APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS:

Improving the Quality of Life of Children with Autism

& Other Developmental Disorders

Presented by:

DR. LOLITA D. SERRANO

 Learning Objectives:
The participants shall be able to:

1. Gain knowledge of the

basic principles of
functional assessment of
behaviour problems;

2. Apply techniques of direct

behavioural assessment
used in functional
assessment;
 Learning Objectives:
The participants shall be able to:

3. Assess the reinforces to use in

interventions, clinical
applications of behaviour
analytic interventions to reach
socially meaningful outcomes;

4. Acquire skill in the rudiments of

repeated measurement to make
data-based decisions about
intervention effectiveness and
evidence-based strategies to
promote social competence.
DISCUSSIONS WILL BE FOCUSED ON EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES
Exceptional Children who are in need of ABA Therapy Services &
Other developmental disorders
 Autism spectrum disorders (ASD):

After a child's primary care

physician and/or parent, caregiver
notices a delay in developmental
milestones, a referral to a specialist
is made. The following specialists
typically are the ones who
"diagnose" a child with autism:
1. Developmental paediatricians
2. Clinical psychologists
3. Psychiatrists
4. Neurologists
5. SPED Diagnostician

These individuals use The Diagnostic and

Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders,
Fifth Edition (DSM-V), to make a clinical
diagnosis.
Identify areas of need
for intervention:
A new condition in the diagnostic
category of communication
disorders: Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder
(SCD). SCD is marked by difficulties with pragmatics—aka
practical everyday use—or the social use of language and
communication. Therefore, SCD is concerned with an
individual’s use of verbal and nonverbal social communication
in everyday life.
Fruit salad model by Donna Williams explains that there is no one type of autism. Autism is
“not one condition” therefore there is “no one-size-fits-all approach which will best
fit all the people diagnosed with autism”. Everything grows differently and will always
depend on how the child was brought up and the child’s environment conditions.
 “Applied Behavior Analysis is the process of
systematically applying interventions based
upon the principles of learning theory to
improve socially significant behaviors to a
meaningful degree, and to demonstrate that
the interventions employed are responsible
for the improvement in behavior.“
ABA therapy is an empirically-supported, data-
driven, behavioral approach to the treatment of
ASD. ABA targets the reduction/acquisition of
socially-significant behaviors, resulting in
meaningful improvements in the individual's
communication, behavior, social, play, daily
living/self-care, and academic skills.
Video: Operant Conditioning
SOCIALLY SIGNIFICANT BEHAVIORS

"Socially significant behaviors" include reading,

academics, social skills, communication, and
adaptive living skills.
Adaptive living skills include gross and fine
motor skills, eating and food preparation,
toileting, dressing, personal self-care, domestic
skills, time and punctuality, money and value,
home and community orientation, and work
skills.
ABA methods are used to support persons with autism in
at least six ways:

1. to increase behaviors (eg reinforcement procedures

increase on-task behavior, or social interactions);

2. to teach new skills (eg, systematic instruction and

reinforcement procedures teach functional life skills,
communication skills, or social skills);

3. to maintain behaviors (eg, teaching self control and

self-monitoring procedures to maintain and generalize
job-related social skills);
4. to generalize or to transfer behavior from one situation or
response to another (eg, from completing assignments in
the resource room to performing as well in the mainstream
classroom);

5. to restrict or narrow conditions under which interfering

behaviors occur (eg, modifying the learning environment);
and

6. to reduce interfering behaviors (eg, self injury or

stereotype).

ABA is an objective discipline. ABA focuses on the

reliable measurement and objective evaluation of
observable behavior.
Watch the video:
Basic Principles of Behavior Analysis
Some principles of Behavior Analysis are:
•Behavior is strengthened or weakened by its
consequences.
•Behavior responds better to positive rather than negative
consequences.
•Whether a behavior is punished or reinforced is only
known by the behavior in the future (reinforcement =
strengthens; and punishment = weakens).
Behavior is changed when we know the
function, or purpose of the behavior.
The antecedent provides information about what
triggers the behavior and the consequences provide
information about what maintains the behavior.
When we know the trigger, we can prevent the
behavior. Conversely, when we know what maintains
the behavior, we can change how we respond to the
behavior.
ANTECEDENTS:

When identifying the antecedents, consider these

questions:
- Where does the behavior happen?
- With whom does the behavior occur?
- When does the behavior happen?
- What activity is the behavior occurring during?
- What are other students doing when the behavior
begins?
- What are other teachers/adults doing when the
behavior begins?
It is also helpful to consider possible contributing
factors, such as:

