Registered Behavior Technician

Applied

The field of ABA focuses on changing behaviors that are important to society. The principles and procedures of ABA are powerful and could be used to change just about any behavior, but we believe it is important to use our limited amount of time and resources to improve the behavior that matter the most.

Generalized Outcomes

The goal of ABA is to produce important behavior changes that generalize to all relevant aspects of a learner's life. For example, if a child was only potty trained at school but not at home, the problem would clearly not be solved. The lack of generalization from school to home would be considered unacceptable and intervention would need to be continued until the individual is continent in all settings.

Effective

The goal of ABA is to produce substantial changes in behaviors that matter. We are not interested in a statistically significant effect if it did not make a meaningful difference in the learner's life. For example, decreasing hitting oneself 100 times per day to 90 times per day is better than nothing. But if is still hitting oneself 90 times per day, the problem is not solved. An ABA intervention would be expected to decrease the behavior to a level that is reasonable for the client to live with on a daily basis.

Multiple Stimulus Preference Assessment

The multiple stimulus preference assessment is a procedure that can be conducted much more quickly and can therefore be a good choice for learners who have the ability to scan multiple items before making a choice. The multiple stimulus procedure should usually only be conducted with between three and seven items. To conduct the multiple stimulus procedure, place all items in a line on a table in front of the learner and ask her to choose one. If she tries to choose more than one at a time, block access to all items and re-present the trial. When the learner picks an item, record which item was chosen and allow her to consume it/interact with it for 30 seconds. Then represent the remaining items and allow the learner to choose again. Repeat this process until no items remain. Summarize the data by ordering the items in terms os the sequence in which they were chosen. Items chosen earlier are likely to be effective reinforcers. To make the results more reliable, repeat it once or twice and average the data.

Narrative ABC Data

To record narrative ABC data, you watch the learner and every time the target challenging behavior occurs, you write that down, as well as writing down what happened immediately before and after (i.e. the immediate antecedents and consequences). Remember to only write down what you can direct observe, not inferences. After a substantial number of antecedents, behaviors, and consequences have occurred, your supervising BCBA will summarize the data and analyze it according to what functions it suggests.

Stimulus

Any object or event that occurs in a person's environment. For something to count as a stimulus for a particular person at a particular time, that person has to have seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled that object or event. Examples include the sight of an apple, a loud noise, the smell of cookies, someone saying "Hi" to you, and so on.

Behavior

Anything a person says or does. Also known as a response. Examples include saying "Can I have some water please?, hitting someone, crying, washing your hands, playing with a toy, reading a book, and so on.

Guideline for Effective Use of Tokens

* Follow the earls for earning tokens in the skill acquisition plan accurately (e.g. every time the learner does one specific behavior, she earns a token) * Make sure the learner sees that she earned a token (it is often a good idea to give it to her and her place it in the jar, on the board, or wherever else tokens are stored until they are exchanged for a reinforcer) * Give the learner the token immediately after the behavior that meets the criterion

Tips for Effective Delivery of Reinforcement

* Immediate. You should give the learner the reinforcer as quickly as possible after the behavior you are trying to reinforce occurs (e.g. within 1 second, if possible) * Enthusiastic. Make sure to be upbeat and enthusiastic when you praise as reinforcement. * Contingent. Make sure the learner really needs to do the behavior to get the reinforcer. If the learner can get the reinforcer for free without doing the behavior you are trying to reinforce, then your reinforcement procedure will work as well * Large Enough. Make sure the amount of the reinforcer you are giving is big enough for the reinforcer to be effective. For example, 30 seconds of a video game might not be long enough for the game to be fun and it might not be an effective reinforcer, whereas a minute or 2 minutes might be enough * Specific. It is usually a good idea to name the behavior when you give reinforcement (e.g. "Check you out, you got your shoes!") * Use Expansions. When reinforcing verbal behavior, it is often a good idea to model expansions of the verbal behavior you are reinforcing. For example, if you are giving the learner a reinforcer for labeling a red dog "red," you might say, "That's right it's a red dog" rather than saying "That's right, it's red." * Maximize Motivating Operations. For a reinforcer to work best, the learner should not have already received a lot of it recently

