3.5: Select Evidence-Based Treatment Procedures Based on Behavior Contingencies

Conceptually systematic highlights ABA’s reference to the principles and basic concepts of behavioral development (Baer et al., 1968). Predicting why the behavior change occurred relies on the established principles in behavior analysis and the past repertoires of the individual.

One observes the patterns or relationships (i.e., contingency) between stimuli before and after behavioral responses. An example of the contingency between the antecedent and behavior is provided in the following if-then contingency statements: The behavior happens only when the antecedent has happened first, and if the antecedent doesn’t happen, the behavior doesn’t happen. If the antecedent happens, the behavior happens as well. The behavior doesn’t happen unless and until the antecedent has happened first. The repeated and predictable patterns between the antecedent and/or consequent stimuli and the behavior are described as functional relations. The function of behavior refers to the effect the behavior produces on the environment and behavior serves two major functions: to obtain desired events (i.e., objects, attention) or to avoid/escape events (i.e., work, interaction with others). For example, a student may cry as a function to get the desired object but the same behavior for another student may use crying to escape work demands. This is why ABA focuses on the context and contingencies for each student rather than a topography-based intervention, in which all students who engage in the same behavior get the same type of intervention. Interventions focus directly on environmental events that generate and maintain behavior. It’s the antecedents that get the behavior moving but the consequences that keep the behavior going (Daniels, 2000); therefore, ABA interventions arrange contingencies of reinforcement to alter the problematic behavior to make the alternate behavior more effective, efficient, and relevant for the student (Sugai & Horner, 2006).

ABA makes interventions specific to the individual, based on the function the behavior may serve for the person. These can be broadly categorized as function-based (negative or positive reinforcement) and include antecedent-based (i.e., prompts, choice, environmental arrangements) and consequence-based procedures (i.e., positive punishment, token economy, response-cost, differential reinforcement procedures). Antecedent technologies such as modeling, prompting, and prompt-fading are often used to teach new behaviors, or shape new behaviors by reinforcing successive approximations (Alberto & Troutman, 2003). Importantly, larger or more complex skills are broken into component skills (i.e., task analysis) and skills are taught in a specific teaching sequence (i.e., forward chaining, backward, total-task). Instructional procedures like discrete trial training (DTT) or errorless learning have also broken skills into teachable steps then presented in trials, or multiple opportunities, until performance meets a criterion level.