Chapter 9
The behavioral process of differentiating responses and concepts is
Discrimination
Generalization: A Misunderstood Concept
A. Generalization 1. A behavioral process in which learned responses are extended to new stimuli, new situations, and expanded into novel kinds of responses. 2. Generalization refers only to an initial spread of response that may take place; it does not refer to maintenance of that response. 3. Generalized responses are not maintained unless reinforced, even if Occasionally. How does that happen? B. Generalization and Discrimination 1. Generalization is the basis for new learning with little explicit instruction 2. Discrimination - the behavioral process of differentiating responses and concepts 3. Overgeneralization a) Often called overextension b) For example, a child who has learned the word ball may call all round objects balls - this is very common in early word learning 4. Overdiscrimination a) Often called underextension - this is also very common in early word learning b) For example, a child may learn the household pet is a cat, but not apply the word to any other cats 5. Differential reinforcement - Desirable responses to a specific stimulus are reinforced and undesirable responses to the same stimulus are not reinforced; this is the way children learn appropriate generalization and discrimination 6. There are several types of generalization: a) Stimulus generalization - The production of already learned responses in relation to novel but similar stimuli. What does this look like, do you think? b) Setting generalization - The production of responses learned in one setting in new settings that are not involved in training. What are some other settings besides the speech room or our office? c) Conversational partner generalization - The production of new skills in the presence of people who were not involved in treatment d) Response generalization - The production of novel responses that are similar to those that were trained 7. While generalization serves as an intermediate step toward establishing behaviors in natural settings, maintenance of target behaviors in natural settings should be considered the final goal of treatment.
Maintenance: Going beyond Clinical Treatment
A. Initial production of target behavior in natural settings - called generalized production - may not assure the eventual success of treatment. B. Language skills should last in the child's natural environment - they should be maintained. C. Failure to obtain generalized productions with children with various disabilities is common-some of the concepts we teach don't generalize easily, depending on who we are treating. For example, kids with mental retardation don't tend to easily generalize things that are taught out of context. So, we need to go into their world to teach key concepts b/c the speech room is not the place.
Maintenance: Skills That Last in Natural Settings
A. Maintenance - The continued production of clinically established skills across time and situations B. It is necessary to program maintenance so that the natural setting becomes a discriminative stimulus for the target behaviors the child is learning C. More easily accomplished when treatment procedures used for maintenance in the natural setting are the same as those used for establishing the behavior in the clinic setting. We need to be as naturalistic as possible.
Strategies to Promote Skill Maintenance
A. The clinician's task is twofold: 1. Diminishing the differences between the clinic and natural settings 2. Teaching significant others in the child's environment to be the child's effective communication partners who evoke and reinforce new skills B. Clinicians must plan for eventual maintenance of language skills from the very beginning of treatment, even when choosing target behaviors C. Effective maintenance strategies include four kinds of operations: 1. Structure and nature of treatment sessions 2. Management of stimuli 3. Management of responses 4. Management of consequences D. Structure of treatment sessions 1. Degree of structure used in treatment sessions will vary according to the stage of treatment and the characteristics of the child. 2. The clinician should tailor the structure to suit the child. a) Children who need training for basic language skills likely require discrete trial-based, tightly structured treatment sessions. b) Children who need training for more advanced language structures, should receive more naturalistic, conversation-oriented treatment; this is a level that more easily promotes maintenance. After all you read in the last few chapters, what do you think this looks like? E. Management of treatment stimuli 1. Stimulus items used in treatment should help extend control over correct responses produced in the natural environment 2. Control is more likely to be achieved if the clinician selects stimuli that include: a) physical stimuli from the child's natural environment - yes! Functional objects and, if need be, pictures b) verbal stimuli the child is likely to encounter in natural settings -what might those be? c) variations in conversational partners and physical settings - siblings, parents, friends, other relatives 3. Physical stimuli from the child's natural environment a) Selection of stimulus items should be client- and family specific b) Stimuli selected from the child's own environment will acquire discriminative value in evoking target behaviors from the child in the clinic setting. c) When the child encounters those stimuli in the natural setting, target behaviors may be similarly evoked. d) Objects are preferred over pictures, particularly in the early stages of treatment - why? 4. Verbal stimuli from natural settings a) In initial stages of treatment, it is necessary to provide uniform verbal stimuli and models. b) Verbal stimuli should consist of questions or phrases that are commonly heard in the child's environment (e.g., "What's this?" rather than "Label this picture."). Makes sense - how would the response be elicited in a real conversation? 5. Variations in conversational partners and physical setting a) The clinician and the clinic room can become discriminative stimuli to a child. We don't want to be the only person the child with do the behavior with. b) The child may produce desired responses only in the presence of a particular clinician administering treatment in a particular clinic room. c) The clinician should recruit different conversational partners and vary the physical settings in which the child is reinforced for producing the language skills. G. Management of Responses 1. Selecting target behaviors a) Clinicians should consider maintenance potential when selecting target behaviors b) Target behaviors should: (i) Be suitable to the child's ethnocultural background and environment (ii) Be useful to the child - this is key. If the child won't use it every day, then it's not functional. 2. Selecting multiple and varied exemplars a) Teach enough varied exemplars to promote maintenance; the number varies across children b) If exemplars are not varied, children may become stimulus bound, with the correct response becoming dependent upon the presentation of the same stimuli 3. Giving sufficient treatment on all levels of response topography a) Sometimes, a clinician may terminate treatment too early, without sufficiently reinforcing a behavior on the level of conversational speech b) Sometimes, a clinician may fail to move swiftly through the treatment sequence to arrive at conversational speech - that's why we often set goals like, will do ________ with 90% accuracy across 3 of 4 sessions H. Management of Consequences 1. Strategies in managing consequences that will promote maintenance include: a) Careful management of response consequences b) Use of naturally occurring consequences as reinforcers - these are much more functional c) Teaching contingency management to significant others in the child's environment d) Teaching the child self-monitoring skills e) Teaching the child to ask for reinforcement (contingency priming) 2. Management of response consequences a) As soon as possible, the clinician should move from a continuous schedule of reinforcement to an intermittent one b) In final stages of treatment, the clinician should delay delivery of response consequences to see if the skills are still sustained. 3. Use of naturally occurring consequences a) Maintenance will be promoted if the clinician uses naturally occurring consequences b) Sometimes, it is necessary to use primary reinforcement to establish a behavior - this should be faded as quickly as possible because primary reinforcement is not usually given in the natural environment. c) For one class of verbal behaviors, mands, primary reinforcement may be a natural consequence of a response (e.g., "Want cookie!" may be naturally rewarded by giving the child a cookie - love it!) d) Conditioned generalized reinforcement is similar to what happens in the natural environment when people use money to buy "back-up" reinforcers." e) Warm verbal praise should always be given along with any other type of reinforcement, as it is likely to be given in the child's environment. 4. Teaching contingency management to others in the child's environment a) The people who regularly interact with the child should be taught to prompt correct productions, reinforce correct productions, and give gentle corrective feedback for incorrect productions. b) The final treatment strategy - extending treatment to naturalistic settings 5. Teaching self-monitoring and contingency priming skills a) Self-monitoring - a teachable skill that includes self-evaluation and self-correction (i) Teach the child to evaluate his or her own responses by charting along with the clinician (ii) A child who is making good progress will be intrinsically reinforced by charting to keep track of session to- session progress - kids love to see how they're doing on a chart. Then, you can say "OK last time you got 80%, let's see if you can beat that today and we'll graph it." (iii)Leads to self-correction b) Contingency priming (i) Adults in the environment may forget to reinforce the child. (ii) The child can be taught to remind adults to reinforce correct productions (e.g., "Hey! I said foot that time instead of feets! Pretty good, huh?"). VI. Follow-Up and Booster Treatment A. Follow-up assessment monitors maintenance of language behaviors in natural settings. B. Follow-up assessment consists of a probe of conversational speech and analysis of language samples gathered in clinical and natural settings. C. If language skills learned in clinic are low, booster treatment should be given D. Booster treatment - A brief round of therapy offered after a period following dismissal from the original treatment. E. May be necessary also to refresh the evoking and reinforcing skills of significant others in the child's environment.
Bypassing the Problem: Home-Based Treatment of Children
A. When teaching takes place at home, generalized productions are more likely - why does that make so much sense? B. Maintenance is also more likely to take place with home-based treatment. C. A growing body of research has shown good results for a variety of home-based interventions. D. Clinicians should therefore include in their treatment plans a substantial component for parent education. They are with the kids way more than we are!
A behavioral process in which learned responses are extended to new stimuli, new situations, and expanded into novel kinds of responses is
Generalization
The continued production of clinically established skills across time and situations is
Maintenance
Techniques that help extend treatment to natural settings are called
Maintenance techniques
What types of stimuli are most likely to promote maintenance of a target behavior in natural environments?
Maintenance, or the continued production of clinically established skills across time and situations, is promoted by the use of verbal stimuli the child is likely to encounter in natural settings, physical stimuli from the child's natural environment, along with variations in conversational partners (include family members in treatment) and physical setting (work in the home if possible).
Why is self-monitoring so important?
Self monitoring (which involves self-evaluation and self-correction) is important because it strengthens the target behavior (you have to understand it to be able to evaluate it) and it helps maintain correct responses when no one is around to provide reinforcement.
A teachable skill that includes self-evaluation and self-correction is
Self-monitoring
