Behavior

What are the basic principles of Applied Behavioral Analysis?

ABA is a scientific approach that is used in order to improve "socially significant" human behavior. It sets up the environment to help students be able to learn by teaching and reinforcing appropriate behaviors, providing students with immediate feedback. It also helps for those students whose behaviors are interfering with the learning process (PA Department of Education, 2005).

The basic principles of ABA are the "ABCs" and the use of reinforcement, extinction, punishment, etc. to enhance or modify behaviors that occur.
ABCs are:
Antecedents: what events occur before the behavior occurs
Behavior: the way the child acts (needs to be objective and measurable)
Consequence: the events that occur immediately following the behavior  (Lynch & Van Zelst, Wimba lecture, 2011)

One of the keys to ABA is the analysis piece and showing that there is a functional relationship between the behavior of interest and the events that occur before and after.The relationship between these events  and the behavior that is occurring is analyzed and a plan is devised for changing the behavior (PA Department of Education, 2005).

Be sure to discuss programs which use these principles including: Verbal Behavior, Discrete Trials, Competent Learner Model and any other behavior interventions you find in full. What are each of the theories? What is the research which does/does not support them?

There are several different approaches that use the principles of ABA:

 Verbal Behavior:

• Primary focus is on the teaching of language skills
• Looks at what the child wants at first and teaches him/her how to request for that item (mand) and then label that item (tact)
• Can be in the form of speaking, use of sign language, use of picture systems, or use of communication devices (PA Dept. of Education, 2006).

VB video

Competent Learner Model

• Primary focus is on following the scope and sequence that all learners need to perform well in school and function in daily life
• Has learner assessments to know where the students will begin in the curriculum
• Has a staff training piece
• 7 CLM repertoires are: talker, listener, observer, reader, problem solver, writer, and participator
• CLM provides lessons and is explicit in what is expected of the instructor and the learner
• Learner progress is monitored across instructors and conditions to ensure carryover (Competent Learner Model: Overview, 2008)

CLM video

(features many of my co-workers from IU 17)

CLM case studies

Discrete Trial Training:

• Meant to be administered in a distraction-free area with 1:1 instruction
• Each trial has 5 parts (cue, prompt, response, consequence, intertrial interval (which is a brief waiting period before completing another trial))
• Reinforcers are carefully selected
• DT limitations: children are learning to not initiate behaviors on their own without clear cues from another individual, skills may not transfer to other environments, it is labor intensive (Smith, 2001).
• One study I read found that embedded instruction (use of existing routines for the context of instruction) proved to give more correct responses, less self-injury, and lower mood ratings for a child with autism than did DT. DT can be an effective strategy, but it may be more beneficial to begin with embedded instruction, especially for children with autism who inflict self-injury when demands are placed, before moving to DT strategies (Sigafoos, et. al, 2006).

DT video

In a study that took a small sample from groups in DT, VB, and CLM programs, the CLM model was shown to produce the largest improvements in academic scores, but not to the degree of keeping up with normal development. They also found that the DT and VB instruction deviated from the written approaches that were to be expected; whereas CLM approaches matched their written strategies. (Hineline & Axelrod, n.d.).

Competent Learner Model: Overview (2008). Retrieved from: www.pattan.net/files/CLM/CLM-Mini-Overview.ppt

Hineline, P.N. & Axelrod, S. (Principal Investigators), n.d. Summary of Research Supported by the Organization for Autism Research For the Period January 2007 through September 2009. Retrieved from Misericordia University Blackboard.

Pennsylvania Department of Education (2005). An Introduction to Applied Behavior Analysis.

Pennsylvania Department of Education. (2006). Pennsylvania Verbal Behavior Project Family Handbook.

Sigafoos, J., O'Reilly, M., Hui Ma, C.. Edrisinha, C. Cannella, H., & Lancioni, G.E. (2006). Effects of Embedded Instruction Versus Discrete Trial Training on Self-Injury, Correct Responding, and Mood in a Child with Autism. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 31(4), 196-203.

Smith, T. (2001). Discrete Trial Training in the Treatment of Autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 16 (2), 86-92.