Chapter 9 Developing Appropriate Behavior with Fading

Review Stimulus Control Group exercise from Chapter 8

Fading Fading: The gradual change, on successive trials, of a stimulus that controls a response, so that the response eventually occurs to a partially changed or completely new stimulus. Examples: teaching a child to walk, ride bike, or any physical skill wherein the teacher gradually decreases physical prompts.

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Fading Choice of Final Desired Stimulus: choose a stimulus that will elicit a response that will be reinforced naturally. Choice of starting stimulus: Choose Prompts that will reliably elicit the desired behavior. Prompts: may be physical, gestural, modeling, verbal, environmental, etc. Choice of Fading Steps: Trial and error to go the right speed in changing stimuli gradually while still eliciting the response.

Getting a New Behavior to Occur: Shaping Chapter 10 Getting a New Behavior to Occur: Shaping

Shaping Shaping or ”the method of successive approximations” The development of a new behavior by the successive reinforcement of closer approximations and the extinguishing of preceding approximations of the behavior.

Shaping (cont.) Aspects of behavior that can be shaped Topography: movements involved in the behavior (writing) Amount: frequency and/or duration (studying) Latency: Time between stimulus and response (reaction time) Intensity: Physical effect of response (athletes)

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Shaping Specifying the terminal behavior: clear definition. Choosing a Starting Behavior: must occur often enough to be reinforced frequently but also approximate the terminal behavior. Choosing the Shaping Steps: Trial and error determine how fast to move through approximation steps. General rule is obtain 60% correct response before moving on to next approximation.

Getting a New Sequence of Behaviors to Occur with Behavioral Chaining Chapter 11 Getting a New Sequence of Behaviors to Occur with Behavioral Chaining

Chaining Stimulus-Response Chaining: A sequence of SDs and responses in which each response except the last produces the SD (and a conditioned reinforcer) for the next response and the last response is typically followed by a reinforcer.

Chaining Are all behavioral sequences behavioral chains? No, not if there are breaks between the behaviors such that the behavior is not an SD for the next behavior

Chaining Methods for Teaching a Behavior Chain Total Task Presentation: attempt all steps in forward sequence, prompts are provided (and FADED) when needed throughout and a reinforcer is provided at the end. Backward Chaining: Teach last step first, then the second to the last, link them together, and so on to the first step. Prompts may be FADED with each step. Forward Chaining: Like backward chaining, but forward

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Chaining Identify the Components of the Final Sequence: TASK ANALYSIS Make the steps distinct from each other and don’t bite off more than the learner can chew. Consider Independent Prompts: verbal recitations, written (job descriptions) or picture prompts. Modeling Trial?

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Chaining (cont.) Train the Behavioral Chain: Using one of the three methods. Reinforce each step if necessary. Fade assistance at each step as quickly as possible.