C.9 Maintenance vs. acquisition
Acquisition procedures teach a skill the client cannot yet do; maintenance procedures keep a mastered skill strong over time. RBTs need to tell the two apart because they look different in practice, with different amounts of prompting, reinforcement, practice and data collection, and because the plan treats each target according to its phase.
What the outline says
Task C.9 in content area C, Behavior Acquisition (19 of the 75 scored questions): "Distinguish between maintenance and acquisition procedures."
Acquisition and maintenance defined
Acquisition is the learning of a new skill, one that is not yet in the client's repertoire. Baseline data usually confirm that the client cannot yet perform it. A target stays in acquisition until it meets the mastery criterion.
Maintenance (response maintenance) is the continued performance of a skill over time after some or all of the teaching has been reduced or stopped. Once a target is mastered, the plan usually moves it to maintenance, where it is practiced and checked less often.
The 40-hour curriculum describes common phases of intervention: baseline, intervention, generalization and maintenance. Acquisition happens in the intervention phase; maintenance comes after mastery.
How the procedures differ
What decides the phase is whether the skill is already mastered, not the setting, format or type of skill. A new word taught on a park swing through incidental teaching is still acquisition. The typical differences are:
- Practice: acquisition targets get many learning opportunities each session; maintenance targets are practiced now and then, often mixed in with other work.
- Prompting: acquisition uses prompts as the plan directs, with prompt fading; maintenance targets are performed independently.
- Reinforcement: acquisition usually uses dense reinforcement, often for every correct response; maintenance uses thinner, intermittent reinforcement and natural consequences.
- Data: acquisition targets are often measured trial by trial every session; maintenance targets are often checked with periodic probes, such as weekly.
Thinning reinforcement matters because behavior on intermittent schedules is more resistant to extinction than behavior that was reinforced every time. Skills in everyday life are rarely reinforced every time, so a skill that depends on dense reinforcement may fall apart when services end. If a skill is practiced but never produces any reinforcement, programmed or natural, it is likely to weaken through extinction.
Mastery criteria
A mastery criterion is a preset standard, set by the supervisor, that shows a skill has been learned, for example "at least 90% correct across 3 consecutive sessions." Read it exactly. With scores of 90%, 80%, 90%, 100% and 90%, the 80% in the second session breaks the run, so the criterion is first met after the fifth session (90%, 100%, 90%).
Meeting mastery shows acquisition under the conditions used in teaching. It does not show that the skill will last without practice, occur in all settings, or no longer need reinforcement. Maintenance and generalization are checked separately.
Your role step by step
- Know which targets are in acquisition and which are in maintenance before the session starts.
- Run acquisition targets with the prompting, error correction and reinforcement schedule the plan specifies.
- Run maintenance targets as written: independent responding, the planned (usually thinner) reinforcement, and the planned frequency.
- Follow the plan's interspersal of mastered and new targets. Mixing easy, mastered tasks with new ones keeps mastered skills in practice and gives the client frequent chances for success and reinforcement.
- Run maintenance probes without prompts if the plan says so, and record what the client actually did. Do not score a prompted or missed response as correct.
- When a target meets mastery, record it and follow the plan's steps for moving it to maintenance, keeping the supervisor informed.
- If a maintenance probe shows a drop, or an acquisition target stays flat for weeks, report it. If the plan contains a decision rule, such as "return to acquisition after two consecutive probes below 80%," follow it and inform your supervisor.
Who decides
The supervisor sets mastery criteria, decides when targets move between acquisition and maintenance, and picks new targets. The RBT collects accurate data, follows the plan, including any written decision rules, and reports. Explaining the plan to caregivers is fine; for example, "Practicing skills the child already knows now and then helps keep them strong." Changing a target's phase on your own is not.
How this connects to other tasks
Maintenance and generalization (C.8) are both about skills lasting beyond teaching: one across time, the other across people, places and materials. Schedules of reinforcement (C.1) explain why thinning supports maintenance. Prompt fading (C.7) is part of acquisition. Reading trends (A.7) helps you spot a maintained skill (high and stable data) versus one in acquisition (an increasing trend) or one that is slipping (a decreasing trend).