Frequent Brief Multiple Stimulus Assessments

A common and very practical way to implement preference assessments throughout the day is to conduct one-trial stimulus assessments before each new program, lesson, or activity, or any time you believe the learner's motivation is lagging (decreasing attention, slower at responding to instructions, etc.). To implement frequent brief multiple stimulus assessments, simply present two or three times and ask the learner to select one. Whichever item the learner selects is the reinforcer that you will use during instruction until the next brief multiple stimulus assessment is conducted or until the learner independently asks to earn a different reinforcer. Conducting these assessments about once every 10 minutes or so ensures that your reinforcement procedures are sensitive to what the learner prefers in the moment. Data from these frequent one-trial assessments can be averaged across the day to summarize relative preference between the many items assessed, across the day.

Positive Reinforcement

A consequence of a behavior that involves adding something to the person's environment, which increases the future strength of that behavior. For example, a learner says, "Hug please," gets a hug, and then is more likely to say, "Hug please" the next time he wants a hug. Saying, "Hug please" is the behavior and getting a hug is the positive reinforcer that strengthened that behavior.

Negative Reinforcement

A consequence of a behavior that involves removing something from or postponing in the person's environment, which increases the future strength of that behavior. For example, a child with autism says, "Break please," his teacher removes his work, and he is then more likely to say, "Break please" the next time he wants a break. Saying, "Break please" is the behavior and having work removed is the negative reinforcer that strengthens that behavior. Note the term "negative" simply means something is removed, it does not mean negative as bad or undesirable.

Discriminative Stimulus

A discriminative stimulus is the antecedent stimulus that has stimulus control over behavior because the behavior was reliably reinforced in the presence of that stimulus in the past. Discriminative stimuli set the occasion for behaviors that have been reinforced in their presence in the past. In the example above, the grandma is the discriminative stimulus for the behavior of asking for candy. In nontechnical terms, a discriminative stimulus tells the person what behavior is going to get reinforced - it signals the availability of a particular reinforcer for a particular behavior

Identifying the Items to Include in the Preference Assessment

A preference assessment is only as good as the items that you pick to include in it, so you need to ensure that you pick a variety of items that the learner likes. To do this, ask knowledgeable caregivers. Identify 6-12 items that satisfy a variety of senses (i.e. things the learner would like to see, hear, touch, and so on).

Motivating Operation

An antecedent changes the potency of a consequence as a reinforcer. Motivating operations are divided into two types: (1) Establishing operations and (2) Abolishing operations. Establishing operations increase the potency of a consequence as a reinforcer and temporarily evoke behavior. For example, if an adult with autism has not eaten in a few hours, food becomes a stronger reinforcer and she is likely to ask for food or do other behaviors that have gotten her food in the past. Abolishing operations decrease the potency of a consequence as a reinforcer and temporarily suppress behavior. For example, if an adolescent with autism has just finished a large glass of water, water is no longer a powerful reinforcer at that moment and she is not likely to ask for water. Later on, if she has not had water again for a long time, then the lack of water will be an establishing operation, which makes water a powerful reinforcer.

