Prompting & Fading

Prompting and fading are widely used to build new skills by educators. A prompt can be defined, as a hint or antecedent meant to induce a person to perform a desired behavior that otherwise does not occur. Lots of antecedents affect the likelihood of a behavior occurring. So, while prompts are a useful tool in teaching, it’s important to wean the students off them very quickly.

You can wean your child off prompts by fading which is simply gradually reducing the strength of the prompt. Using the example “point to block”, you might gently touch the child’s elbow to induce him/her to point to the block, rather than using an HOH prompt.

Rules for Prompting and Fading
1. Define target behavior. We begin by defining exactly what behavior we want to change. In this case it means defining the behavior we want to prompt.
2. Identify suitable prompts. Choose a prompt that will reliably produce this behavior.
3. Prompt, reinforce and fade. The reason for prompting behavior is so that you can reinforce it. Reinforcement provides the motivation for the child to learn. Since the object of prompting is to get the behavior to appear so that you can reinforce it, it’s important to give the child time to respond. After presenting the prompt, you wait a few seconds before prompting again. The reason for waiting for the few seconds is to see whether the child will attempt a correct response thus letting you know what prompt level to use. As the target behavior appears, begin to fade the prompt.
4. Monitor results. This is essential to know you are progressing satisfactorily.

Here’s a question for feedback, once a child is prompt dependent, how do the educators stop this dependency?

Assignment#4

For our last assignment, we were asked to come up with reinforcers that we can use with our student and the schedule in which we will give these reinforcers. Reinforcement can be given continuously, or intermittently (ratio/interval).
My student’s problem behavior is throwing toys, and the replacement behavior is handing the toy to an adult. At the start of the intervention, reinforcement will be given continuously. Every time she hands a toy to an adult, she will be given a reinforcement. However, the schedule will change to a fixed-ratio schedule such as FR3. Only after the third time she has handed a toy to an adult will she be given a reinforcement. The schedules will change to an FR5, FR10, etc.
I am having difficulties understanding how an interval schedule could be used in the classroom. Is anyone using an interval schedule with their student? Why types of reinforcements are you using with your student and with what schedule of reinforcement?

Shaping Behavior

I'm working with a student and we are working on several behaviors. One of these is that we have been working on increasing his ability to participate and maintain focused during instruction. This has been going well due to the high frequency of reinforcement. But, the main problem now seems to be transitioning from a preferred activity (movie) back to instruction. One thing we have been trying is to try to reinforce his appropriate transitions by immediately transitioning back to a preferred activity after an appropriate transition (these are randomly chosen).

I have been racking my brain to figure out what is reinforcing for this little guy, but being that he is resistant to verbal communications and his reinforcers are limited to movie watching and edibles. I can't figure out how to create an environment for him where I can even start to run his educational goals when I don't have anything reinforcing enough to have him sit and respond for more than a couple minutes.

Setting Events

The textbook defines setting events as circumstances in an individual’s life, ranging from cultural influences to an uncomfortable environment, that temporarily alter the power of reinforcers. I currently have a student who comes from a group home and the second he walks in my door, I can usually tell what kind of morning he has had (and consequently, what kind of morning I will have). Setting events can be powerful influences in a student's life and can be huge determinants in the type of behavior that we can expect to see in our classrooms.

One way to manage setting events is to make sure that we have a good relationship with our students, so that we can identify when we may need to intervene to manage those setting events. One of the strategies that I use with my student is to allow him to take a walk around the building, take a few minutes alone in our conference room, or have him talk to our therapist for a few minutes before he is asked to start his academic day. Does anyone else have any ideas for managing setting events?

Chaining

Chaining is the process of teaching an individual a new skill in sequential form and reinforcing each step along the way. For example, when I tell my student to put his lunch box away the steps involved are: 1) open the lunch box, 2) put all the food containers in the sink, 3) close the lunch box, and 4) put the lunch box away in the cupboard.

There are 2 different types of chaining: forward and backward. Forward chaining is the process of teaching a new skill by beginning with the first step in the "chain", while backward chaining is the process of teaching a new skill in reverse order, or starting with the last link in the "chain".

Can anyone give any examples of this? Are any of you using these skills on your students or can you describe ways that these types of chains may be effective in your classrooms?

Strategies for Decreasing Behavior

First, let me thank Sarah for reminding me to post this new blog entry.

Now, let's have a conversation about how you can integrate differential reinforcement strategies to decrease the problem behavior for the student that you have been conducting your assessment.