Examples and non-examples
| Example | Non-example |
|---|---|
| A client who could not write their phone number in baseline is taught with most-to-least prompting and reinforcement for every correct response (acquisition). | The same RBT asks a client to name colors they mastered months ago a few times during play, praising now and then (maintenance). |
| The plan says mastered targets get praise for about every third correct response, and the RBT follows that schedule. | The RBT gives a snack after every correct response on mastered targets because the client enjoys it, which departs from the plan. |
| On a weekly maintenance probe, the client misses an item; the RBT records it as incorrect and reports the decline. | The RBT gives a gesture prompt during the unprompted probe and records the item as correct. |
Common mistakes
- Dropping mastered targets entirely. Skills that are never practiced or reinforced can be lost; maintenance keeps them in use.
- Keeping mastered targets on dense, acquisition-level reinforcement. Follow the plan's thinner schedule so the skill can survive everyday conditions.
- Assuming mastery means the skill will last and appear everywhere. Maintenance and generalization still need to be checked.
- Misreading a mastery criterion that requires consecutive sessions. A single low session breaks the run.
- Moving targets between phases or choosing new targets without the supervisor, unless the plan gives a written rule.
How it's tested
Expect items that ask you to classify a procedure as acquisition or maintenance, to pick the features that go with each (dense vs thinned reinforcement, prompts vs independence, frequent vs periodic data), to apply a mastery criterion to a row of scores, or to choose what to do when maintenance data drop. The key test is whether the skill is new or already mastered; the setting and teaching format do not decide it.
Practice questions for task C.9
10 of our 34 questions on this task. The rest are in the Behavior Acquisition practice sets and the mock exams.
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Question 1What does "acquisition" mean in a skill program?
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D: Learning a skill that is not yet in the client's repertoire. Acquisition is the learning of a new skill. Acquisition targets are taught directly, usually with prompts and frequent reinforcement, until the client meets the mastery criterion.
- A: Keeping a mastered skill strong over time is maintenance.
- B: Using a learned skill in new conditions is generalization.
- C: Measuring a skill before teaching is baseline.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 2Which of these targets in a client's program is an acquisition target?
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A: Labeling coins, which the client got right on 1 of 10 baseline trials. A target is in acquisition when the client cannot yet perform it, as shown by low baseline performance. The other targets have already been mastered and are being maintained.
- B: A mastered target that is probed weekly is a maintenance target.
- C: A target that met mastery criterion is no longer in acquisition.
- D: A mastered skill used in daily life is being maintained, not acquired.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 3Which reinforcement arrangement is most typical for a target that is still in acquisition?
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A: Reinforcement for every correct response. When a skill is being learned, dense reinforcement, often continuous reinforcement for every correct response, produces the fastest learning. Reinforcement is usually thinned later, as the skill moves toward maintenance.
- B: A thin variable schedule is more typical once a skill is learned and being maintained.
- C: Relying only on natural consequences is a later goal, not the usual arrangement during initial learning.
- D: Monthly probes are a maintenance check, not an acquisition procedure.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 4A target meets the mastery criterion written in the plan. What is the RBT's next step?
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D: Record the data and follow the plan's steps for maintenance. Meeting mastery means the target is ready to move from acquisition to maintenance as the plan describes. The supervisor reviews the data and decides on new targets.
- A: Dropping a mastered skill completely risks losing it; mastered targets are usually maintained.
- B: Choosing new targets is the supervisor's role, not the RBT's.
- C: Continuing acquisition-level teaching after mastery does not prepare the skill to last under everyday conditions.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 5On a weekly maintenance probe, a client scores 40% on a target that was mastered at 90% two months ago. The plan gives no rule for this situation. What should the RBT do?
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C: Record the probe result accurately and report the drop to the supervisor. A large drop on a maintenance probe is important data. The RBT records it as it occurred and reports it, and the supervisor decides whether the target returns to acquisition or needs another change.
- A: Removing a target from the program is a supervisor decision.
- B: Recording prompted responses as correct misrepresents the client's performance.
- D: Without a rule in the plan, changing the target's phase is the supervisor's decision.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 6Which feature is typical of a target in maintenance?
