RBT practice test: Behavior Acquisition

A: During a delay, other behavior can occur and may be reinforced instead.. Reinforcement strengthens whatever behavior it closely follows. If the reinforcer is delayed, the client may do something else in the meantime, and that other behavior may be strengthened instead of the target response.

• B: Timing and magnitude are separate dimensions; delivering quickly does not change the amount.
• C: Satiation depends on how much of a reinforcer the client has had, not on how quickly it is delivered.
• D: Immediacy matters for both positive and negative reinforcement.

Task C.1 · 40-hour curriculum section A

D: The available backup items have lost value, so the tokens have lost value too.. A token's value depends on the value of what it can buy. If the client is satiated on the available backup items, the tokens are worth less and responding drops. The RBT should note this and report it to the supervisor.

• A: Tokens remain conditioned reinforcers; they do not become unconditioned.
• B: Nothing suggests tokens are decreasing working; the backup items have lost value.
• C: An extinction burst is a temporary increase in responding when reinforcement stops, not a drop while tokens are still delivered.

Task C.2 · 40-hour curriculum section E

C: The client's skill level before any help that day. First-trial (probe) data capture the client's performance before any prompting or practice in that session, which shows whether the skill is holding up across days.

• A: Within-session learning needs data across many trials, not just the first one.
• B: Prompt levels across trials need trial-by-trial data.
• D: Reinforcer preference is checked with a preference assessment.

Task C.3 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: Arrange choices and small portions as the plan allows. Environmental arrangement, like offering choices, giving small portions and keeping items in view but out of reach, creates more opportunities. If opportunities stay low, the RBT tells the supervisor.

• A: Changing the teaching format is the supervisor's decision.
• B: Recording opportunities that did not happen falsifies data.
• C: Free access removes the motivation needed for mands.

Task C.4 · 40-hour curriculum section E · RBT Ethics Code 2.02

D: A mixed order can slow learning and muddy the data. All staff should follow the written task analysis. Inconsistent implementation lowers procedural fidelity and makes it hard to tell whether the procedure is working.

• A: Mixed step orders usually make a chain harder to learn.
• B: Generalization training is planned by the supervisor, not created by changing the steps.
• C: Both the order and accurate data matter for judging progress.

Task C.5 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: It makes the full instruction, not other cues, the signal for reinforcement. For the instruction to become the SD, reinforcement must follow responses that occur in its presence. Reinforcing responses made before the instruction strengthens responding to other cues and weakens control by the instruction.

• A: An early response may land on the right card by chance; the issue is that the instruction did not control it.
• C: Waiting a second or two does not cause satiation, and that is not the reason for the rule.
• D: Prompt dependence is waiting for help before responding, which is the opposite of responding too early.

Task C.6 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: The time between the instruction and the prompt. Time delay fades a prompt by changing when it is given: the RBT waits a set number of seconds after the instruction before prompting, so the learner can respond before help arrives.

• A: That is the delay to reinforcement, which should be kept short; it is not the delay in time-delay prompting.
• B: That is the intertrial interval.
• C: That is the learner's response latency after the prompt, which the RBT does not set.

Task C.7 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: Teaching multiple response examples. Teaching several response forms that serve the same function gives the client more than one way to get a break and promotes response generalization, so the client is less likely to depend on one form that may not work in every situation.

• A: Programming common stimuli concerns the stimuli in teaching and target settings, not the number of response forms taught.
• C: Indiscriminable contingencies concern unpredictable reinforcement schedules.
• D: Sequential modification introduces the intervention setting by setting.

Task C.8 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: The client met the plan's standard for learning under teaching conditions. Mastery shows acquisition under the conditions that were used in teaching. Maintenance over time and generalization to new conditions must be checked separately.

• A: Mastery does not guarantee the skill will last without practice.
• C: Mastery in the teaching setting does not guarantee generalization.
• D: Mastered skills still need reinforcement, usually thinned or natural.

Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A

D: Shaping changes the response; stimulus fading changes the antecedent stimulus. In shaping, the requirement for the response changes step by step. In stimulus fading, the response stays the same while an added feature of the antecedent stimulus is gradually removed.

• A: This option reverses the two procedures.
• B: Shaping uses reinforcement of the current approximation along with extinction of earlier ones.
• C: Shaping is mainly used to build behavior, not only to reduce it.

