RBT practice test: Behavior Acquisition, set 6

A: To identify items likely to work as backup reinforcers. Tokens get their value from what they can buy, so the system needs backup reinforcers that the client actually values. A preference assessment identifies likely candidates.

• B: Token color does not give a token value; the backup reinforcers do.
• C: Tokens are conditioned reinforcers, not unconditioned ones.
• D: The function of problem behavior is identified through functional assessment, not a preference assessment.

Task C.2 · Task B.1 · 40-hour curriculum section E

C: Preferences can change from moment to moment. The value of a reinforcer depends on current motivating operations, so a brief choice before each block helps the RBT use an item that is likely to work as a reinforcer at that moment.

• A: The choice is about reinforcer selection; naming is taught in other programs.
• B: Brief choices supplement preference assessments; they do not replace them.
• D: The choice is between items; it does not address praise.

Task C.3 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: Every opportunity, and whether it was prompted. Naturalistic teaching still needs objective data. Recording every opportunity and the level of help lets the supervisor see whether the client is becoming independent.

• A: Recording only correct responses hides how many opportunities there were and how much help was needed.
• C: A general note does not give measurable data for the supervisor.
• D: Play time does not show how the target skill is progressing.

Task C.4 · 40-hour curriculum section E · 40-hour curriculum section C

B: Watching a skilled person do the task. Task analyses are commonly built by watching competent performers, asking experts, or doing the task oneself and recording each step. The supervisor writes or approves it.

• A: Reinforcing approximations is shaping, not writing a task analysis.
• C: Ranking items is a preference assessment.
• D: Counting occurrences is frequency recording.

Task C.5 · 40-hour curriculum section E

A: Guessing is right less often with three cards than with two. With two cards, random choice is right about 50% of the time; with three, about 33%. A larger array makes correct responding a better sign that the instruction controls the choice.

• B: The number of cards does not set how many reinforcers are delivered.
• C: Adding cards does not change the type of discrimination; it adds more comparison stimuli.
• D: Extra cards do not highlight the correct card; a stimulus prompt changes the materials to make the correct choice easier.

Task C.6 · 40-hour curriculum section E

C: It makes responding without help more worthwhile, which supports prompt fading. When independent responses earn more reinforcement than prompted ones, the learner has a reason to respond before the prompt. This differential reinforcement helps shift control from the prompt to the instruction.

• A: Differential reinforcement of independent responses does not prevent errors; prompts do that.
• B: The number of trials is set by the plan, not by how reinforcement is divided.
• D: Prompts still need to be faded; differential reinforcement supports the fading.

Task C.7 · 40-hour curriculum section E

A: Using indiscriminable contingencies. When the client cannot tell which responses will be reinforced, responding tends to continue in settings and at times when reinforcement is not delivered every time. This is the indiscriminable contingencies strategy, usually arranged with intermittent reinforcement.

• B: Training loosely varies noncritical features of the teaching situation, not the reinforcement schedule.
• C: Multiple exemplar training varies the examples of the teaching stimulus, not the schedule.
• D: Programming common stimuli brings stimuli from the generalization setting into teaching.

Task C.8 · 40-hour curriculum section E

C: Frequent teaching trials, prompts as needed and dense reinforcement. When a skill is being learned, the plan typically provides many learning opportunities, prompts that are faded over time and frequent reinforcement.

• A: Occasional trials with independent responses and intermittent reinforcement describe maintenance.
• B: Testing with new people and settings describes generalization probes.
• D: Measuring the current level without teaching describes baseline.

Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A

A: Reinforce only sitting that lasts 2 minutes or longer. Once the criterion moves, only responses that meet the new criterion are reinforced. Continuing to reinforce the earlier approximation would slow or stop progress.

• B: Reinforcing 1-minute sits after the criterion moves keeps strengthening the earlier approximation.
• C: Reinforcing any length of sitting removes the differential reinforcement that makes shaping work.
• D: Moving back a step is not what the plan says, since the client is meeting the current criterion.

Task C.10 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: Restate what earns a token and give it when the sheet is done. Tokens follow the target behavior as defined in the plan. Restating the rule and delivering the token as soon as the worksheet is done keeps the contingency clear.

• A: Giving the token after a demand reinforces demanding and breaks the plan's contingency.
• B: Partial tokens are not part of the plan and change the earning rule.
• C: Removing tokens is response cost, which can only be used if the plan includes it.