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B: The client responds independently, without prompts. A maintenance target has already been mastered, so the client performs it independently. Prompting and prompt fading belong to acquisition.
- A: Prompting on most trials suggests the skill is not yet mastered.
- C: Errorless prompting before every response is used while a skill is being learned.
- D: Fading prompts across sessions is part of teaching a skill to mastery.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 7A client mastered naming coins, and the team then stopped practicing the skill. Six months later, the client names only a few coins correctly. What does this show?
Show answer
C: The skill was not maintained after teaching ended. The client met mastery, so the skill was acquired. Losing it over time after practice stopped is a failure of maintenance.
- A: The problem is a loss over time, not a lack of performance in new settings.
- B: Response generalization would be the appearance of new response forms, not a loss of correct responses.
- D: The client met the mastery criterion, so the skill was acquired.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 8In the same playroom where colors were taught, an RBT asks a client to name colors a few times during play and gives praise now and then. The client has mastered all of these colors. Which procedure is this?
Show answer
A: A maintenance procedure. Occasional practice of mastered skills with intermittent reinforcement is a maintenance procedure. Because the setting is the same one used for teaching, it is not a generalization probe.
- B: Acquisition is teaching skills not yet learned; these colors are already mastered.
- C: Baseline measures skills before teaching, not mastered skills.
- D: Stimulus fading removes an added cue during teaching, which is not described.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 9A client could not write their phone number in baseline. The RBT now uses most-to-least prompting and reinforces every correct response. Which procedure is the RBT implementing?
Show answer
C: An acquisition procedure. The client is learning a skill that was not in their repertoire, with prompts and continuous reinforcement. That is an acquisition procedure.
- A: Maintenance procedures are for skills that are already mastered.
- B: A generalization probe tests a learned skill in new conditions without teaching.
- D: A mastery probe checks performance without prompts; this is prompted teaching.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
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Question 10What is a mastery criterion?
Show answer
A: A preset standard showing that a skill has been learned. A mastery criterion, set by the supervisor, states the level of performance needed to consider a skill learned, for example a percentage correct across a number of sessions.
- B: The number of prompts on the first day is not a standard for mastery.
- C: How often to probe is a maintenance schedule, not a mastery criterion.
- D: The first baseline score is the starting point, not the standard to be met.
Task C.9 · 40-hour curriculum section A
Answer every question to see your score.
Key terms
| Acquisition | The learning of a new skill; acquisition procedures provide prompts, frequent reinforcement and repeated practice until the skill meets the mastery criterion. |
|---|---|
| Maintenance | The extent to which a learner continues to perform a skill over time after the teaching procedures that produced it have been reduced or removed. |
| Mastery criterion | The preset level of correct, independent performance a learner must reach before a skill target is considered learned and moved out of acquisition. |
| Baseline | Baseline is a condition in which the target behavior is measured repeatedly before the intervention is introduced, giving a standard to compare against. |
| Intermittent reinforcement | A schedule in which only some occurrences of a behavior are reinforced, as in fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval and variable-interval schedules. |
| Continuous reinforcement | Continuous reinforcement (CRF) is a schedule in which every occurrence of the target behavior is reinforced. |
| Generalization | When a learned behavior occurs in settings, with people or materials, or in forms that were not directly part of training. |
| Prompt fading | Gradually and systematically reducing prompts so that the correct response comes under the control of the natural SD rather than the prompt. |
| Most-to-least prompting | A prompting procedure that begins with the most assistive prompt needed and fades to less assistive prompts across trials or sessions as the learner succeeds. |
| Procedural fidelity | Procedural fidelity is the degree to which an intervention is carried out exactly as written in the plan; it is also called treatment integrity or procedural integrity. |
| Level | Level is where data points fall on the vertical axis of a graph, often summarized as the average value within a phase. |
| Trend | Trend is the overall direction in which data points on a graph move over time: increasing, decreasing, or showing no clear change (zero trend). |
| Extinction | Discontinuing the reinforcement of a previously reinforced behavior, so the behavior no longer produces its maintaining consequence and decreases over time. |
| Incidental teaching | A naturalistic teaching procedure in which the learner initiates interaction with an item or activity and the teacher uses that moment to prompt a more complete response before giving access. |