Antecedent Interventions
• In early days, ABA researchers and practitioners
Antecedent Interventions
Sherise Devine
BA., M.S., BCBA
Faculty
Defining and Classifying
Antecedent Interventions
• An antecedent intervention is implemented prior
and independent of the target behavior's
occurrence
– Some manipulate motivational variables, some make
the target behavior more or less effortful, some entail
training an alternative behavior, some include
differential consequences for responding, and some
change the environment such that opportunities to
engage in problem behavior are restricted (or
conversely, opportunities made more prevalent for
desired behavior)
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Classifying Functions of Antecedent
Stimuli
• Antecedent interventions can be classified in several
ways
– Smith (2011) identified 2 broad categories of
antecedent interventions for problem behavior:
• Function-based antecedent interventions
• Default interventions
– Antecedent interventions can be classified by whether
or not differential consequences are required for
behavior change:
• Contingency dependent
• Contingency independent
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emphasized consequence-based interventions
• 3 ground breaking publications turned our
attention to antecedent-based interventions
– Jack Michaels’s (1982) conceptual analysis of EOs
– Brian Iwata and colleges demonstration of a method to
assess functional relations between self-injury and specific
antecedent events (1982)
– Ted Carr and Mark Durand’s (1985) experiment showing that
teaching children to emit an appropriate communicative
response during conditions that previously occasioned
disruptive behaviour reduced misbehavior to near zero
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Conceptual Understanding of
Antecedent Interventions
• SDs – evoke behaviour due to past correlation
with increased availability of reinforcement
• MOs – increase current frequency of
behaviour independent of the differential
availability of effective reinforcement
• Each has different implications for how
behaviour change strategies should be
implemented and manipulated
Contingency Dependent Antecedent
Interventions
1. Non-Contingent Reinforcement
2. High-Probability Instructional Sequence
3. Functional Communication Training
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Noncontingent Reinforcement
• Stimuli with known reinforcing properties are
delivered on a fixed-time (FT) or variable-time (VT)
schedule independent of the learner’s behaviour
• May effectively decrease problem behavior
because reinforcers that maintain the problem
behavior are available freely & frequently
• Functions as an abolishing operation (AO) that
reduces the motivation to engage in problem
behavior
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NCR Escape (Negative
Reinforcement)
• Kodak, Miltenberger, and Romaniuk (2003)
– Study demonstrated the use of negative
reinforcment (i.e. break from instructional
requests) for two individuals with autism as an
antecedent intervention to decrease problem
behaviours found during analysis to be maintained
by negative reinforcement
– Increased participants’ compliance & decreased
problem behaviours
9 (Phillips et al., 2017)
Using NCR Effectively
• Using NCR effectively
– Three key elements to enhance effectiveness
• Amount & quality of stimuli with known reinforcing
effectiveness of NCR
• Inclusion of extinction with NCR interventions
• Variance of the available stimuli within NCR intervention
to reduce problems of changing preferences
– Proper utilization of information obtained through
FBA
• Correct identification of maintaining contingencies of
reinforcement
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NCR with Positive Reinforcement
• Kahng, Iwata, Thompson, and Hanley (2000)
– Study demonstrated the use of positive
reinforcement (i.e. attention & food) for three
individuals with developmental disabilities as an
antecedent intervention to decrease problem
behaviours found during analysis to be maintained
by the positive reinforcement
NCR with Automatic Reinforcement
• Lindberg, Iwata, Roscoe, Worsdell, and Hanley (2003)
– Study demonstrated the use of automatic
reinforcement (i.e. physical manipulation of highly
preferred leisure items) for two individuals with
profound intellectual disability to decrease SIB found
during analysis to be maintained by automatic
reinforcement
– Demonstrated that NCR object manipulation could
compete with automatic reinforcement to reduce SIB
• However, treating problem behaviors maintained by automatic
reinforcement often require additional treatments (e.g.,
response blocking) to accomplish clinically important effects
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Emphasizing NCR
• Ringdahl, Vollmer, Borrero, and Connell (2001)
suggested 3 procedures for emphasizing
reinforcement during NCR interventions:
1. Increase the delivery of stimuli with known reinforcing
properties
2. Use a different (dense) schedule of reinforcement at
treatment onset (e.g., continuous delivery or availability
of stimuli with known reinforcing properties)
3. Combine differential reinforcement of other behavior
(DRO) with NCR. The DRO component will decrease the
adventitious reinforcement of the problem behavior that
may occur from time-based NCR schedules
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Time-Based NCR Schedules
• Typically most applications use a FT schedule
– Also can be done using a VT schedule
• Establishing the initial schedule is crucial &
can impact the overall effectiveness of the
intervention
– Recommendation is to start with a dense FT or VT
schedule
• Can be done arbitrarily
• More effectively be based on the number of
occurrences of problem behaviour
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Time-Based NCR Schedules
• Thinning the time-based schedules
– Completed by adding small time increments to the
NCR interval
– Best done after the initial NCR schedule has
produced reduction in problem behaviour
– Can be accomplished using three procedures
• Constant time increases
• Proportional time increases
• Session-to-session time increase or decrease
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Time-Based NCR Schedules
• Session-to-session time increase or decrease
– Use the individual’s performance to change the schedule
intervals on a session-to-session basis
– Remember the initial quotient (slide 15)?