Essential Components of a Written Skill Acquisition Plan

A skill acquisition plan is a written document that specifies how you are doing to teach a particular skill to the learner you are working with. It is important to follow the skill acquisition plan carefully and for all behavior technicians working with that learner to implement the plan with high consistency. * Terminal Skill or Goal: Skill acquisition plans should specify the overall target to be taught. The play may also describe the overall purpose. Purpose-Driven Programming. Keep in mind where you are headed when teaching a skill and be careful to not get lost in the details, it is the big picture that really matters. * Teaching Procedures: Skill acquisition plans should specify what teaching procedures are to be used for that plan. * Materials: Skill acquisition plans will likely specify the particular teaching materials you will need to run the program. * Preparing the Learning Environment: Generally speaking, you should always minimize distractions and have appropriate reinforcers available. If there are any particular ways in which you need to prepare the environment, the skill acquisition plan should specify these. Arrange the environment for success to prevent challenging behavior: * Position yourself between the learner and door to prevent elopement * Clear table of extraneous materials to prevent throwing * Ready materials prior to calling the listener over to prevent unnecessary waiting and resulting in problem behavior * Instruction: The skill acquisition plan should specify what instructions to deliver Target Response: The skill acquisition plan will then specify what particular target responses you are expecting from the learner. It is important for the skill acquisition plan to clearly define what counts and what does not count as a correct response so all behavior technicians on the team can implement the program consistently. If you are not clear on what response you should be looking for from the learner, ask the supervising BCBA before running the program. Use common sense. Be flexible with what you accept as a correct response if the learner is demonstrating the skill, but in a slightly different way than you expect (e.g. child is identifying a label wheather she points to it or hands it to you). * Reinforcement: A skill acquisition plan may or may not specify what particular reinforcers to use for that plan. This is because reinforcers for most skill acquisition plans should be changed frequently, depending on the moment to moment preferences of the learner. The skill acquisition plan should also specify the schedule of reinforcement that is to be implemented for a target skill. * Teaching Targets or Exemplars: Virtually all of the skills you will teach learners with ASD have multiple different targets or exemplars you will need to teach. Sometimes these many different target component skills will be listed on the skill acquisition plan but often there are too many to list ad so they may be contained on a separate document, sometimes called an "ideas sheet," "target list." * Session Preparation: Always remember that every moment is a teachable moment. Ensure that a learner is engaged in something functional while you prepare for session. Continue to engage the child as you prepare and be ready to intervene if challenging behaviors arise.

Consequence

A stimulus that occurred in a person's environment immediately following a behavior. For example, a child has a tantrum and gets candy. The tantrum is the behavior and candy is the consequence. Consequence in ABA terms does not mean what it means in everyday usage, where consequences implies negative consequence or punishment. In ABA terms, a consequence can either be preferred, non preferred, or neutral. It simply means whatever happened immediately after behavior.

Antecedent

A stimulus that occurred in a person's environment immediately preceding a behavior. For example, a child's mother says, "Time to turn off the tv" and the child has a tantrum. When considering the child's behavior, the mother asking him to turn off the television is the antecedent and the tantrum is the child's behavior.

Prompt

An extra antecedent stimulus that helps a person engage in a particular behavior. Hints and cues are examples of prompts. For example, when teaching a child with autism her name, a behavior technician asks the child "What is your name?" and then models it for her by saying "Andrea." In this example, when the behavior technician says "Andrea," it is a prompt. By definition, prompts are extra help that you want to fade out as soon as possible, so learners do not become dependent on them.

Duration

Duration recording is another way to directly measuring a behavior as it occurs in real time. To record duration data, note the moment at which the behavior begins and the moment at which the behavior ends, thereby recording the total duration of time that behavior occurred. This can be done with a stopwatch, timer, or computerized data collection app. Each time the behavior occurs these measurements are taken. The data for a whole session are then recorded in a logbook or spreadsheet by totaling the total duration of time the behavior occurred during that session. If sessions have different durations, then the total duration of behavior for a session can be divided by the total duration of that session and multiplied by 100, yielding a percent duration for that session. For example, if a session was 100 minutes long and a child engaged in tantrums for a total of 10 minutes out of that 100 minutes, then the percentage of that session would be 10% duration for tantrums. Average duration can also be calculated by adding up the total duration and dividing it by the number of occurrences of the behavior. Depending on how you record duration data, you may also be automatically recording the frequency of the behavior, since you are recording the beginning and end of each occurrence of that behavior. Duration data can be preferable over frequency data alone when the duration of the behavior changes significantly from one occurrence to another. For example, if on Monday Johnny has five tantrums that are each 1 minute in duration and then on Tuesday he has five tantrums that are each 10 minutes in duration, and you only recorded frequency data, then the frequency would appear to be the same on both days, when in reality, the total amount of time spent in tantrums was 10 minutes more on Tuesday. The disadvantage of duration data is that it can be burden to collect because it requires the technician to do something at the beginning and end of each instance of behavior. Sample Behaviors Measured with Duration Recording: * How long tantrums last * Length of social play during recess * How long it takes a child to get dressed

