CHAPTER 4.

ASSESSMENT
In this chapter, we teach you about the various assessment methods used in ABA treatment
for people with autism spectrum disorder and how you, as a behavior technician, will help with
them. Evaluation may be less interesting than treatment, but it is equally essential. Without an
assessment, the team has no way of knowing what to address. The assessment provides a
starting point and roadmap to guide the treatment team in the right direction.
4.1 OBSERVABLE AND MEASURABLE DESCRIPTIONS OF BEHAVIOR AND
ENVIRONMENT
In Chapter 3, Measurement and Data Collection, we describe how to measure behavior.
However, before you can use any of those methods effectively, you need to know exactly what
behavior you are measuring, so you can be sure what constitutes a response and what does
not. Operational definitions are behavioral definitions that tell you what behaviors to observe
and exactly what individual occurrences should be recorded. Good operational definitions
should be:
Objectives. Operational definitions only include directly observable aspects of behavior (e.g.,
hitting), not unobservable internal states (e.g., frustration). Claras. Operational definitions
must be unambiguous. Anyone, without any prior knowledge of the behavior, should be able
to understand the definition. A good test is that a person who has never seen the behavior can
"act" according to the definition.
Complete. The definition includes all the information necessary for you to be able to
discriminate between the behavior and other behaviors that are similar but do not count.
Including specific examples and non-examples is often helpful.
Individualized . The particular forms of a behavior displayed by one individual will likely be
different from those of another. For example, Jimmy's aggression may include hitting and
kicking, while Sally's may include pinching and scratching.
Table 4.1 shows examples of operational definitions. The middle column has operational
definitions that are weaker and the right column has stronger definitions. See if you can
identify which of the weaker definitions is less objective, less clear, and/or less complete.
Table 4.1 Examples of stronger and weaker operational definitions. Try to identify how the weaker ones
are less objective, clear and/or complete
Behaviors Weaker definition Stronger definition
Huff Act showing frustration and Screaming or crying, lasting more than 3 s, with or
crying. without falling to the ground, excluding whining at or
below conversational volume
Assault Physical assault with intent to Hitting, kicking, biting or slapping.
harm.
Interactive game Have fun with others. Respond in a socially appropriate manner and on topic
in the context of the game, within 3 s of a peer making
a game initiation.
Functional Appropriate toy set. Interact with a toy in the manner intended by the
simulation game manufacturer. Examples include driving a truck,
making a doll eat, and pretending to drink tea in one
gulp. Examples do not include interacting with toys in
stereotypical or repetitive ways, such as flipping a
truck and spinning the wheels, repeatedly spinning a
doll in circles, or repeatedly looking at a cup of tea
from the corner of your eye.

It is often necessary to operationally define events that occur in the environment. For
example, when collecting functional assessment data (see below), you will record what
happens in the student's environment immediately before and after a challenging behavior
occurs. Definitions of environmental events must also be objective, clear and complete.
CHAPTER 5. SKILL ACQUISITION
Skills acquisition is the part of applied behavior analysis (ABA) treatment that focuses on
teaching and maintaining new skills to help the student function more independently and
productively in life. It is by far the most important thing you will do when working as a behavior
technician with students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Even when working with a
student who exhibits serious problem behavior, the most effective way to address that
behavior is not to focus on what the student should not do, but on what he or she should do.
Additionally, many people with ASD have deficiencies in basic communication skills, so they
learn to use challenging behaviors to get what they want or need. For all of these reasons,
focusing on teaching strong communication skills, independent living skills, social skills, and
leisure or play skills is the best way to prevent challenging behaviors and ensure that the
students you work with are functioning well. as independently as possible.
5.1 ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF A WRITTEN SKILLS ACQUISITION PLAN
A skill acquisition plan will teach a particular skill to the student you are working with. It is
important to follow the skill acquisition plan carefully and for all behavior technicians working
with that student to implement the plan with great consistency. The reason for this is that, if
the plan is not working, but is being implemented consistently, then the BCBA overseeing the
case will not be able to determine whether it is the plan that is ineffective or whether it is simply
failing due to a lack of management. treatment integrity with behavior technicians not
implementing it consistently. A good skills acquisition plan will include an objective, criteria for
mastery, how to teach the skill and necessary prompts , as well as stating the specific roles of those
working with the client. Any plan written by a BCBA or BABA-D should be ethical and socially valid,
without these things being explicitly stated. A plan may need to be modified, but the original plan
wouldn't include an entire back - up plan. However, the roles of the stakeholders are a very important
aspect to address . This table is a sample skill acquisition plan to teach various functions of

