Building Behaviors

1. Building Behaviors Vermont BI Conference 2012

2. Skill Building • Specifically teach behaviors and skills which are functional alternatives to challenging behaviors • Behaviors may be in the learner’s repertoire or may have to be shaped over time

3. What are behaviors that you might look to increase? List some positive behaviors to teach: • Playground • Lunchroom • Classroom

4. On Task Following class routine Work completion Making eye contact Following directions Gentle hands Polite words Self-calming Taking good time-outs Friendship skills Complementing others Greeting others Asking for help Manding Personal space/boundaries Specific problem solving skills Some Alternative Skills To Teach

5. Reinforcement • A behavior is followed by an event (consequence) which serves to strengthen that behavior • Behavior  Consequence  More Behavior • it is only reinforcement if the behavior increases consequently • Increases the probability of the behavior occurring again

6. Reinforcement Types of Reinforcement • Positive reinforcement • Obtain a reward • Negative reinforcement • Avoid an aversive event

7. Reinforcement OUR DAILY LIVES ARE FILLED WITH REINFORCERS FOR THE BEHAVIORS WE ENGAGE IN: Setting an alarm clock gets us up on time Buying groceries gets us food to eat Laying out our clothes the night before gets us to work quicker Being with our loved ones gives us enjoyment and fulfillment Watching a comedy makes us laugh Taking an aspirin makes us feel better Infant crying produces a loving mom or dad

8. Social Activity Token/Symbolic Sensory Tangible Edible/Drink Types of Reinforcers

9. Premack Principle • Grandma’s Rule- You have to eat your peas before you get your dessert.

10. SELECTING REINFORCERS • Learn your clients interests, activities, hobbies • How/where do they spend their time • What do they do a lot of • Ask the client • Ask parents • Trial and error

11. Reinforcer Assessment Activity • Interview neighbor • Identify possible reinforcers • Prioritize top three reinforcers

12. Increasing the Effectiveness of Reinforcement • Contingency • Immediacy • Power • Schedule or Timing of Reinforcement • Deprivation vs. Satiation

13. How immediate does reinforcement have to occur following a behavior for it to be effective? • The more immediate, the stronger the effect. • This is especially true for individual with significant communication deficits.

14. Building Behavioral Momentum “Layering” Of Reinforcement • Immediately • Throughout The Day • End Of Day • Throughout The Week Vary High and Low Probability Demands

15. A Simple Example of layered reinforcement • Behavior=Talking out in class • Present Reinforcer=Attention • Prosocial Skills=Raising hand to obtain attention

16. A Simple Example (cont.) • Reinforcement • Immediate • Call on child when hand is raised, specific praise • Throughout the day • Stars on chart for raising hand to get attention or • Sticker on chart after classes in which hand raising happens, specific praise

17. A Simple Example (cont.) • Reinforcement (cont.) • Throughout/End of day • Activity reward/privilege for earning a specific number of stars • End of week • Bigger activity reward for having a “good week”

18. Building Behavior Differential Reinforcement • Consistently reinforce alternative or incompatible behaviors while withholding reinforcement for problematic behaviors • Discussed in depth in “Decreasing Behaviors”

19. Helpful hints for effective use of reinforcement • Set an easily achieved initial expectation for reinforcement. • Look at what the current performance. • You can fade reinforcement by expecting higher levels of performance before reinforcement. • “reinforce abundantly, but don’t give way the store.” • Evaluate reinforcers frequently.

20. Helpful hints for effective use of reinforcement (need to Cooper it up) • Use direct rather than indirect contingencies when possible (ex. Putting M&M in jar vs. giving M&M to student for opening jar) • Combine response prompts and R+ • Reinforce each occurrence of the behavior initially

21. Helpful hints for effective use of reinforcement. • Use contingent attention and descriptive praise • Gradually decrease frequency of reinforcement over time • Gradually shift from contrived to naturally occurring reinforcers

22. Non-contingent reinforcement • Reinforcement delivered on a schedule and not contingent on behavior • May decrease problem behaviors because the reinforcment they were seeking is now available freely and frequently • Think of an example where this might be effective

23. Functional communication training • Teaching appropriate communicative behavior to replace problem behaviors • Teaching strategies paired with differential reinforcement is used • Think of examples where you have or could have used FCT

24. A document that specifies a contingent relationship between a specific behavior and a specific reinforcer. 3 major components A description of the task (who, what, when, how well) A description of the reward (who, what, when, how much) Task record (a place to record task completion) Contingency contracts

25. Contingency Contracts • Task: the task side of the contract consists of four parts • Who is the person who will be performing the task and getting the reward • What is the task or behavior the person must perform • When identifies the time that the task must be completed • How well tells the specifics of the task • Reward side of behavioral contract must be as specific and complete as the task side • WHO: the person that will be judging task completion and control delivery of the reward • WHAT: is the reward • WHEN: specifies the time that the reward can be received by the person earning it • HOW MUCH: is the amount of reward that can be earned

26. Contingency Contracts GUIDELINES: • Contracts must be fair • Contracts must be clear • Contracts must be honest

27. Token Economies • Behavior change system with 3 components: • Specified list of target behaviors • Tokens that participant(s) receive for emitting target behaviors • A menu of back-up reinforcer items that participant(s) exchange for their earned tokens • Share an example of a token system

28. Examples of Token Systems

29. Examples of Token Systems

30. Examples of Token Systems Tokens embedded in data sheet

31. Examples of Token Systems

32. Level systems • Type of token economy in which participants move up/down between different levels which are associated with different privileges and different amounts of independence and expectations