Continuous Measurement

Generally speaking, continuous measurement of behavior is preferred over discontinuous measurement because continuous measurement records all of the behavior as it actually occurs during an observation, not an estimate of it. Frequency and duration recording are the most important types of continuous measurement.

Technological

In scientific terms, technological means that a procedure is described clearly enough so that other people could replicate it. It is important because if ABA procedures are not clearly described, it will not be possible for others to learn from them and to use them with the clients with whom they work with.

Percentage

Many important skills for individuals with autism have discrete opportunities to occur. For example, when teaching a child her name, the behavior technician might ask the child, "What is your name?", to which the child might respond correctly or incorrectly. When initially teaching this skill, the rate of this response and the duration of this response are not usually what matter the most. The most important dimension of the behavior is the accuracy, so you would most often measure whether the important dimension of the behavior is the accuracy, so you would most often measure whether the learner responded correctly or incorrectly, each time the behavior technician asked the child her name. The total number of correct responses would then be divided by the total number of time the question was asked, and then multiplied by 100, yielding a percentage of correct responding. Each opportunity or trial for the learner to respond is on a row on the data sheet. Sample Behaviors Measured with Percentage Recording: * Response to instructions * Responding to others' greetings * Percentage of bites consumed

Extinction

No longer providing reinforcement for a behavior that used to be reinforced, resulting in a decrease in that behavior in the future. For example, if a child had tantrums in order to avoid cleaning her room, and her mother no longer allows her to escape from cleaning her room when she has a tantrum, then tantrums decrease in the future. In another example, if an adult with ASD who lives in a group home uses appropriate communication to try to get attention of a staff member, but the staff member does not respond, then the person with autism is less likely to use appropriate communication to get her attention in the future.

Observable and Measurable Descriptions of Behavior and Environment

Operational definitions are definitions of behavior that tell you what behaviors to observe and exactly which individual occurrences should be recorded. Good operational definitions should be: * Objective. Operational definitions only include directly observable aspects of behavior (e.g. hitting), not unobservable internal states (e.g. frustration). * Clear. Operational definitions should be unambiguous. Anyone, without any prior knowledge of the behavior, should be able to understand the definition. A good test is that a person who has never seen the behavior can "act it out" from the definition. * Complete. The definition includes all of the information necessary for you to discriminate between the behavior and other behaviors that are similar but do not count. Including specific examples and non examples is often helpful. * Individualized. The particular forms of behavior that one individual displays will likely be different from those of another. For example, Jimmy's aggression might include hitting and kicking, whereas Sally's might include pinching and scratching.

Behavioral

Our subject matter is behavior and behavior includes everything people say and do. We focus on observable behavior because that is what we can measure ant that is where we can make a difference. For example, we focus on decreasing aggression much more than we focus on anger, we focus on increasing exercise more than increasing feelings of self-efficacy, and we focus on decreasing smoking more than decreasing urges to smoke.

Skill Acquisition Assessment Procedures

Popular examples include the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP 2008), the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills - Revised (ABLLS-R 2008), and the PEAK: Relational Training System. Other skill acquisition assessments might require that you merely observe the learner, without asking her to do anything, and simply record data on her behavior. The particular skill acquisition assessment procedures you will conduct will be completely different for each learner and for each skill being assessed. Generally speaking, you do not provide prompts or cues during skill acquisition assessments. In addition, some skill acquisition procedures require that you do not provide any consequences (e.g. reinforcement or error correction) to the learner because you are looking for a pure test of what the learner can do, without any support from others.

