Jessica Hearne, MA, BCBA

 Preference is a greater liking for one alternative over another  Chocolate ice cream vs vanilla ice cream  Hiking vs canoeing  Coffee vs tea  Everyone has preferences, including the children that we work with. The purpose of this presentation will be to help you as professionals identify preferences of those that you might work or interact with.

 An assessment that identifies stimuli that are likely to serve as reinforcers  Reinforcers are stimuli that cause the preceding behavior to increase  Reinforcer assessment puts the potential reinforcers to a direct test by presenting them contingent on occurrences of a behavior and measuring any effects on response rate

So what is the difference?  A preference may indicate a person’s likely reinforcers, which can be measured by the time allocated to engaging with an item or selections of items While,  Reinforcers increase behavior

 Application: I like to go out to dinner, watch movies, and exercise. After getting home from work I prefer to watch a movie rather than go running. Whereas when I first wake up in the morning I prefer to go running rather than watching a movie. This is my preference.

 Preferences frequently change, they can vary day to day, or even minute to minute  Reasons preferences change -age -satiation -environmental arrangements  We must be constantly mindful of preference changes and work to identify them

 Anytime motivators need to be established  Increase in challenging behavior is seen  Slow acquisition rate  Poor/low responding from the individual

 Caregiver interview  Direct observation  Formal or informal assessment

 Preferences come in all shapes and forms  Tangible  Sensory  Activity  Item  Edible  Social  Verbal  Physical

 Measuring engagement/approach of items or activities that are freely available Example: watching what a student engages with during their free time  Pros  No demands placed  No items removed  Easy to implement & record data  More naturalistic  Cons  Can be time consuming  No information given on hierarchy of preference (least preferred to most preferred)

 Single Stimulus- one item presented and reaction is recorded. Items presented several times in varied order  Approach, touch, manipulate, or reject entirely.  Frequency or duration  Must be presented several times in a varied order.  Mixture of sensory systems (visual, auditory, vestibular, tactile, multisensory, etc)

 Pros  Most basic method for assessing preference  Well suited for individual who have a hard time selecting among 2 or more stimuli  Cons  May yield false positives. Participants may approach all stimuli and be identified as preferred but may not function as reinforcers. 

 Paired Stimuli- Two stimuli are presented and data is taken on which one was chosen. After every possible pair is presented, data displays how many times each stimulus is chosen.

 Pros  Identifies a hierarchy of preferred stimuli  May yield better results for identifying reinforcers  Cons  Longer administration time (difficult in a school or clinic setting)  May produce challenging behaviors due to stimulus withdrawal 

 Three or more stimuli are presented simultaneously.  Multiple stimulus WITH replacement Three or more stimuli are presented simultaneously, items ARE replaced after selection occurs  Multiple stimulus WITHOUT replacement Three or more stimuli are presented simultaneously, items are NOT replaced after selection occurs 

 Pros  Assessment time is reduced  More accurate in identifying preference than single stimulus- allows hierarchy to be made  Cons  May produce challenging behavior  Difficulty scanning or attending

 Approach- any detectable movement toward the stimulus  Contact- touching or holding the item  Engagement- total time or percentage of intervals in which the person contacts the items

 Child’s history of behaviors  Child’s skill level  Procedural considerations  Amount of time  Variety of items  Access to items  Do not prompt  Challenging behaviors

 What if the child doesn’t display interest in any items I chose?  He only likes the Mickey doll, if he always chooses this why would I do a preference assessment?  She loves books, but every time we try to earn challenging behavior happens.  This child chooses the same item every time but doesn’t seem very motivated to work for it

Date/ InitialsActivity playedDuration of time engagedAttitude towards activity Preference Data Sheet 3: Was really into the activity, thought it was really fun and interesting. 2: Was neutral towards the activity- neither really happy nor upset by it. 1: Did not enjoy the activity or was upset by the activity.

 Cooper J.O, Heron T.E, Heward W.L. Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson;  Fisher W.W, Piazza, C.C, Roane H.S. Handbook of applied behavior analysis. New York, NY: The Guilford Press; 2011.