For example, if your student's problem behavior is blurting out and the replacement behavior is raising hand quietly and waiting to be called before speaking...then, the problem and replacement behavior would be considered incompatible. The student CANNOT raise hand and remain quiet while blurting out. Therefore, your differential reinforcement strategy for your student would be to use DRI, Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Behavior....the reinforcement you use must be of the same type as the one that the problem behavior typically accesses....so, as you systematically deliver reinforcement contingently each time that the student exhibits the replacement behavior, the student accesses the same function with the replacement behavior, while the problem behavior will be purposefully and systematically NOT reinforced (extiniction) and the problem behavior will naturally decrease.

Use your cases to come up with a formal strategy to decrease your student's problem behavior using one of the differential reinforcement strategies: DRI, DRA, DRO, DRL.

I have crafted the midterm to ensure that all of the content has been covered in class and in your readings...there should be NO surprises.

One more thing, I will be out of town on Tuesday and the midterm exam will be proctored by my student assistant...he has specific directions on administering the exam.

I will have access to my email and the class blog...so, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to post on the blog or email me.

Thanks,

Dr. A

Midterm Review

Midterm Review

Be familiar with the following terms & concepts:

• What is behavior?
• A-B-C's of behavior
• Reinforcement
• Negative Reinforcement
• Punishment
• Know components of and be able to write correct Goals and objectives
• Know the different dimensions of behavior
• Data Collection Procedures (event, latency, duration, etc.) and the type of date each yields
• Agreement check formulas
• Single Subject Designs (AB, Reversal, alternating treatments, changing conditions, etc.)
• Dependent and Independent variables
• Graphing conventions (know different types of graphs and know how to graph and interpret data.)
• Functional analysis and functional assessment (look at chapter 6 notes)
• Shaping
• What is discrimination training?
• What are prompts
• What is stimulus control?
• What is chaining and different types of chaining
• What is generalization and how do you train for it?

Case:
Gary Winston Barnes (GWB) has problems in completing homework assignments in Mr. Harvard's class. Some students in class have commented that Gary is drinking alcohol after school, yet the teacher cannot confirm such allegations. GWB claims to complete assignments, yet at the end of the day, no assignments belonging to Gary are present. Homework is assigned each night yet his current rate of completion is one homework assignment completed per 2-week period. Mr. Harvard wants to increase the number of homework assignments GWB turns in. The teacher suspects that the curriculum may be too advanced for the student and therefore the antecedent is task difficulty. The teacher further suspects that the consequence is task avoidance.

Mr. Harvard's intervention involves reinforcing GWB for asking for alternate assignments, ask for help, or break. When Gary completes partial assignments, he will earn free time in class. Gradually, the teacher will increase expectations and eventually, Gary will have to submit fully completed assignments in order to earn free time during class. As part of the second treatment condition, Mr. Harvard intends to modify assignments to ensure that Gary is being assigned curriculum that is appropriate for his performance level. As the homework completion rate improves, the teacher will further increase expectations and will focus on the accuracy of assignments being submitted by GWB.

During week 1 thru 3, the teacher collects baseline data (Baseline: Phase A)

During weeks 4 through 6 he begins the intervention of allowing GWB to ask for alternate tasks or ask for help/break (Treatment 1: Phase B).

During weeks 7 through 9, the teacher decides to add modifying assignments to make sure they are at student's ability level in addition to allowing JM to ask for break/help/alternate tasks (Treatment 2: Phase C).

During weeks 3-8 Mr. Smith had the Aide collect agreement data.

Baseline - A (# of HW assignments Turned In)

Week 1
Teacher - 1 Observer - Not Obs (NO)

Week 2
Teacher - 1 Observer - Not Obs (NO)

Week 3
Teacher - 1 Observer - 1

Intervention B: ask for alternate tasks or ask for help/break

Week 4
Teacher - 3 Observer - 3

Week 5
Teacher - 3 Observer - 2

Week 6
Teacher - 4 Observer - 3

Intervention C: Modify Assignment in addition to JM asking for alternate task/break/help

Week 7
Teacher - 4 Observer - 4

Week 8
Teacher - 6 Observer - 6

Week 9
Teacher - 5

Questions related to Case:

• Identify the research design:
• Calculate agreement check and tell me if it is acceptable.
• Graph data. Hint: make sure all sections of graph are appropriately labeled (also, don't forget that you DO NOT graph data from the agreement check person)
• Interpret the efficacy of the intervention.