Task C.11 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: Little responding right after reinforcement, with responding speeding up as the end of the interval nears. Fixed interval schedules typically produce a pause after reinforcement and a gradually increasing rate as the end of the interval nears, often called a scallop on a cumulative record.

• A: High, steady responding with few pauses is typical of variable ratio schedules.
• C: A pause followed by a fast run until a set count is reached is typical of fixed ratio schedules.
• D: Moderate, steady responding is typical of variable interval schedules.

Task C.1 · 40-hour curriculum section A

A: How many tokens each backup reinforcer costs. The exchange rate is the price of backup reinforcers in tokens, for example 5 tokens for a turn on the swing.

• B: How many tokens each response earns is the token earning schedule, not the exchange rate.
• C: When trades happen is the timing of the exchange, not the price of backup reinforcers.
• D: Removing tokens for problem behavior is response cost.

Task C.2 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: Offer another preferred item from the plan's list. Slowing down and turning away from the item suggests satiation, so the gummy is less effective as a reinforcer right now. Rotating to other preferred items, as the plan allows, keeps reinforcement effective.

• A: Harder work does not increase the value of the reinforcer and may lower responding further.
• C: Giving gummies freely would make satiation worse and would not be contingent on responding.
• D: A reinforcer that has lost its value will not strengthen responding.

Task C.3 · 40-hour curriculum section E

C: Model "push swing" and push the swing once the child says it. In incidental teaching, the adult uses the learner's initiation to prompt a more elaborate response (the target), then delivers the item or activity the learner wanted.

• A: The target is two-word requests, so the RBT prompts the target response before reinforcing.
• B: Ignoring the initiation wastes the teaching moment the child created.
• D: Unrelated demands are not part of the incidental teaching step for this target.

Task C.4 · 40-hour curriculum section E

B: Whether each step was done alone or prompted. Scoring each step (and the prompt level when the plan requires it) shows exactly where the learner is independent and where help is still needed.

• A: A yes-or-no for the whole task hides which steps need more teaching.
• C: Session length does not show progress on the steps.
• D: Reinforcer counts do not show which steps the client can do.

Task C.5 · 40-hour curriculum section E · 40-hour curriculum section C

A: A conditional discrimination. In a conditional discrimination, which stimulus is correct depends on another stimulus, here the spoken instruction. Receptive identification with an array of items is a common conditional discrimination.

• B: In a simple discrimination the same stimulus is always correct; here the correct item changes with the instruction.
• C: Generalization is responding in the same way to similar stimuli, not choosing an item based on an instruction.
• D: A behavior chain is a sequence of linked responses; here each trial calls for one response.

Task C.6 · 40-hour curriculum section E

D: The learner may make more errors before reaching a prompt that works. Because least-to-most prompting starts with little or no help, a learner who does not yet know the skill may respond incorrectly at the first levels before receiving enough help. That is why it is often used once a learner has some of the skill.

• A: That describes the starting point of most-to-least prompting.
• B: Least-to-most prompting builds in fading, since each trial starts with no prompt.
• C: Each least-to-most trial begins with an opportunity to respond independently.

Task C.7 · 40-hour curriculum section E

C: Sequential modification. Sequential modification means introducing the intervention in each setting where the behavior has not generalized.

• A: Train and hope means not planning for generalization at all, while this plan takes action in each class.
• B: Indiscriminable contingencies involve intermittent, unpredictable reinforcement, not moving an intervention from setting to setting.
• D: Training loosely varies noncritical parts of teaching within sessions.

Task C.8 · 40-hour curriculum section E

C: Response maintenance. The teen continues to perform a learned skill, in the same setting, long after teaching ended. That is response maintenance.

• A: Acquisition is the learning of a new skill; this skill was learned a year ago.
• B: Response generalization would involve new, untaught forms of the skill.
• D: Stimulus discrimination is responding differently to different stimuli, which is not described.

Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A

B: This is shaping, because the criterion moves step by step toward a goal. Shaping can change a dimension of the same behavior, such as duration, without changing its form. Reinforcing faster completion one step at a time is shaping within a response topography.

• A: Shaping does not require a change in form; a dimension such as duration can be shaped.
• C: Backward chaining teaches the last step first; it is not about reducing total time.
• D: DRL reinforces a lower rate of a behavior, while this plan reinforces shorter duration of one routine.

Task C.10 · 40-hour curriculum section E