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“They had all this strange equipment and weights and mirrors and bars. But the weirdest part of the physical therapy room was the staircase. There was this staircase with a handrail on either side but the stairs didn't go anywhere -- they went right into the wall! The physical therapist would come up to me and say, "Walk up the stairs." And I'd say, "Why? They don't go anywhere." But she'd say, "Never mind, walk up the stairs." So, I'd walk up the stairs and nearly kill myself getting up there. When I got to the top the physical therapist would say, "Good! Now walk back down the stairs." I'd say, "Wait a minute! If you didn't want me up here in the first place, why did you ask me to walk up here?“ -Norman Kunc, “The Stairs Don’t Go Anywhere” http://www.normemma.com/articles/arstairs.htm Welcome to Week 7 of Functional Assessment!
Updates • Task Analysis on Functional Skills due today! • Article Review #2 & Task Analysis on Communication Skills due Next Week May 16th • Task analysis on academics due May 23rd • Ecological Assessment Report due June 6th
Quick Review • When designing an instructional plan for a student there are two general categories of strategies. • What are these two categories of strategies? • What are some antecedent strategies? • Think prompt (correct responses) & prevent (errors) • Why consequence strategies? • To reinforce (increase) expected behaviors • To make errors extinct • Effectively respond to correct & incorrect behaviors
Antecedent Strategies • Time Delay • Constant (CTD; Miracle et al., 2001) • Progressive (Wolery et al., 1992) • Prompting Systems • Gestural, verbal, pre-recorded auditory prompts, pictorial prompts, model prompts, physical prompts, mixed prompts • System of Least Prompts (or least-to-most prompting • Most-to-Least Prompts
Consequence Strategies • Think about how you will respond to: • Correct answers/ behaviors • want to reinforce these • Errors • want to put these on extinction • Corrective feedback • Quickly prompt towards correct answers
Consequence Strategies • Differential reinforcement • Reinforcing correct (desired) responses, while withholding reinforcement for incorrect (non-desired) responses. • Determine reinforcers through preference assessments to ensure effectiveness • Always pair with natural consequence (e.g., if completion of task results in praise, pair external reinforcer with verbal praise) • Schedules of reinforcement • Frequency and pattern behaviors are reinforced • Ratio (according to # of responses) or interval (passage of time in relation to performance) schedules
Fixed vs Variable Schedules • Fixed: absolute predetermined number • Ratio (Fixed ratio; every 10 correct responses) • Intervals (Fixed intervals; every 10 seconds) • Variable: changing, non-fixed number of reinforcements, but offer reinforcement on a schedule that is an average of the reinforcement pattern selected. • Variable ratio: (VR:5=average of every fifth response; e.g., after 3, 7, 2, 8 [total 20..avg 5] • Variable interval: (VI:5=average of every five minutes; same example above)
“Rules to scheduling reinforcement when planning instruction (from Snell & Brown, 2011” 1. During acquisition stage of learning more instances of behavior should be encouraged by the continuous provision of small amounts of contingent reiforcement (e.g., a smile and task-specific praise, fulfilling a request, “high five”, or “Yes!”) instead of large amounts of reinforcement given less often.
Rule #2 2. After a higher rate or more accurate behavior has been established, reinforcers should be faded slowly from a continuous to a fixed schedule, which requires more behavior for each reinforcement. This will strengthen the behavior as the student learns to tolerate periods of nonreinforcement instead of abruptly giving up & not responding when reinforcment is not forthcoming
Rule #3 • Because students may learn to predict when reinforcement will occur, uneven patterns may result (e.g., rewarded for cleaning every Friday…won’t clean until Friday…vs random spot checks), so switch to a variable schedule • based on average of every fifth time, but may occur after 2nd behavior or 10th behavior…student doesn’t know so continues working hard!
Rule #4 • Reinforcers must be assessed periodically so that they continue to be reinforcing to the student. • Wise to offer students the opportunity to choose their reinforcer from a group of preferred activities/items.
Rule #5 • Reinforcers must be suited to student’s chronological age, the activity, and the learning situation. • Aim for replacing less appropriate reinforcers with ones that have more availability in the natural environments encountered by the student.
Rule #6 • The more immediately a reinforcer is presented following the peformance of the behavior, the greater will be its effect.