•Specific staff
•Proximity of others
•Noise level in the classroom
•Number of individuals in the area
Other environmental conditions: lighting, door
(open/closed), noise in hallway, etc.
Additionally, it is valuable to take into account
distant antecedents/setting events such as:

o Medication changes

o Family/Home Variables (e.g. visiting family

members, divorce, birth of a sibling, etc.)

oCurrent health status of the student

CONSEQUENCES:

Consequences are events that immediately follow a

behavior. The kind of consequence (positive,
negative, or neutral) exerts a powerful influence on
whether a person will engage in that behavior again.
 Date Time Antecedent Behavior Consequence Function

4/14/17 9:30 Teacher Kicks chair Peer motivates Escape/attention

announces it is George; peer
time for disrupted

writing
4/14/17 9:45 Teacher Head on desk Time - out escape
handover the & scream
paper to cut

5/15/17 9:40 Teacher George stood Teacher escape/attention

instructs up and roams prompted him
George to around the to sit down
listen room
5/15/17 9:55 Teacher George run out George was escape
instructs to go from teh room sent to the time-
back to his out room
seat
5/15/17 10:05 Teacher George pulls George was escape/attention
instructs to the hair of his sent to the
Geroge to gt classmate Guidance
his crayons office
 ABC Analysis

Think-pair-share
Watch the Videos:
Give at least three (3) examples on the
theory of Operant Conditioning
according to Skinner.

1.
2.
3.
Examples:
During 15th and end of the month of working =
received paycheck = continue working
Sleeping late = waking up late = cramming in going
to work
Eating healthy food = have physically fit body =
maintain eating healthy food

Give at least three examples of your own

experience on the theory of Pavlov.
Classical Conditioning

Examples:
Sound of ambulance = association with emergency
Seeing a Catholic church = association to making the
sign of a cross
Sound of alarm clock = association that it is a time
to wake up
Application: Social learning Theory:
Social learning theory has been applied extensively
to the understanding of aggression (Bandura, 1973)
and psychological disorders, particularly in the
context of behavior modification (Bandura, 1969). It
is also the theoretical foundation for the technique
of behavior modeling which is widely used in
training programs. In recent years, Bandura has
focused his work on the concept of self-efficacy in a
variety of contexts (e.g., Bandura, 1997).
Examples:

The most common (and pervasive) examples of social

learning situations are television commercials.
Commercials suggest that drinking a certain beverage
or using a particular hair shampoo will make us
popular and win the admiration of attractive people.
Depending upon the component processes involved
(such as attention or motivation), we may model the
behavior shown in the commercial and buy the
product being advertised.
Principles:

1. The highest level of observational learning is

achieved by first organizing and rehearsing the
modeled behavior symbolically and then
enacting it overtly. Coding modeled behavior
into words, labels or images results in better
retention than simply observing.

2. Individuals are more likely to adopt a modeled

behavior if it results in outcomes they value.
Watch this video : Bandura Social Learning Theory – view video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjTxQy_U3ac
 Give three (3) examples of Social
Learning theory according to Bandura.

1.
2.
3.
The following steps are involved in the observational
learning and modeling process:

•Attention: In order to learn, you need to be

paying attention.

•Retention: The ability to store information is also

an important part of the learning process.
•Reproduction: Once you have paid attention to the
model and retained the information, it is time to
actually perform the behavior you observed

•Motivation: Finally, in order for observational

learning to be successful, you have to be motivated
to imitate the behavior that has been modeled.
Reinforcement and punishment play an important
role in motivation.
RELIABLE MEASUREMENT

Reliable measurement requires that behaviors are defined

objectively. Vague terms such as anger, depression,
aggression or tantrums are redefined in observable and
quantifiable terms, so their frequency, duration or other
measurable properties can be directly recorded (Sulzer-
Azaroff & Mayer, 1991).
For example, a goal to reduce a child's aggressive behavior
might define "aggression" as: "attempts, episodes or
occurrences (each separated by 10 seconds) of biting,
scratching, pinching or pulling hair." "Initiating social
interaction with peers" might be defined as: "looking at
classmate and verbalizing an appropriate greeting."
This process includes the following components:

1. selection of interfering behavior or behavioral

skill deficit

2. identification of goals and objectives

3. establishment of a method of measuring target

behaviors

4. evaluation of the current levels of performance

(baseline)
5. design and implementation of the interventions
that teach new skills and/or reduce interfering
behaviors

5. continuous measurement of target behaviors to

determine the effectiveness of the intervention,
and

6. ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of the

intervention, with modifications made as
necessary to maintain and/or increase both the
effectiveness and the efficiency of the
intervention. (MADSEC, 2000, p. 21-23)
DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING

Discrete trial training (DTT) is a particular ABA

teaching strategy which enables the learner to
acquire complex skills and behaviors by first
mastering the subcomponents of the targeted skill.

