Antecedent intervention
A behavior-reduction strategy that changes conditions before behavior occurs, such as motivating operations or task features, so problem behavior becomes less likely.
Antecedent interventions work on what happens before behavior. Instead of waiting for problem behavior and responding to it, they change the situations that tend to set it off. Many of them work by altering motivating operations: giving a client plenty of attention lowers the value of attention as a reinforcer, and making tasks shorter or easier lowers the value of escape. Others make the expected behavior clearer or easier, such as visual schedules and warnings before transitions.
Common antecedent interventions include noncontingent reinforcement, high-probability request sequences, demand fading, offering choices, activity and visual schedules, priming, environmental changes (removing triggers, rearranging a room) and changes to task difficulty or length. The best antecedent strategies are based on the function of the behavior identified in the supervisor's assessment. Offering more attention will not help escape-maintained behavior, and making tasks easier will not help attention-maintained behavior.
Antecedent interventions are often used with other parts of a behavior plan, such as teaching a replacement behavior and extinction, because changing antecedents alone does not teach new skills. They are generally less intrusive than consequence-based reduction procedures, and they can produce quick decreases because the conditions for problem behavior are less often present.
The RBT implements antecedent strategies exactly as written, often at the start of a session or before known difficult times, and records whether they were delivered. Skipping or loosening them, even when things are going well, can bring problem behavior back.
Example and non-example
| Example | A client's plan says to give a 2-minute and a 30-second warning before ending tablet time, and to show the next activity on a picture card. The RBT does this before every transition. |
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| Non-example | After a client throws a puzzle, the RBT follows the plan by not providing attention for the throw. That is a consequence-based procedure, because it responds to the behavior after it occurs. |
Don't confuse it with
| Extinction | Extinction changes the consequence of the behavior after it happens, while antecedent interventions change conditions before it happens. |
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| Motivating operation | A motivating operation is a variable that alters the value of a reinforcer; many antecedent interventions are procedures that deliberately change these variables. |
Test yourself
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Question 1How do antecedent interventions reduce problem behavior?
Show answer
B: By changing conditions before the behavior occurs. Antecedent interventions change what happens before behavior, such as motivating operations, task difficulty or available reinforcers, so problem behavior is less likely to occur in the first place.
- A: Consequences delivered after behavior are consequence-based procedures, not antecedent interventions.
- C: Withholding the reinforcer after behavior is extinction.
- D: Adding an aversive event after behavior is positive punishment.
Task D.2 · 40-hour curriculum section E
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Question 2Before chores, an RBT asks an adult client whether they would like to fold towels or sort socks first, as the plan directs. What is this?
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A: Offering choice as an antecedent strategy. Giving the client a choice among tasks or task order before work begins is an antecedent strategy that can reduce problem behavior.
- B: DRA delivers a reinforcer after an alternative behavior; here the choice comes before the task.
- C: NCR delivers a reinforcer on a time schedule.
- D: A high-p sequence uses easy requests before a harder one.
Task D.2 · 40-hour curriculum section E
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Question 3The evening before a class reading, an RBT goes through the story book with a student at home, as the plan directs. Which antecedent strategy is this?
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B: Priming. Priming previews an activity or its materials before the activity happens, so the real activity is more familiar.
- A: Demand fading changes the number of demands over time.
- C: NCR delivers a reinforcer on a time schedule.
- D: An activity schedule shows the order of activities; it does not preview the content.
Task D.2 · 40-hour curriculum section E
Answer every question to see your score.
On the RBT exam
This term belongs to task D.2 Antecedent interventions in content area D, Behavior Reduction, which is 14 of the 75 scored questions.