Contingencies of Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is the basis of everything we do in ABA. Positive reinforcement is the basic concept that explains why people do what they do throughout their everyday lives. Positive reinforcement is the primary source of motivation of all human behavior and for everything we try to teach in ABA programs for individuals with ASD. The consequence of everything we do affects how we do it and whether we do it in the future. Some consequences are highly motivating. Some consequences have a very large effect on our behavior, even so large that we may only have to learn a lesson once. Reinforcement is a type of consequence that, by definition, has an effect on behavior in that it makes you do that behavior more in the future. Behaviors that result in highly desirable outcomes are likely to be repeated again in the future. Reinforcement is a consequence that results in an increase or maintenance in the future probability of a behavior. Put another way, reinforcement is a consequence that strengthens behavior. Reinforcement works equally well on desired and undesired behaviors. Another critically important thing to know about reinforcement is that it is completely idiosyncratic. In other words, what might be reinforcing to you will not necessarily be reinforcing to others. The only thing that makes something a reinforcer for someone is that it works to increase their behavior. Never assume something is going to be a reinforcer until you see it working.

Preference Assessments

Preference assessments are procedures that you conduct to help predict what consequences you can deliver to the learner that are likely to work as reinforcers. Since reinforcement is the single most important part of being an effective behavior technician, preference assessments are quite crucial. A variety of preference assessment procedures have been shown to be effective in research.

Ratio Schedules of Reinforcement

Ratio schedules of reinforcement specify how many occurrences of a target response are required before reinforcement is delivered. A fixed ratio (FR) schedule of reinforcement is when a reinforcer is delivered after a set amount of target responses. For example, after every five correct responses during DTT, the learner earns 1-minute break (FR5). A variable ration (VR) schedule of reinforcement is when a reinforcer is delivered after an average number of occurrences of the target response. * Schedules of reinforcement that specify the amount of time that must pass since the last reinforcer was given, before the behavior can be reinforced again are called interval schedules. A fixed interval (FI) schedule of reinforcement is when a behavior is reinforced after an established "fixed" amount of time since the last reinforcer was given. * A variable interval (VI) schedule of reinforcement is when the first occurrence of a target response is reinforced after an average amount of time.

Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence Data

Recording antecedents, what happens in the environment immediately before a behavior, and recording consequences, what happens in the environment immediately after a behavior, is called Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) Recording. ABC recording helps the BCBA figure out what effect the behavior has on the environment because it reveals how the behavior changes the environment. The most common antecedents you will look for and record are low attention, denied access to preferred item or activity, or the presence of a demand. The most common consequences you will look for and record are someone giving the learner attention, getting access to preferred item or activity (or not having to share or give it up), and escape from/reduction/postponement of a demand. There are a large variety of ways to collect data on these antecedents and consequences, but most of them can be described as either narrative or structured. For all ABC data, you want to directly observe the learner in the various settings in the natural environment where the challenging behavior usually occurs.

Negative Reinforcement

Reinforcement can be further sub classified in terms of whether something is given or taken away from the person's environment. The term positive refers to something being given. The term negative refers to something being taken away. So, positive reinforcement is a consequence that is added to a person's environment that results in a future strengthening of that behavior. Negative reinforcement is the removal of a consequence that results in an increase in the behavior that resulted in that removal. As such, negative reinforcement can increase either appropriate or inappropriate behaviors, depending on how we deliver it. To recap, positive reinforcement is when doing a behavior results in being given something preferred, while negative reinforcement is when doing a behavior results in taking away something non preferred. Both are reinforcement because the increase the strength of a given behavior.

