BEFORE CONDITIONS AND DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULI Week 4

Before the Trial  In many cases, what happens before the behavior is just as important as what happens after  Finding strong reinforcers, obtaining the child’s attention, and delivering the S D all are crucial aspects of the learning opportunity  We will review why these things are important, discuss how you can lose points, look at good and bad performances, and give you a few tips to improve your skills 2

Monitoring Criteria  Preference Assessment  Attending  S D as written  Intonation  These are the areas listed on the monitoring form, however, supervisors may give warnings or deduct points for other actions or inactions during the before condition 3

Preference Assessments  If you do not have an effective reinforcer, you will probably not see good performance  Just because a reinforcer has been working for a few minutes doesn’t mean it will continue working  Therefore, it is crucial to frequently identify and consistently use strong reinforcers 4

Preference Assessments  Reinforcer assessment versus Preference assessment  A preference assessment can be as simple as “which one” before a trial begins Mix up the choices frequently  Even if your child is performing well, you should still do a preference assessment every 4-5 trials  Using PECS to perform preference assessments can help you to identify strong reinforcers 5

Preference Assessments  For token economies  Typically, one preference assessment per set of trials will be sufficient  However, your child’s preferences may change, and it is ok to switch icons during a procedure  What to watch out for  Too many preference assessments in a row  Too frequent  Escape/attention/tangible maintained behavior 6

Preference Assessments  Videos  Example of reinforcer assessment – table and booth  Example of correct behavior (35, Departure w/TE)  Example of incorrect behavior (33)  One “real life” example, pick out positives and negatives (good attending and pref assess)  Reminder of what you will lose points for  Using ineffective reinforcers and not adjusting  Too many preference assessments 7

Attending  If the child does not attend to the S D, then the S D may as well not exist  An S D signals the availability of reinforcement or punishment, but it can’t be a signal if the organism doesn’t notice it  Several things that the child may have to attend to  Materials  Auditory stimuli  Comparison/sample stimuli  Models 8

Attending  How to gain the child’s attention  Use of reinforcers  Reinforcing eye contact and other appropriate behaviors when they occur  ELOs  Reducing extraneous distractions  What NOT to do  Blinders  Excessive attention/showing reinforcers 9

Attending  Videos  Good tutor performance (Good attending…, IM phrases))  Poor tutor performance (33-1:35)  “Real life” example (35)  Reminder of criteria/point loss  Delivering S D without attention  Losing attention through patterns of behavior/pacing 10

S D as Written  Consistency is important when running discrete trials  With up to three different tutors on any given day, it is important that the child is exposed to consistent instructions  It is important to be familiar with each phase of each procedure when running them  The S D may change from phase to phase 11

S D as Written  Videos  Good performance  Poor performance  “real life” example (IM phrases)  How to lose points  Incorrect topography of S D Wrong words Wrong prompts  Delivering S D at wrong times  Delivering S D too many or too few times 12

Intonation  We try to deliver the S D in a neutral tone  This should make it easier for the children to discriminate between an S D and social reinforcement  The S D should not be too fast or too slow, too high pitched or too low pitched 13

Intonation  Videos (or just live examples)  Good performance  Poor performance  “Real life” example (IM phrases)  How to lose points  S D is not clear  S D is too “happy” or “sad” 14

Supervisor’s Discretion  The four areas listed on the monitoring form have been covered  But there are many other behaviors that happen before the child’s response that may fall into this category  Your supervisor will warn you on the first occurrence, and take points off for any additional occurrences 15

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? 16