically, one at a time, and in alternating succession until a pattern of problem behavior emerges.
• Iwata

4 Typical Conditions of Functional Analysis

(A.CA.CE.C)

Control / Play Condition

4 Typical Conditions of Functional Analysis

(A.CA.CE.C)

Attention

• The client is given attention and then attention is removed to establish MO.
• If problem behavior occurs, a mild reprimand is given, and attention is removed again.
• Attention / reprimand is delivered for each instance of problem behavior, then removed. 

• If rates of problem behavior are higher in this condition, attention is the maintaining factor. 
• Contingent attention = positive reinforcement
• Tests for positive reinforcement

4 Typical Conditions of Functional Analysis

(A.CA.CE.C)

Escape

• The client is given non-preferred demands repeatedly to establish the MO (i.e. state of satiation for aversive task)
• If client makes no response to the demand, or emits an incorrect response, a correct response is prompted.
• If / each time problem behavior occurs the demand is removed, then later reintroduced.

• If rates of problem behavior are higher in this condition, escape is the maintaining reinforcer.
• Contingent escape = negative reinforcement
• Tests for negative reinforcement

4 Typical Conditions of Functional Analysis

(A.CA.CE.C)

Alone

• The client is in a room without demands or social interaction.
• If / when problem behavior occurs, no consequence is given.

• If the problem behavior occurs in the absence of social consequences, automatic reinforcement is the maintaining reinforcer.
• Alone condition = automatic reinforcement
• tests for automatic reinforcement

4 Typical Conditions of Functional Analysis

(A.CA.CE.C)

Play

• Leisure materials are freely available while attention is given on average of every 30 seconds.
• No consequence is delivered for the occurrence of problem behavior (with the exception of withholding attention until the problem behavior has ceased if it occurred at the 30-second mark where attention was to be delivered).

• If problem behavior occurs in the presence of preferred items, in the absence of demands, and with intermittent attention, automatic reinforcement is the maintaining reinforcer OR another functional analysis may need to be done.
• Control Condition
• Tests for automatic reinforcement.

4 Typical Conditions of Functional Analysis

(A.CA.CE.C)

Tangible

• The client is given access to highly preferred items and or activities for a set amount of time and then those items are removed, and activity is ended to establish MO.
• If / when problem behavior occurs, tangible item / activity is returned resumed for a predetermined period of time, then removed again.

• If problem behavior increases, access to tangibles is the maintaining reinforcer.

• Conducting a functional analysis in a short period of time.
• Systematically manipulating environmental variables to purposely trigger the problem behavior and reinforce it when it happens.
  • Determines which variable is maintaining the behavior.
  • 4 variables: Attention, Escape, Alone, Play
• Each condition is run for 10 minutes.
• Each condition (except alone) must include an MO and S^D that signal reinforcement is available.

• Advantages:
  • Clear demonstration of variables that relate to problem behavior.
  • Standard to which all other forms of FBA are evaluated.
  • Enables development of effective reinforcement-based treatment. 

• Disadvantages:
  • May temporarily strengthen the problem behavior.
  • May result in behavior acquiring new functions.
  • Acceptability is low.
  • Difficult to use for serious or low frequency behaviors.
  • Requires time, effort and professional expertise.

Direct Descriptive FBA

(AKA Descriptive Assessment, Direct Assessment)

• Direct observation of problem behavior under natural conditions.
• Events are NOT arranged in systematic manner.
• Provides data on the occurrence of behavior within the context of the natural environment in which it occurs and also the environmental events that surrounds it.
• Direct assessment, like indirect assessments, are approximations of functional analyses.
• Involves baseline data collection

1. ABC Continuous Recording
2. ABC Narrative Recording
3. Scatter Plot

3 Data Collection Methods for Descriptive FBAs

1. ABC Continuous Recording

• Record occurrences of targeted problem behaviors and selected environmental events within the natural routine during a specified period of time.

• Advantages: 
  • Uses precise measures
  • Provides useful contextual information and correlations regarding environmental events and the problem behavior
  • Calculates conditional probabilities
    • Proportion of teh occurrence of the problem behavior preceded by a specific antecedent.
    • Proportion of the occurrence of problem behavior followed by a specific consequence
    • can be misleading

• Disadvantages:
  • Often antecedents and consequences do not reliably precede and follow particular problem behavior, making correlations difficult to detect.