Rate

Sometimes when you collect data on a learner's behavior, the amount of time that you observe and collect data might change from one day or session to the next. If you merely look at the frequency of the behavior across these different time periods, it might look like the behavior is happening more or less when actually it is just because you observed for longer or shorter and therefore had more or less opportunity to see the behavior. For example, if you observed for 1 hour on Monday and you recorded five instances of hitting and then you observed again on Tuesday for 2 hours and again observed five instances of hitting, and you only graph the raw frequency data, then you might believe the behavior was occurring the same amount on both days. In reality, the behavior occurred at double the rate on Monday as it did on Tuesday. If these same frequency data are instead converted into rate, then this difference would be clear. Frequency data can be converted into frequency per minute, per hour, frequency per day, or frequency per month, depending on what time scale you evaluate. In order to convert frequency data to rate, you simply divide the total frequency recorded during an observation by the duration of that observation.

Frequency

The simplest way to directly measure behavior is to collect frequency data by tallying how many times that behavior occurs. Examples of frequency data include counting the number of times a child requests a break from work during a session, the number of times that an adult with autism hits himself, the number of times an adolescent makes a conversational initiation to a peer, and the number of times a child asks to use the restroom. An advantage of frequency data is that it is the most common sense way to measure behavior - you merely count how many times it happens. The disadvantage of frequency data is that it can be difficult to collect accurately if the behavior happens at a high rate, if the behavior does not have a clear beginning or end, or if the technician collecting data is also responsible for many other duties at the same time. Sample Behaviors Measured with Frequency/Rate Recording: * Raising hand in class * Asking for desired items * Biting nails * Hitting caretaker

Single Item Preference Assessment

The single item preference assessment was the first preference assessment developed and it is the simplest. To do it, simply present one item at a time to the learner and record whether he consumes/interacts with it, makes no response to it, or avoids it (e.g. cries, throws it, etc.). For non edible items, allow the learner to interact with the item for 30 seconds and then present the next trial. Present all the items on your list in random order. Present each item three times total. Tally the number of times each items was consumed/interacted with

Generalization

The spreading of the effects of intervention to outside intervention. For example, a behavior technician teaches a child with autism to share with playing with toys with the technician and then the child shares her toys when she plays with her brother.

Continuous and Intermittent Schedules of Reinforcement

The timing and frequency with which you give reinforcement is called the schedule of reinforcement. With continuous reinforcement, a particular behavior results in a particular reinforcer every time the behavior occurs. Intermittent reinforcement schedules are schedules in which a particular behavior produces a particular consequence, but not every time the behavior occurs.

Seven Dimension of ABA

Three of the founding fathers of ABA, Wolf, and Risley, published a discussion article in 1968 that defined and discussed seven dimensions that characterized the field of ABA. Decades later, these same seven dimensions continue to define ABA and it is well worth it to learn them and consider them on a daily basis as you work with children diagnosed with autism.

Baseline/Probing

To baseline a skill, present the instruction without a prompt and record the learner's response. Some agencies and schools reinforce correct responses during baseline and some do not. The rationale for reinforcing during baseline is that you want to encourage correct responding - you do not want to put it on extinction. But the rationale for not reinforcing correct responding during baseline is that it could influence how accurate the learner is going to be throughout baseline and therefore will give you less pure test of the learner's ability. In addition, various agencies and schools differ in terms of the length and extent of baseline that they conduct. The minimum is a single trial or probe of a skill. All other things being equal, the more trials you conduct, the more accurate baseline you will get, but the more time you take away from teaching and the more you run the risk or evoking problem behavior by allowing the learner to fail repeatedly and not giving help in the form of prompting.

Paired Choice Preference Assessment

To conduct a paired choice assessment, you first need to designate how you are going to pair each item with every other item once. You can randomly pair items yourself. All you need to do is randomly decide which item is item one, two, etc. For each pair that you present, allow the learner to only choose one. If she reaches for more than one, take both items away and represent the trial. For each trial, record the one item that the learner consumes/interacts with. If the learner does not respond or refuses both items, record that, and present the next trial. If you are including a large number of items in your paired choice assessment, you may need to schedule more than one session to finish the assessment. When all trials have been presented, tally the number of times each item was chosen and consumed/interacted with, divide that by the total number of opportunities the learner ha to choose it, and multiplied that by 100, giving you a percentage of times each item was chosen. Items with higher percentages are more likely to be effective reinforcers than items that were chosen less.

