Below is a sampling of terms used in the field. For a more detailed description please visit the references and articles posted to the BACB website: www.bacb.com
| ABA | Applied Behavior Analysis: scientific problem-solving approach to produce socially significant behavior | ||
| antecedent | what occurs in the environment immediately preceding behavior | ||
| baseline | the current measurement of behavior to compare to future data that indicates change/no change | ||
| behavior | any movement of the muscles or glands of a living organism | ||
| behavior plan | a plan that includes agreed upon antecedents and consequences based on function of the behavior | ||
| chaining | backwards (teach last first) or forwards steps of a behavior, ex: brushing teeth | ||
| consequence | what occurs in the environment immediately following behavior | ||
| contingency | if this, then this | ||
| contract | behavior agreement between behaver and deliverer of reinforcement | ||
| deprivation | withholding reinforcement to make it more valuable | ||
| discrete trials | a method of teaching and reinforcing behavior | ||
| duration | how long the behavior occurred ex: he cried for 13 minutes | ||
| errorless | discrete trial format in which prompting is used on each response to avoid errors | ||
| establishing operation | EO: anything that makes a reinforcer more valuable ex: hungry = food more valuable | ||
| expressive | “output” of information, used to check for understanding; ex: what is it? “a ball” | ||
| extinction | completely withholding reinforcement | ||
| extinction burst | behavior has a high spike immediately before decreasing | ||
| fading | moving from high level of reinforcement or prompting to low | ||
| field | the number of items presented; if F = 6, 1 is correct response and 5 are distractors | ||
| frequency | the number of responses ex: 4 pinches, said hello 6 times | ||
| function | Attention, access, escape, sensory | ||
| functional assessment | FBA: collection of information, including direct observation, to determine function | ||
| functional communication | communication that can be understood and reinforced by the general public | ||
| generalization | skill can be performed across different environments, stimuli, and presentors | ||
| latency | the time between the sD and the response | ||
| negative | as in reinforcement/punishment – anything taken away from the environment | ||
| overcorrection | performing a behavior multiple times correctly after misbehavior (shutting door nicely 5x after slam) | ||
| planned ignoring | designated times and procedures for ignoring, ex: look away, walk away | ||
| positive | as in reinforcement/punishment – anything added to the environment | ||
| Premack principal | “grandma’s rule:” low response behavior before high response (vegetables then dessert) | ||
| private behavior | behavior that only the individual can know: feelings, pain, emotions | ||
| prompt | supplemental sD’s that increase the probability of a response; eventually faded to naturally occuring | ||
| prompt dependence | waiting for a prompt before responding, even if the behavior can be done independently | ||
| punishment | anything that decreases the future frequency of behavior | ||
| receptive | “input” of information, used to check for understanding; ex: show me ball (points to ball) | ||
| reinforcement | anything that maintains or increases the future frequency of behavior | ||
| differential reinforcement | |||
| continuous reinforcement | |||
| intermittent reinforcement | |||
| primary reinforcement | |||
| response | the behavior of the organism after an sD | ||
| satiation | repeated presentation of a reinforcer can reduce it’s efficacy ex: using food right after lunch | ||
| sD | Discriminative Stimulus: the change in the environment that tells you reinforcement is available | ||
| shaping | reinforcing successive approximations to the target behavior | ||
| task analysis | breaking the task into steps to teach in small chunks | ||
| taskboard | visual representation of what work, how much work, when am I done, what do I do next | ||
| time out | time away from reinforcement | ||
| token economy | rewarding tokens for appropriate behavior that can be traded in for reinforcement (i.e. money) | ||
| topography | what the behavior looks like | ||