Error Correction • Errors include: incorrect responses, problem behavior, and nonresponses • Missed steps in a chained response • Discrimination errors in a discrete behavior (e.g., signing “eat” instead of “help”) • Taking longer than the expected response latency • Want to determine if it is an error due to “can’t do or won’t do” • If can’t do…need to re-teach or use different prompting system (think antecedents). • If won’t do…need to look at motivation/function & reinforcement schedule
Strategies for handling incorrect responses • During acquisition: • Gently interrupt errors with a prompt • After an error provide feedback (pause, hold up index finger, say “not quite”) and give another immediate opportunity to perform while increasing the assistance (as in a system of least prompts). • Gently stop an error and see if a student will self-correct. Direct the student to the relevant task stimuli, add prompts as needed. • Reinforce any self-corrections
Correction strategies later in learning • Wait for student to self-correct • If this does not occur, give assistance to correct the error. • Simplify those responses that are frequently missed or performed incorrectly • Gently interrupt errors and provide several immediate opportunities to practice the missed response (or steps in chained task) that are frequently missed.
Components of Instructional Plan • Short-term objective- based on task analysis • Materials • Instructional Strategies • Antecedent/prompting • Consequence • Provide step by step procedures • Rationale • Evidence base • Criterion for fading • Plan for maintenance and generalization
Generalization • “Appropriate responding in untrained situations” (Haring, 1988). • What would be features of untrained situations? • How determine relevant features of untrained situations?
Albin & Horner, 1988 • Generalization • Equally important for a particular behavior to NOT occur when it is not appropriate.
Entry Activity #1 • Please form groups of 3-4 people • Turn to Chapter 8 in your textbook • You will receive a number of generalization strategies • As a group follow the prompts on the handout & prepare to share with the rest of the class
Strategies Identified to Promote Generalization • Antecedent Generalization Strategies • Think Instructional Design • Teach in natural setting • Use sufficient exemplars • Train loosely • (varying stimuli, responses, reinforcers allowed) • Program common stimuli • Training setting contains stimuli that are also in the generalization setting • General Case Design • Using several specific exemplars based on the learner’s “instructional universe”
Consequence Generalization Strategies • Introducing natural maintaining consequences • Teaches skill during acquisition period that will be reinforced by natural contingencies in the environment in which behavior will occur, instead of artificial reinforcers that were used during acquisition • Using Indiscriminable Contingencies • Use of intermittent schedule of reinforcement • Does not know when, where, or what will result in reinforcement • Training to generalize: differential reinforcement in “generalization” condition rather than original condition
General Case Design (GCD) • Define the Instructional Universe -how? 2. Define the range of relevant stimulus and response variation -important to identify generic response -all important stimuli that could prompt the target responses listed -possible variations of stimulus classes listed -ways in which the learner might respond outlined -List of anticipated problems, errors, exceptions
GCD Cont’d 3. Select examples for teaching and probe testing -teaching: general case -probe: testing generalization/variation -don’t need all “stores”, but adequately represent all variations of important stimuli & responses -positive & negative teaching examples
GCD Cont’d 4. Sequence the teaching examples Guidelines for sequencing: A. Teach multiple components of an activity within an instructional session B. Present variations within individual sessions. Teach as many examples as possible within instructional sessions C. Juxtapose most similar positive and negative examples. D. Use cumulative programming. If all examples cannot be taught in one session, work on a few at a time, adding new examples to already learned examples in each new session. E. Teach the general case before exceptions.
GCD cont’d 5. Teach sequence 6. Test using the non-trained probe examples -to determine whether generalization has occurred. Consider these steps when collaborating and designing instruction for students.
Activity • On back of entry activity, use the functional skill/routine you are planning to teach and outline the variations in stimuli, responses, and anticipated errors/exceptions
Teaching Skill Maintenance • Maintenance: skill continuing to occur for as long as it is needed without having to be taught again. • Common error in teaching is that the skill is learned and generalized, but not practiced sufficiently beyond initial learning • Maintenance strategies should be used in addition to generalization strategies
Maintenance Strategies • Overlearning • Continue practicing a skill • Overlearning opportunities should be at least 50% of the opportunities necessary for the student to initially learn the objective. • Distributed Practice • Practice during distributed learning sessions • Practice is spread out across the day (vs massed practice) • Intermittent Reinforcement • Using a maintenance schedule- build in practice for infrequently used skills
Activity • Complete the section on Maintenance and Generalization for the example instructional plan. • You may need a separate piece of paper! • If you finish this, think about the student you will/are working with. • This will not be turned in, it is for you to keep as an example.