• The probability that a target behavior will occur in a specific circumstance.
• Looks at proportion of the occurrence of problem behavior
  • Preceded by a specific antecedent
  • Followed by a specific consequence

Formula:

# of Bx preceded by specific antecedent AND/OR             # of Bx followed by specific consequence

Total # of behaviors

• Closer to 1.0 → more convincing the antecedent or consequence functionally related to behavior.
• Taken from ABC data
• Helps hypothesize function of behavior

3 Data Collection Methods for Descriptive FBAs

2. ABC Narrative Recording

• Data are collected only when behaviors of interest are observed
• Recording is open ended
• Can calculate conditional probability
• Difficult to discriminate which environmental events occasion behavior

• Advantages:
  • Less time consuming than continuous recording

• Disadvantages:
  • Utility in identifying behavioral function NOT established
  • May yield false positives because data are collected only when behavior occurs.
  • Antecedent and consequence events may be present when behavior is absent
  • Reliability may be low.
  • Observers may report 'inferred states' rather than events.

3 Data Collection Methods for Descriptive FBAs

3. Scatter Plot

• Procedure for recording the extent to which a target behavior occurs more often at particular times than others.

• Divide day into blocks of time, for each time period enter a symbol to indicate whether or not behavior has occurred / # of occurrences. 
• Analyze patterns to identify temporal distributions of behavior and events that occur at that time.

• Advantages:
  • Identifies time periods when problem behavior occurs.
  • Can be useful in pinpointing periods of the day when focused ABC assessments should be conducted.

• Disadvantages:
  
  • Does not determine function of problem behavior
  • Does not offer replacement behaviors.

• Identifying potential events in the natural setting that correlate with the challenging behavior.
• By gathering information from others who know the individual displaying the challenging behavior
• Methods:
  • Rating scales
  • Checklists
  • Structured interviews
    • Motivation Assessment Scale
    • Motivation Analysis Rating Scale
    • Problem Behavior Questionnaire
    • Functional Analysis Screening Tool (FAST)
    • Questions About Behavioral Function (QABF)

• Advantages:
  • Contributes to hypothesis development about what may be maintaining problem behavior
  • Simple to use because they do not require observations

• Disadvantages:
  • Informants may not be accurate
  • Little research supports the reliability of information obtained.
  • Best used for hypothesis development

• When you decrease behavior you must select an acceptable alternative behavior to be established or increased. 

• Ex: If challenging behavior serves the function of access to tangibles, a functionally equivalent intervention would provide access to tangibles for more appropriate behavior.

Behavior needs to be...

1. Established: When the client does not have the target behavior in their repertoire → skill needs to be taught.
2. Maintained: After the skill is established, or is currently in clients repertoire → must work on maintenance in NATURAL ENVIRONMENT.
3. Increased: When the rate of the target behavior is too low → rate must be increased to acceptable level.
4. Decreased: When the rate of target behavior is too high, → rate must be decreased to acceptable level.

1. Objective: Refer only to observable behavior. Use appropriate examples.
2. Clear: Readable and unambiguous.
3. Complete: Delineates boundaries of a definition.

• Operational Definition: A clear consice and objective, description of the observable & measurable behavior of interest including topography, examples & non-examples, onset & end. 

• The degree to which the treatment and behaviors selected for change, are appropriate, behavior change levels are acceptable, and generate some level of improvement in lives of clients and their stake holders.

• 3 Factors
  • Social significance of the goals
  • Social appropriateness of the procedures
  • Social importance of effects

• Do mediators (i.e., people implementing intervention plan) and others in client's environment agree with procedures.
• If not → may not view interventions as acceptable and may not implement them in the future.

• Success of ABA depends upon effective reinforcement / reinforcers.
• What is reinforcing for one person may not be reinforcing for another.
• Preferences are transitory (not permanent); What was reinforcing once, may not always be reinforcing. Preferences change with age, time of day, presence / absence of MOs. 

1. Stimulus Preference Assessments
2. Reinforcer Assessments

3 Preference Assessments Methods:

• Ask About Preferences
  • Person
  • Significant others
  • Pre-task choice
• Free-Operant Observations
  • Contrived observations
  • Naturalistic observation
• Trial-Based Methods
  • Single stimulus
  • Paired stimulus
  • Multiple stimulus

Reinforcer Assessments

• Concurrent Schedules
• Multiple Schedules
• Progressive Ratio Schedules

• Identifies stimuli that are likely to function as reinforcers

• Procedures to determine:
  • Stimuli a person prefers
  • Relative preference value of stimuli (i.e., high vs. low)
  • Conditions under which preference values change.

3 Preference Assessments Methods

1. Ask About Preferences

1. Ask the target person:
   • Open ended questions
   • Choice format
   • Ranking objects from list
2. Ask significant others:
3. Offer pre-task choice
   • "What do you want to earn for doing ___?"

3 Preference Assessments Methods

2. Free-Operant Observation

• Recording what activities a person engages in when they can choose during a period of unrestricted access to numerous activities.
• Contrived Free-Operant Observation: The practitioner fills the environment with a variety of items the person may like.
• Naturalistic Free-Operant Observation: Conducted in the learner's everyday environment as unobtrusively as possible. Observer records how individual allocates their time with available activities.

3 Ways to Measure Learner's Behavior (During Preference Assessments)

ACE

1. Approach: Any detectable movement towards the stimulus.
2. Contact: Touching or holding the stimulus.
3. Engagement: Time measured in which the person interacts with the stimulus.

3 Preference Assessments Methods

3. Trial-Based Methods

• Stimuli are presented to the learner in a series of trials and the learner's  responses to the stimuli are measured as an index of preference.

3 Types of Trial-Based Stimulus Preferences

1. Paired Stimulus (Forced Choice)
2. Multiple Stimulus
3. Single Stimulus (Successive Choice)

3 Types of Trial-Based Stimulus Preferences

1. Paired Stimulus Preference Assessment

• Simultaneous presentation of 2 stimuli.
• Observer records which of the two stimuli learner chooses.
• Data reflects how many times each stimuli was chosen.
• Stimuli are ranked in order of preference.

• Time consuming → each pair of stimuli must be tested.
• Outperforms single stimulus in identifying reinforcers.

3 Types of Trial-Based Stimulus Preferences

2. Multiple Stimulus Preference Assessment

• Simultaneous presentation of an array of 3 or more stimuli.

1. Multiple Stimulus With Replacement
   • Item chosen remains in the array, the items not chosen are replaced. 
2. Multiple stimulus Without Replacement
   • Chosen item is removed from the array, the order of the remaining items is rearranged, and the next trial begins.

3 Types of Trial-Based Stimulus Preferences

3. Single Stimulus Preference Assessment

• All items to be tested are presented 1 at a time in random order. Approach or rejection responses for each item are recorded as (non/occurrence, duration, frequency).

• Most basic method for assessing preferences.
• Suited for individuals who have hard time choosing between 2 or more items.
• Items are presented 2+ times in varied order.

• Monitor client's behavior prior to assessments: Be aware of MOs.
• Balance cost effectiveness / time consumption.
• Choose brief assessments in time crunch.
• Combine data from multiple assessments when time allows.

• An assessment to identify items that effectively act as a reinforcer under different / changing conditions / circumstances.
• Direct test of potential reinforcers by presenting them contingent upon non/occurrence of behavior.
• Only way to know whether stimulus is a reinforcer is to present it immediately following occurrence of behavior and record ties effects on responding. 

1. Concurrent Schedule
2. Multiple Schedule
3. Progressive Schedule

3 Reinforcer Assessment Schedules

1. Concurrent Schedule Reinforcer Assessment

• Two or more contingencies of reinforcement operate independently and simultaneously for two or more behaviors.
• Pits two stimuli against each other to determine which will produce the larger increase in responding when presented as a consequence for responding
• Shows relative effectiveness of high preference and low preference stimuli as reinforcers.
• MATCHING LAW

3 Reinforcer Assessment Schedules

2. Multiple Schedule Reinforcer Assessment

• Presenting two or more component schedules of reinforcement for a single response, with only one component schedule in effect at a given time
• An S^D signals the presence of each component schedule and that stimulus is present as long as the schedule is in effect.

• Ex: A student may respond to math facts with teacher and tutor. Teacher: responds during small group instruction. Tutor provides 1:1 instruction and practice for math facts. Multiple Schedule: 1 behavior (responding to math facts) S^D in effect for each contingency (teacher / tutor), and different conditions of S^R. 

3 Reinforcer Assessment Schedules

3. Progressive-Ratio Schedule Reinforcer Assessment

• Provides framework for assessing the relative effectiveness of a stimulus as reinforcement as response requirements increase.
• Requirements for reinforcement are increased systematically over time independent of the participant's behavior.
• The practitioner gradually requires more responses per presentation of the preferred stimulus until a breaking point is reached and the response rate declines.

• Ex: Initially each response produces S^R (FR1), then FR2, FR10, FR20 etc. At some point a preferred stimulus may no longer function as reinforcement. 

• Same principle for identifying reinforcers can be used for identifying punishers.
• Same issues for identifying reinforcers stand when identifying punishers. 
  • What may be punishing for one person may not be punishing for another.
  • Stimuli that function as punishers may not always function as punishers for the same person.
  • Punishers are transitory.

• Conducted by measuring negative verbalizations, avoidance behaviors, / movements, escape attempts associated with each potential punishing stimulus.
• Use data from assessments to form hypotheses about relative effectiveness of stimuli to function as punisher.
• Inform practitioners as to intensity of the punisher to effectively decrease or eliminate problem behavior.
• Use the smallest intensity of the punisher necessary to effect desired change.