33. Group contingencies • A common consequence (usually a reward) is contingent on the behavior of one member, one part, or the whole of a group. • Ex: paw prints at Vergennes Elementary • Independent Group Contingency= same reinforcement and behavior expectation, only those that achieve the goal get R+ • Dependent Group Contingency= whole group recieves R+ based on the behavior of an individual or small group • Interdependent Group Contingency= all individuals in group must meet expectations for all to receive R+

34. What skills are needed to be able to learn new behaviors from these methods? • Imitation- being able to copy a model either verbally or behaviorally • Following verbal directions (not just compliance, but also auditory discrimination and receptive and expressive language skills. • What do you do if a student doesn’t have these skills? • They will need specific programming to teach those skills • You can use shaping and chaining

35. Shaping • “Shaping is the process of systematically and differentially reinforcing successive approximations to a terminal behavior. Shaping is used in many everyday situations to help learners acquire new behaviors.” (p.421) Cooper, J.O., Heron, T.E., & Heward, W.L. (2007) Applied Behavioral Analysis (2nd Ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ; Pearson Education

36. Examples of behaviors that can be taught through shaping • Signing “more” • Vocalizations • Ex: • Note: this technique is not often use alone, but is often a component of teaching, but is often paired with other techniques or a way to teach small components of larger behaviors. It can be especially helpful when teaching students who have weak imitation skills or limited verbal behaviors.

37. Differential Reinforcement • The process of reinforcing target responses behaviors and not reinforcing other responses. • Game time: Chose someone to be “it” and send them out of the room. The rest of the people decide what behavior they want to shape “it” to do. Keep it simple, like jumping or tapping the table. Decide how to reinforce the person when they are doing the target behavior. Let “it” back in the room and teach them to do the behavior through shaping.

38. Task analysis and behavior chains • A behavior chain, simply, is a chain of behaviors that all link up to reach a end result. Each behavior link is the cue for the next behavior and causes a stimulus change that becomes the reinforcement for the previous behavior. • Example: Brushing teeth • End result: clean teeth and task completion • Analysis of a link in the chain: • Turning the water on. This causes the water to run which reinforces the action of turning the handle on the faucet. Seeing the water running is a visual cue for the next step of wetting the toothbrush.

39. Task Analysis • Breaking a complex skill or chain of behaviors into smaller teachable units • Should be individualized according to age, skill level, and prior experience with the task. • Created by: • Observing competent individuals perform the task • Consultation with an expert • Performing and analyzing the task oneself

40. Task Analysis Practice: • Break off into groups of 3-4 • Select a task and student from the hat • As a group, create a task analysis for that skill. • Try completing that skill by following the directions, adjust if needed.

41. Assessing the learner’s ability to perform the action • Single opportunity method • Assess of the learner’s ability to perform the behaviors in the task in the correct order. Cue them to start and once an error is made, all subsequent steps are marked as incorrect • Multiple opportunity method • Assesses the learner’s ability to perform each behavior in the task regardless of success with the previous task. • Complete at least 3 trials

42. Teaching with chaining • Forward chaining • The task is taught in its naturally occurring order. • Total-task chaining • The task is taught at each step for every session. • Backward chaining • The task is initially completed by the instructor except for the final behavior in the chain. When the learner master’s the final step, instruction moves to the next-to last step.

43. Chaining Exercise • Pair off • Each pair will be assigned a picture to teach/learn (Already broken into steps) through chaining. • Decide which method of chaining to use • Decide how to teach steps (modeling, verbal direction, shaping, hand over hand) • Decide reinforcement method • Take turns being the teacher and student.

44. Things that effect behavior: Motivational Operations • A motivational operation (MO) is something that changes either the value of a reinforcer OR changes the frequency of a behavior. Also referred to as establishing operations. • It is very important to be aware of MOs when implementing behavior plans. • Often these are the things that are out of your control that may be effecting how effective your supports are and the student’s behavior.

45. The effects of MOs Reinforcement: Smarties • MO that increases the value of Smarties: • Hunger, less Smarties available, new commercials on TV about Smarties, you are the only source of Smarties, it’s new and novel • MO that decreases the value of Smarties • Satiation, Smarties freely available, toothache, Smarties not cool anymore, illness, flooded with sugary snacks, overuse of this reinforcer

46. The effects of MOsBehavior: eating lunch • MOs that increase the frequency of behavior • Hunger, favorite meal is being served, more food available, more choices • MOs that decrease the frequency of behavior • Not hungry, preferred food isn’t available, other activities are competing with lunch (loud conversations), toothaches, illness, had a giant Arizona Ice Tea at snack

47. Things that effect behavior:Setting Events • Setting events are things that can impact behavior and treatment efficacy that are not directly related to the target behaviors or your interventions • Related to MOs, setting events are things that may be out of your control, but are important to be aware of. • Examples: Illness, how the morning went, injury, social interactions, past performance, sleep patterns

48. Antecedent Techniques • Eliminate the cue for the problem behavior • Provide cues for alternative prosocial behaviors • Reduce the motivation for the reinforcer maintaining the challenging behavior • Increase the motivation for the reinforcer maintaining the alternative, more desirable behavior • Increase the response effort for the problem behavior

49. Antecedent Techniques • Decrease response effort for the alternative behavior • Modify the environment to increase the consistency and predictability of expectations • Schedules • Maximize opportunities for choice and control • Clear, concise expectations • Modify curriculum/expectations to maximize independent success

50. Antecedent Techiques Cueing Procedures • Obtain attention first • State cue/direction using only a few words known to be in the student’s repertoire • Wait for client to respond---avoid repetitive verbal cues • Monitor cooperation • Praise/reinforce cooperation