Behavior Acquisition
RBT Task List 3.0 (Section C). Strategies for teaching new skills, reinforcement, and prompting.
Reinforcement Procedures
Reinforcement is ANY stimulus change following a behavior that increases the future frequency of that behavior.
Adding something good (e.g., giving a toy) to increase behavior.
Removing something bad (e.g., stopping a loud noise) to increase behavior.
C.2 Unconditioned vs. Conditioned:
- Unconditioned (Primary): No learning history needed (Food, water, warmth).
- Conditioned (Secondary): Learned value (Money, tokens, praise, stickers).
Discrete-Trial Teaching (DTT)
A structured teaching method where skills are broken down into small, "discrete" components. It involves a specific 3-part cycle.
- SD (Discriminative Stimulus): The instruction (e.g., "Touch Red").
- Response: What the learner does (Touch red card).
- Consequence: Reinforcement (if correct) or Error Correction (if incorrect).
Naturalistic Teaching (NET)
Teaching skills within the environment where they naturally occur. It relies on the learner's current motivation (MO).
RBT-led, structured, often at a table.
Client-led, play-based, natural environment.
Chaining Procedures
Used for teaching complex behaviors (like washing hands) by breaking them into a Task Analysis (small steps).
- Forward Chaining: Teach the FIRST step first; prompt the rest.
- Backward Chaining: Prompt everything until the LAST step; teach the last step first.
- Total Task: Teach all steps in every session (best for clients who know some steps already).
Discrimination Training
Teaching a client to tell the difference between two stimuli. The behavior is reinforced in the presence of one stimulus (SD) but not the other (S-Delta).
Example: Saying "Red" when seeing a red card (Reinforced), but not saying "Red" when seeing a blue card (Extinction).
Prompting & Fading
Prompts are "helps" used to ensure the client answers correctly. You must always have a plan to fade the prompt so the client becomes independent.
- Types: Physical (hand-over-hand), Verbal, Gestural, Model, Visual, Positional.
- Most-to-Least: Start with the most intrusive prompt (Physical) and fade down. (Errorless learning).
- Least-to-Most: Let the client try, then add prompts if they struggle.
Generalization & Maintenance
Using the skill in a new setting, with new people, or with different materials. (e.g., Saying "Hi" to mom AND a teacher).
Continuing to perform the skill over time after teaching has stopped.
Shaping
Reinforcing successive approximations of a target behavior. You reward "baby steps" toward the final goal.
Example: To teach "Bubble," first reinforce "Buh," then "Bub," then "Bubble."
Token Economies
A system where learners earn generalized conditioned reinforcers (tokens, stickers, points) as an immediate consequence for specific behaviors.
- Tokens: Can be exchanged later for backup reinforcers (toys, break time).
- Purpose: Helps bridge the gap between the behavior and the big reward.