• Setting Terminal Criteria:
– Often an arbitrary terminal criterion is selected
– Research has not yet established a de facto terminal criterion
for NCR thinning (Kahng et al., 2000)
– 5-min FT schedule has been most frequent in applied settings
(which seems to be both practical and effective)
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Time-Based NCR Schedules
• To determine the initial NCR schedule:
– Divide the total duration of all baseline sessions by
the total number of occurrences of the problem
behaviour (during baseline)
– Set the initial interval at or slightly below the
quotient
– Example: if the participant emitted a total of 300
aggressive acts during five 10-minute baseline
sessions (i.e., in a total of 3000 seconds),
3000/300=a quotient of 10 seconds
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Time-Based NCR Schedules
• Constant time increases
– Increase the FT or VT schedule intervals by using a constant
duration of time
– Decrease the amount of time the individual has access to the
stimuli by a constant duration of time
– E.g., intervals increase by 30 sec and access to stimuli
decrease by 2 sec
• Proportional time increase
– Increase the FT or VT schedule interval proportionately
• Each time the schedule is increased by the same
proportion of time
• E.g., by 5%
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Possible Advantages of NCR
• NCR may be easier to apply than other positive
reductive techniques because it does not require
monitoring of student behaviour for contingent
reinforcement
• NCR creates a positive learning environment
• NCR combined with extinction may reduce
extinction-induced response bursts
• Chance pairings of appropriate behavior and NCR
delivery may strengthen desirable behaviours
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Possible Disadvantages of NCR
• Free access to NCR stimuli may reduce motivation to
engage in adaptive behaviour
• Chance pairings of inappropriate behaviour and NCR
delivery may strengthen undesirable behaviours
• NCR escape (i.e., negative reinforcement) can disrupt
the instructional process
High-Probability Instructional Sequence
• Behavioural effects of high-p instructional sequence
suggests the abative effects of an AO by:
– Reducing the value of reinforcement for non-compliance
to low-p instructions
– Reducing the aggression & self-injury typically associated
with low-p instructions
• Provides non-aversive procedure for improving
compliance by diminishing escape-maintained
problem behaviours
• May decrease excessive slowness in responding to
requests & increase time used for completing tasks
• Some behavior analysts use the term behavioral
momentum to describe the effect produced by the
high-p instructional sequence
Using the High-Probability Instructional
Sequence Effectively
• Acknowledging compliance
– Individual’s compliance should be acknowledged
immediately (e.g., praise before presenting the next
instruction)
• Use potent reinforcers
– Social praise may not be enough to increase compliance if
motivation for escape behaviour is high
– Use of high-quality positive stimuli immediately following
compliance may increase effectiveness of the intervention
High-Probability Instructional Sequence
• Referred to as high-p instructional sequence
• Delivery of a high-p instructional sequence involves
– Presentation of a 2-5 easy-to-follow requests for which the
individual has a history of compliance (i.e. high-p
instructions)
– When individual complies with several high-p instructions,
immediately provide individual with target instruction (i.e.
low-p request)
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Using the High-Probability Instructional
Sequence Effectively
• Selecting from the current repertoire
– Behaviours selected for the high-p request sequence
should be:
• In the learner’s current repertoire
• Occur with regularity of compliance
• Have a very short duration of occurrence
• Presenting instructions rapidly
– High-p instructions should be presented in rapid
succession with short inter-instruction intervals
– First low-p instruction should immediately follow
reinforcer for high-p compliance (Davis & Reichle, 1996)
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Guidelines for Using High-P Instructional
Sequence
• Empirically identify high-p and low-p instructions
– Compliance with high-p instructions should be 80% or greater;
low-p with 40% or less
• Don’t use the high-p instructional sequence just after
an occurrence of problem behavior
– The student may learn that responding to a low-p
instructions with problem behavior will produce a series of
easier instructions
• Present the high-p instructional sequence at the
beginning and throughout the instructional period
– To reduce the possibility of problem behaviors producing
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Guidelines for Using High-P Instructional
Sequence
• Present high-p instruction rapidly, with brief intertrial
intervals (1-5 seconds max) and reinforce compliance
with each high-p instruction
• If the participant does not comply with high-p
instructions, stimuli associated with the low-p
instruction should be identified and eliminated, or
other high-p instructions should be used
• Present the first low-p instruction immediately
following compliance with 3-5 high-p instructions
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Functional Communication Training
• FCT establishes an appropriate communication
behaviour to compete with problem behaviors
evoked by an MO
– Develops alternative behaviors that are sensitive to the
MO’s (in contrast to NCR and high-p request sequence)
• Practitioners use differential reinforcement of
alternative behavior (DRA) to teach an adaptive
response that produces the same reinforcer that has
maintained the problem behavior, thereby making
the alternative behavior functionally equivalent to
the problem behavior.
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Functional Communication Training
• FCT interventions typically
– Involve several behavior change strategies in addition
to teaching the alternative communication response
to address the difficult behavior
• Response prompting
• Time-out
• Physical restraint
• Response blocking
• Redirection
• Extinction of problem behaviour
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Guidelines for Using High-P Instructional
Sequence
• Present high-quality reinforcers for compliance with
high-p instructions
• Fade the ratio of high-p to low-p instructions
gradually to 1:1
• Be alert to treatment drift
– In which practitioners present only high-p instruction to
avoid escape-motivated aggression and self-injury evoked
by low-p instructions
• If the procedure is ineffective, consider adding an
extra intervention component
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Functional Communication Training
• Alternative responses can take a variety of forms
– E.g., vocalizations, signs, communication boards, words/picture
cards, vocal output systems, gestures
• Carr and Durand (1985) defined FCT as a two-step
process
1. Conduct a functional behavior assessment to identify the
stimuli with known reinforcing properties that maintain
problem behavior
2. Use those stimuli as reinforcers to develop an alternative
behavior to replace the problem behaviour
• Very effective for problem behaviour maintained by
social attention
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Effective Use of Functional
Communication Training
• A number of factors enhance the use of FCT:
– Dense schedules of reinforcement
• The alternative communicative response should produce the
reinforcers that maintain the problem behavior on a
continuous schedule during early training
– Decreased use of verbal prompts
• Verbal prompts such as “look” or “watch me” should be
faded ASAP to decrease potential of prompt dependency
– Behaviour reduction procedures
• The effectiveness of FCT is likely enhanced if it is
individualized within a treatment package consisting of
extinction or time-out (Shirley et al., 1997)
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Effective Use of Functional
Possible Advantages of FCT
Communication Training
– Schedule thinning • Excellent chance of generalization and maintenance
• Thinning of the schedule on which the established communication
response is reinforced is an important part of FCT
of the alternative communicative response
• Should only be done after the alternative communication – Because the communicative response often functions to
response is firmly in the individual’s repertoire recruit reinforcement from significant others (Fisher et al.,
• Guidelines for schedule thinning are NOT the same as those for 1998)
NCR • May have high social validity
– Alternative communication response must remain sensitive to evocative function of
the MO to compete with problem behaviour – Participants report preferences for FCT over other
– Recovery of problem behaviour could occur procedures to diminish behavior (Hanley et al., 1997)
• Hanley et al. (2001) recommended using a procedure for schedule
thinning
– Used dense FI schedule of reinforcement during initial teaching of alternative
communication response
– After the response is established, gradually thin the FI schedule
– Suggest use of external cues to indicate when reinforcement is available 31 32

Contingency Independent (Default)

Possible Disadvantages of FCT Antecedent Interventions
• FCT packages usually include extinction
– Which may produce undesirable effects 1. Antecedent Exercise
• Extinction procedures can be difficult to implement 2. Enriched Environment
– Allowing for intermittent reinforcement of problem behaviors
3. Restraint
• Participants may emit inappropriately high rates of the
alternative communicative response to recruit reinforcement
– (Fisher et al., 1998)
• Recruitment of reinforcement can occur at
inconvenient/impossible times for the caregiver
– (Fisher et al., 1998)
• FCT leaves intact the environment that evoked the problem
behavior
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– Which may limit its overall effectiveness (McGill, 1999)

Antecedent Exercise Enriched Environment (EE)

• Requires the individual to engage in some effortful
form of aerobic activity (e.g., walking, jogging,
dancing, calisthenics, roller skating) prior to
receiving a low-p task to complete
– On completion of the exercise, the individual is directed
to the task, and performance is recorded
• Research has reported that antecedent exercise
has decreased many maladaptive behaviours such
as SIB and aggression, as well as diverse behaviors
such as talking-out, out-of-seat, and stereotypic
behaviors 35
• EE intervention provides noncontingent access to
preferred sources of reinforcement (e.g., toys,
games, social and recreation activities).
– This noncontingent access to preferred sources of
reinforcement arranges a competition between EE
intervention and the stimulation provided by the
problem behavior (Horner, 1980)
– When effective, this competition decreases the problem
behavior
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Restraint
• Involves physically limiting, prohibiting, or securing
an individual in such a manner that the target
behavior cannot occur
• 3 forms of restraint as an antecedent intervention
are:
– Personal restraint
– Protective equipment restraint
– Self-restraint
Protective Equipment Restraint
• Utilizes padded helmets, arm splints, boxing gloves,
padded hand mitts, safety belts, safety straps to
protect individuals from serious self-injury and to
reduce the frequency of SIB (Smith, 2011)
– Mazaleski et al. (1994) used oven mitts for treating the
chronic hand mouthing of two adult women with
profound intellectual disabilities living in a public
residential facility. Both participants self-inflicted mild
tissue damage. Mitts were used in 2 conditions: non-
contingent condition and a contingent condition. Both
conditions results in large decreases in the rate of hand
mouthing for both participants.
Self-Restraint
• Will the same reinforcement contingency maintain
both behaviors?
• Do SIB and self-restraint have a shared history, but
differential contingencies of reinforcement?
• Will access to SIB (or self-restraint) function as
reinforcement for self-restraint (or SIB)?
Personal Restraint
• “Implemented in situations where problem
behavior is highly likely to occur and involves
caregivers physically securing and holding body
parts, so that problem behavior cannot occur”
(Smith, 2011)
• Personal restraint should not be confused with
respond blocking, which entails stopping a problem
behavior that has been initiated
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Self-Restraint
• Persons with self-injurious behavior often apply self-
restraint
– Wendy, a 12-year old girl with down syndrome, received
treatment for hand-to-head hitting that caused vision loss and
other facial injuries. Wendy applied self-restraint by “sitting on
her hands or placing her arms between folded legs or wrapped
in clothing. Wendy’s caregivers reported that self-restraint was
encouraged and seldom blocked, but that self-restraint
interfered with adaptive skills” (Scheithauer et al., 2015)
• The unique relationship between SIB and self-restraint
raises important questions related to the controlling
variables during treatment (Fisher & Iwata, 1996)
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Self-Restraint
• Smith et al. (1996) suggested self-restraint provided
positive reinforcement for SIB
• Fisher et al. (1996) proposed that self-restraint was
maintained by negative reinforcement by escape
from blocking SIB (e.g., pain)
• Derby et al. (1996) found that self restraint and SIB
were members of the same functional response class
(both behavior were maintained by social attention)
and suggested noncontingent reinforcement as a
possible treatment for self-restraint and SIB
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