Structured ABC Data

To record structured ABC data, your supervision BCBA will provide you with a data sheet that has specific categories of antecedents, behavior, and consequences. Each time a target challenging behavior occurs, you indicate with circling or check marks which antecedents, behaviors, and consequences occurred. Keep in mind that often more than one antecedent or consequence may occur and check all that apply. Be extra careful to pay enough attention to notice all of the things that are happening in the learner's environment immediately before the behavior and all of the changes that the learner's behavior produced in the environment (e.g. gets more attention, gets to escape from work, gets access to preferred item). The most common mistake that behavior technicians make during ABC data collection is writing down inferences that refer to things that aren't actually observable (e.g. inner states, events from the past). Make sure to only record what you actually see and hear, not what you feel.

Conditioned and Unconditioned Reinforcement

Unconditioned reinforcement is where the effectiveness of a reinforcer does not depend on a learning history. Instead, that consequence is a reinforcer simply due to genetics and natural selection in the evolution of the species. Examples of unconditioned positive reinforcers are food when a person is hungry (i.e. food deprived), water when a person is thirsty (i.e. water deprived), warmth when a person is cold, and sweet and salty flavors. Examples of unconditioned negative reinforcers are escape from extreme temperatures, escape from loud noises, and escape from physically painful stimuli. All of these are unconditioned reinforcer because people did not need to learn them to become reinforcers, they are reinforcers for all humans. Reinforcers that have acquired their effectiveness because of the learning history of the person are called conditioned reinforcers. They are reinforcers that are acquired during the lifetime of the person and they vary greatly from person to person. The most common way in which stimuli become conditioned reinforcers is by being paired with existing reinforcers. A major goal of working with learners with ASD is to establish stimuli for which the learner is not motivated at first (e.g. attention) to be reinforcers by repeatedly pairing them with stimuli that are already reinforcers (e.g. video games, food, etc.). For this reason, it is usually a good idea to praise the learner when you give her a reinforcer. By repeatedly praising when you give reinforcers, you are pairing praise with potent reinforcement and are therefore conditioning praise to be a reinforcer in the future. * Tokens: Token reinforcement is a common method for maintaining motivation with learners with ASD. Tokens are conditioned reinforcers that the learner earns for correct responses, which she can exchange later for more powerful reinforcers. When doing discrete trial training with a young learner with autism, it is common to create a "token board."

Analytic

We analyze the ways in which changes in a person's environment affect their behavior and we strive to demonstrate this through careful and systematic manipulation of the environment to observe changes in behavior. We carefully measure behavior before and after intervention and we sometimes (especially in research) use experimental designs to demonstrate how environment controls behavior. We attempt to rule out all other possible explanations for behavior change. We are skeptical of our own effectiveness and we want to know what really works. We hold our procedures accountable for their effectiveness.

Conceptually Systematic

We strive to understand the effects of everything we do in terms of the basic principles of learning and motivation that come from decades of research in behavior analysis. It is not enough to merely notice that a procedure works. We strive to understand why it works in terms of behavioral principles. Becoming fluent at understanding all of human behavior in terms of behavioral principles takes a lifetime of practice, but you will immediately start to recognize examples of all the principles in your daily life. Thinking like this will help you understand why what we do with learners with autism works and it will help you troubleshoot want to when things are not working.

Stimulus Control

When a behavior is reduced in the presence of a particular antecedent stimulus and is not reinforced in the absence of that stimulus, the behavior comes to occur reliably in the presence of that stimulus. For example, if a child's grandmother usually gives a child candy when the child asks for it, then the child will reliably ask for candy when grandma came over.