For example, if one wishes to teach a child to

request a a desired interaction, as in "I want to
play," one might first teach subcomponents of this
skill, such as the individual sounds comprising each
word of the request, or labeling enjoyable leisure
activities as "play."
Once the individual components are acquired, they
are linked together to enable mastery of the
targeted complex and functional skill. This
methodology is highly effective in teaching basic
communication, play, motor, and daily living skills.
 FOUR PARTS OF DISCRETE TRIAL
and an OPTIONAL 5th
 the discriminative stimulus (SD)-- the instruction or environmental cue to
which the teacher would like the child to respond

 the prompting stimulus (SP)-- a prompt or cue from the teacher to help the
child respond correctly (optional) - Optional 5th

 the response (R)-- the skill or behavior that is the target of the instruction, or a
portion thereof

 the reinforcing stimulus (SR)-- a reward designed to motivate the child to

respond and respond correctly

 the inter-trial interval (ITI)-- a brief pause between consecutive trials

 Watch the following Videos: 1 to 3 - DTT

Examples of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)
Teaching Strategies
1. Prompts
2. Modelling
3. Reinforcement
Reinforcers can be:
 Tangible (such as stickers);
 Activity-based (the student is able to participate
in preferred activity);
 Social (praise or thumbs up sign).
1. Task Analysis
2. Forward Chaining
3. Backward Chaining
4. Discrete Trial Training (DTT)
Like task analysis, Discrete Trial Training (DTT)
involves analysing skills and breaking large tasks into
steps or subtasks (or discrete skills). Here, subtasks
are usually taught sequentially, and each subtask is
mastered before learning the next skill.

DTT consists of four steps:

Step 1: The student is given a brief instruction or
question (stimulus) that is designed to produce a
specific response. If necessary, the instruction is
followed by a prompt.
Step 2: The student responds.
Step 3: If the response is as expected, the student
receives reinforcement such as praise.
If the response is not as expected, the response is
ignored or corrected or the student is prompted to
provide the expected response.
Step 4: Data are recorded. Subsequent trials or
instructions are then given.
Shaping involves the use of reinforcements to
change behaviour gradually and
systematically. Here, approximations of the desired
behaviour are reinforced until the target behaviour
is achieved.

For example, these steps could be followed if the

target behaviour is for the student to sit with a
group during story-time:
Step 1: Reinforcement for standing near the group.
Step 2: Reinforcement for standing closer to the
group.
Step 3: Reinforcement for standing in the group.
Step 4: Reinforcement for sitting in the group
Positive Reinforcement: Present stimulus,
which increases chances of future
occurrence.

Examples:
A father gives his daughter candy (reinforcing
stimulus) for cleaning up toys (behavior).

The little boy receives $5.00 (reinforcing

stimulus) for every A he earns on his report
Card (behavior)
Negative Reinforcement: Remove stimulus, which
increases chances of future occurrence.

Examples:
Bob does the dishes (behavior) in order to stop his
mother's nagging (aversive stimulus).

Natalie can get up from the dinner table (aversive

stimulus) when she eats 2 bites of her broccoli
(behavior).
Positive Punishment: Present stimulus, which
decreases chance of future occurrence.

Example: Positive punishers may occur naturally in

one’s environment. A child pets a strange dog and
gets bitten on the finger causing pain. After this
occurs, thne child does not pet strange dogs. That
is considered a positive punisher because the pain
(presented stimulus) decreased petting strange
dogs (outcome).
Give at least two (2) examples each of
the following reinforcements:
Positive Reinforcements: Highlight the stimulus
1.
2.
Negative Reinforcements: Highlight the stimulus
1.
2.
 CRITICISMS

…, She says she can see what the advocates are saying on
some level; she does not want her son to become a ‘robot,’
merely repeating socially acceptable phrases on command
because they make him seem like everyone else. Sometimes
Norrin will approach friendly people on the street and say,
“Hello, what’s your name?” as he’s been taught, but not wait
around for the answer, because he really doesn’t understand
why he’s saying it. “He just knows to do his part,” she says.
 Criticism on ABA
Reflect on this…, what is your opinion? In not
less than 100 words.
REFLECTION
 THE POWER POINT PRESENTATION USED IN
THIS WORKSHOP IS THE EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY
OF: