Behavior Man - Your "calm down" trick may stop the behavior for now, but in the future, they may be "calm" less often! #ABA breakdown with an example: Antecedent: "No iPad" Behavior: Tantrum (Crying and screaming) Consequence: Give child a sparkly toy In this example, the consequence is not directly related to the Antecedent (toy was given instead of iPad), but that does not mean that it will not have a reinforcing effect on the behavior. When a preferred stimulus is delivered following the occurance of a behavior, and this pattern persists, a contingency (relation) may develop between the behavior an its consequence. and therefore increase the occurance of that behavior. In this example, simply the word "No" is a likely conditioned stimulus to evoke a tantrum, and its function would simply be access to a preferred tangible (does not necessarily need to be the iPad). Here is an example that may put things in context: Imagine you call a bill collector and say "I do not want to pay my electric bill this month", and they reply "you must pay in full". Following this, you begin to cry. The bill collector then says "You must pay, but we will send you a new TV for your troubles". It is very likely that the next time you call a bill collector you will begin to cry again following the antecedent "you must pay in full". The bill collector got you to "calm down" by giving you a TV (your sparkly toy). ----------------------------------------------------------------- But why does this occur? As I have covered before, ABA works both ways. Let's look at it from the toy giver's perspective. Antecedent: Child is crying and screaming Behavior: Caregiver gives child a sparkly toy Consequence: Child stops screaming ("calms down") When we look at it from this perspective, we can see why the caregiver delivers a sparkly toy. Delivering the toy removes the aversive crying. Therefore, the behavior (Delivering a toy) may be increased in the future when the child beings to tantrum. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I do understand that it is much easier to simply say what one should do in these circumstances, as the going-on's of life sometimes makes it very difficult to follow through with what "one should do". In these instances it may be easier to implement #Antecedent-based Interventions, then directly dealing with a behavior after it occurs. Here is an excellent resource that goes over these types of interventions: http://autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/content/antecedent-based-interventions-abi **Disclaimer, Antecedent-based interventions are great for reducing the occurance of a behavior before it occurs, but they do not always reduce the behavior long-term as they do not directly deal with the undesirable behavior (they do not always break the contingency or functional relation between the behavior and environmental consequences) nor do they develop a new contingency by which the behavior will be reduced. I suggest that you seek professional guidance (#BCBA) prior to implementing further interventions. #ABAmeme #abahumor #science #tantrum #autism #behavior | Facebook
Your "calm down" trick may stop the behavior for now, but in the future, they may be "calm" less often! #ABA breakdown with an example: Antecedent: "No iPad" Behavior: Tantrum (Crying and screaming) Consequence: Give child a sparkly toy
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