Title: Planning, Applying, and Evaluating a Treatment Program
1Planning, Applying, and Evaluating a Treatment
Program
2A Problem Has Been Referred Should You Design A
Program?
- Questions to answer
- Was the problem referred primarily for the
benefit of the client? - Can the problem and the goal be specified such
that you are dealing with a specific behavior or
set of behaviors that can be counted, timed, or
measured in some way? - Is the problem important to the client or to
others? - Have you eliminated the possibility that there
are complications involved in this problem that
would necessitate referring it to another
specialist? - Is the problem one that would appear to be easily
manageable? - If the goal is reached, might it be easily
generalized and maintained? - Can you identify significant individuals in the
clients natural environment who might help to
record observations and manage controlling
stimuli and reinforcers? - If there are individuals who might hinder the
program, can you identify ways of minimizing
their potential interference? - On the basis of your tentative answers to these
eight questions, do your training qualifications,
daily schedule, and available time seem adequate
for you to participate in the program?
3Selecting and Implementing and Assessment
Procedure
- For reliable baselining, define the handicap in
precise behavioral terms. - Select an appropriate baselining procedure that
will enable you to - monitor the problem behavior
- identify its current stimulus control
- identify the maintaining consequences of the
problem behavior - monitor relevant medical/health/personal
variables - identify an alternative desirable behavior
- Design recording procedures that will enable you
to log the amount of time devoted to the project
by the professionals working on it - Ensure that the observers have received
appropriate training in identifying critical
aspects of the behavior, applying the recording
procedures, and graphing data - If the baseline is likely to be prolonged, select
a procedure for increasing and maintaining the
strength of the record-keeping behavior of the
data recorders - Select a procedure for ensuring the reliability
of the baseline observations - After beginning to collect baseline data, analyze
those data carefully to select an appropriate
intervention strategy and decide when to
terminate the baseline phase and begin
intervention
4Considerations for Assessment Procedures
- What daily times can the mediator(s) schedule
this project? - Will others in the situation help or hinder your
data collection? - Will the surroundings help or hinder your
assessment? - What is the frequency of the existing behavior?
- How rapidly should the behavior change?
5Strategies for Program Design and Implementation
- Define the goal, identify the target behaviors
and their desired amount and stimulus control - Identify individuals who might help to manage
controlling stimuli and reinforcers. Also
identify those who might hinder the program - Examine the possibility of capitalizing on
antecedent control. Can you use - Rules?
- Goal setting?
- Modeling?
- Physical guidance?
- Situational inducement?
- Motivating operations?
- If you are developing a new behavior, will you
use shaping, fading, or chaining? What motivation
establishing operation will you use?
6Strategies for Program Design and Implementation
- If you are changing the stimulus control of an
existing behavior, can you select the controlling
SDs such that they - are different from other stimuli on more than one
dimension? - are encountered mainly in situations in which the
desired stimulus control should occur? - evoke attending behavior?
- do not evoke undesirable behavior?
7Strategies for Program Design and Implementation
- If you are decreasing behavioral excess
- Can you remove SDs from the problem behavior?
- Can you withhold reinforcers that are maintaining
the problem behavior, or present motivation
abolishing operations for those reinforcers? - Can you apply DRL?
- Can you apply DRO, DRI, or DRA?
- Should punishment be used?
- Specify the details of the reinforcement system
- How will reinforcers be selected?
- What reinforcers will be used?
- How will reinforcer effectiveness be continually
monitored, and by whom? - How will reinforcers be stored and dispensed, and
by whom? - If a token system is used, what are the details
of its implementation?
8Strategies for Program Design and Implementation
- Specify the training setting.
- Describe how you will program generality of
behavior change by - Programming stimulus generalization. Can you
- Train in the test situation?
- Vary the training conditions?
- Program common stimuli?
- Train sufficient stimulus exemplars?
- Establish a stimulus equivalence class?
- Programming response generalization. Can you
- Train sufficient exemplars?
- Vary the acceptable responses during training?
- Use behavioral momentum to increase low
probability responses within a response class? - Programming behavior maintenance. Can you
- Use natural contingencies of reinforcement?
- Train people in the natural environment?
- Use schedules of reinforcement in the training
environment? - Give the control to the individual?
9Strategies for Program Design and Implementation
- Specify the details of the daily recording and
graphing procedures - Collect the necessary materials
- Make checklists of rules and responsibilities for
all participants in the program - Specify the dates for data and program reviews
and identify those who will attend - Identify some contingencies that will reinforce
the behavior modifiers and mediator - Review the potential cost of the program as
designed and judge its merit against cost
reprogram as necessary - Sign a behavioral contract
- Implement the program
10Program Maintenance and Evaluation
- Monitor your data to determine whether the
recorded behaviors are changing in the desired
direction - Consult the people who must deal with the
behavioral handicap, and determine whether they
are satisfied with the progress - Consult other sources to determine if your
results are reasonable in terms of the amount of
behavior change during the period the program has
been in effect - If 1, 2, 3 are satisfactory, proceed to step 8
- If 1, 2, 3, are unsatisfactory, answer the
following questions - Have the reinforcers hat are being used lost
their appeal? - Are competing responses being reinforced?
- Are the procedures being applied incorrectly?
- Is there outside interference that is disrupting
the program? - Are there any subjective variables that might be
adversely affecting the program? - If none of the answers to questions are yes,
check if additional programming steps need to be
added or removed - If the results are now satisfactory, proceed to
guideline 8 otherwise consult with a colleague,
or consider changing a major aspect of program,
or redoing functional analysis
11Program Maintenance and Evaluation
- Decide how you will provide appropriate program
maintenance until the behavioral objective is
reached - Following attainment of the behavioral goal,
outline an appropriate arrangement for assessing
performance during follow-up observations and
assessing social validity - After successful follow-up observations have been
obtained, determine the costs for the behavioral
changes that occurred - Where possible and appropriate, analyze your data
and communicate your procedures and results to
other behavior modifiers and interested
professionals