Task C.10 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: A level system. A level system is a type of token economy in which clients move through levels based on meeting performance criteria, with each higher level giving access to more privileges.

• A: A group contingency makes reinforcement depend on the behavior of a group, not on individual levels.
• B: A behavior chain is a sequence of linked responses, not a system of privilege levels.
• C: A DRO schedule reinforces the absence of a behavior during an interval.

Task C.11 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: Ratio schedules depend on the number of responses; interval schedules depend on time passing.. On a ratio schedule, reinforcement is delivered after a number of responses. On an interval schedule, reinforcement is delivered for the first response after an amount of time has passed.

• A: Both kinds of schedules can be used at different stages of teaching; neither is limited to maintenance.
• C: Any type of reinforcer can be delivered on either kind of schedule.
• D: Both ratio and interval schedules can be fixed or variable.

Task C.1 · 40-hour curriculum section A

B: The tokens will probably lose their effectiveness as reinforcers.. A conditioned reinforcer keeps its value through continued pairing with other reinforcers. When tokens can no longer be exchanged, that pairing stops and the tokens are likely to lose their effectiveness.

• A: Conditioned reinforcers do not become unconditioned; their value depends on learning.
• C: A conditioned reinforcer's value is not permanent; it weakens without continued pairing.
• D: Losing the backup makes tokens weaker reinforcers; it does not make them punishers.

Task C.2 · 40-hour curriculum section E

A: Massed trials. Massed trials present the same target repeatedly in a block. Supervisors may use them early in teaching and then move to mixed or rotated targets.

• B: Task interspersal mixes other targets, often mastered ones, between trials of the new target.
• C: Random rotation mixes targets in an unpredictable order instead of repeating one target.
• D: Expanded trials gradually add more trials of other targets between presentations of the target.

Task C.3 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: Give the ball right away and record a mand. The RBT reinforces whatever response the plan currently accepts, immediately, using the item requested. The supervisor decides when to raise the requirement.

• A: The plan accepts "ba" at this stage; requiring more changes the criterion.
• B: This punishes an acceptable response and removes the reinforcer.
• C: A delayed reinforcer weakens the link between the mand and the ball.

Task C.4 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: Total task chaining. Total task chaining teaches the whole chain every session, with prompts on any step the learner has not yet mastered.

• A: Forward chaining trains one step at a time from the beginning.
• B: Backward chaining trains one step at a time from the end.
• C: Stimulus fading gradually changes a feature of the stimulus; it does not order the steps of a chain.

Task C.5 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: a response has not been reinforced. An S-delta is a stimulus in whose presence a given response has not been reinforced. Because responding does not pay off when it is present, the response becomes less likely in its presence.

• A: That defines a discriminative stimulus (SD), the stimulus that signals reinforcement is available.
• B: A prompt is added help from the teacher; an S-delta signals that reinforcement is not available.
• C: That describes an establishing operation, a kind of motivating operation, not an S-delta.

Task C.6 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: To arrange prompts so the learner makes few or no errors while learning. Errorless learning gives prompts early, often immediately after the instruction or with the most helpful prompt first, so that the learner contacts reinforcement for correct responses and rarely practices errors. The prompts are then faded.

• A: That is trial-and-error teaching with correction, the approach errorless procedures are designed to avoid.
• C: Withholding reinforcement after errors is extinction; errorless procedures try to prevent errors from happening.
• D: Errorless learning depends on prompts given early enough to prevent errors, which are then faded.

Task C.7 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: Generalization steps are written into the plan instead of being left to chance. Generalization often does not happen on its own. Programming it means the plan includes specific strategies, such as multiple exemplars, varied settings and people, and probes, that the RBT carries out.

• A: Programming generalization does not mean waiting for months of maintenance before testing it.
• C: Teaching in one setting until performance is perfect is the opposite of planning for generalization.
• D: The supervisor writes the generalization steps; the RBT implements them rather than choosing them.

Task C.8 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: It departs from the plan and can make the skill less durable. The plan's thin schedule is meant to make the skill last under everyday conditions. Delivering dense reinforcement is a fidelity error and keeps the skill dependent on frequent reinforcement.

• A: Snacks are often appropriate reinforcers when a plan includes them.
• C: Mastered skills still need reinforcement, usually on a thinner schedule.
• D: Generalization concerns new people, places and materials, not the reinforcement schedule.

Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A