Operant Antecedents

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Operant Antecedents

• Chapter 3

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Antecedents

• Overt or Covert
• Immediate or Distant

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Identifying Antecedents

• Functional Analysis
• behavioral excesses
• antecedents may be too frequent
• behavioral deficits
• antecedents may be too infrequent

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Learning Antecedents

• Discrimination learning
• Discriminative stimuli
• Differential reinforcement
• SD
• S?
• Stimulus Generalization
• Stimulus equivalence

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Stimulus Control

• Prompting
• Physical guidance prompts
• Verbal prompts
• Pictorial prompts
• Gestural prompts
• Auditory prompts

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Stimulus Control

• Fading
• errorless learning
• decreased assistance
• increasing assistance
• delayed prompting
• Speed in fading

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Modeling and Instructions

• Guidelines
• Fade to reduce reliance
• Match to the persons abilities
• Describe consequences
• Reasons for behavior
• Complex behaviors broken down

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Application of Modeling and Instruction

• Fade these prompts
• Match the level of the information with the
  ability of the learner
• Make consequences apparent
• Break down complex tasks into manageable tasks
• Reinforce models
• Reinforce observers for attending
• Use models who are similar to the observer
• Use more than one model

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Cognitive Antecedents

• Covert self-statements
• self-instruction
• strategies
• rules
• logical thinking

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Antecedent Chains

• Target behaviors can involve a complex series of
  links that lead to the completion of a task
• Links become antecedents
• Disrupting the links can serve to decrease
  behavior

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Managing Antecedents

• Decrease behavior by
• Reduce or avoid antecedents
• Narrow antecedent control
• SD to S?
• Cognitive strategies
• Change characteristics of antecedents

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Managing Antecedents Tips

• Look carefully at all potential antecedents
• Assess overt and covert antecedents
• Ask others to help identify antecedents
• Fade prompts in small steps