everyday objects, outlining the essential elements you can expect to find in most skill
acquisition plans.
5.1.1 Terminal Skill or Goal . Skill acquisition plans should specify the general objective to be
taught. For example, if the goal is to teach social imitation (i.e., a student spontaneously
imitating others within social contexts), individual-target responses, such as imitating clapping
and waving, may be smaller component skills in the path towards teaching the generalized
imitation repertoire. The plan may also describe the general purpose. For example, a plan
may attempt to achieve the goal of teaching functional simulation play with storytelling (Goal),
with the general rationale of improving the student's social play skills (purpose).
Purpose-oriented programming. Keep in mind where you are going when teaching a skill and
be careful not to get lost in the details - it's the big picture that really matters.
5.1.2 Teaching procedures. Skill acquisition plans should specify what teaching procedures
will be used for that plan. For example, using discrete trial teaching versus natural
environment teaching versus chaining. The various procedures you can use are described in
detail later in this chapter.
5.1.3 Materials. Skills acquisition plans will likely specify the particular teaching materials you
will need to run the program. For example, for a program to teach command (request,
demand) to a child with autism, you may need to have his or her favorite toys available. To
teach an adult with ASD how to make a sandwich, you may need to have bread, mayonnaise,
mustard, cheese, turkey, a plate, and a knife. To teach a child the names of objects, you may
need several examples of the objects you are teaching.
5.1.4 Preparation of the learning environment. Generally speaking, you should always
minimize distractions and have appropriate reinforcers available. If there are any particular
ways in which you need to prepare the environment, the skills acquisition plan should specify
them. For example, if you are teaching a child with autism to command (ask for) his or her
favorite food, you can place that food within sight but out of reach (for example, on the kitchen
counter or on a shelf). If you are teaching a teen to ask for help, you can set up a preferred
activity that is incomplete (e.g. e.g., a puzzle with a missing piece, an iPad with the passcode
enabled) to create an opportunity for her to ask for help.
Set the environment for success to avoid challenging behaviors:
• Place yourself between the student and the door to prevent a leak.
• Clean the table of foreign materials to avoid throwing materials
. Prepare materials before calling the student to avoid unnecessary waiting and resulting
behavioral problems.
5.1.5 Instruction. The skills acquisition plan should specify what instructions to deliver. For
example, when teaching a student with ASD to make reciprocal conversational statements, the
instruction may consist of the behavior technician asking, “Hey, what did you do yesterday?”
Or if you are teaching a child your phone number, the instruction might be, "What is your
phone number?" Or if you were teaching a child with autism receptive object labels (also
known as listening behavior) for clothing, the instruction might be, "Which shirt is it?"
5.1.6 Target response (TARGET RESPONSE). The skill acquisition plan will specify what
particular target response(s) it expects from the learner. For example, when teaching a child
with ASD categories, in response to the instruction “Tell me some animals,” a correct response
by the student could be “Horse, dog, cat,” or any other animal. Table 5.1 shows examples of
instructions and responses for a variety of different skill acquisition programs. It is important
that the skill acquisition plan clearly defines what counts and what does not count as a correct
response so that all behavior technicians on the team can implement the program consistently.
If you are not clear about what response you should look for from the student, ask the
supervising BCBA before running the program.

Use common sense. Be flexible with what you accept as a correct answer if the student is
demonstrating the skill, but in a slightly different way than you expect (for example, a child
identifies a label by either pointing to it or handing it to them).

5.1.7 Reinforcement (REINFORCEMENT)

A skill acquisition plan may or may not specify which particular reinforcers to use for that plan.
This is because reinforcers for most skill acquisition plans must be changed frequently,
depending on the learner's current preferences (see Section 4.1.1).
However, some skills always result in a particular consequence, by definition. For example,
commanding (asking), by definition, is reinforced by the consequence specified by the student.
When teaching a child to ask for milk, after he or she says "Milk," "Milk, please," or "I want
milk," you would always give the child milk, as opposed to some other non-milk-related
reinforcer. . The skill acquisition plan should also specify the reinforcement schedule to be
implemented for a target skill (see more in Section 5.3.3).
5.1.8 Indications and fast fading
Skill acquisition plans should determine which hints to use and rapid fading. Indications and
indication fading are discussed in more detail below.
5.1.9 Teaching objectives or examples
Virtually every skill you will teach students with ASD has multiple different objectives or
examples that you will need to teach. For example, when teaching functional pretend play,
you can teach a student to make a toy truck go "vroom," pretend to eat with toy food, pretend a
doll is sleeping, make a toy airplane fly, etc. . Sometimes these many different target
component skills will be listed in the skill acquisition plan, but often there are too many to list,
so they may be contained in a separate document, sometimes called an "idea sheet", "list". of
objectives" or something similar. Appendix A is a sample.
5.2 SESSION PREPARATION
In most treatment programs, you will have a brief amount of time at the beginning of the
session when you have the opportunity to review all of the student's skill acquisition plans,
behavioral intervention plans, and notes from recent sessions. Also, use this time to gather all
the necessary teaching materials, data sheets and put them in place so that you are ready to
teach the student quickly and effectively.
Always remember that every moment is a teaching moment. Make sure a student participates
in something functional while preparing for the session. Continue to engage the child as you
prepare and be ready to intervene if challenging behaviors arise.

5.3 REINFORCEMENT CONTINGENCIES

Positive reinforcement is the foundation of everything we do at ABA. Positive reinforcement is
the basic concept that explains why people do what they do throughout their daily lives.
Positive reinforcement is the primary source of motivation for all human behavior and for
everything we try to teach in ABA programs for people with ASD. Before we get to the
technical definition of positive reinforcement, it is helpful to think about the following general
concept: The consequence of the behavior is important. The consequence of everything we
do affects how we do it and whether we do it in the future. Some consequences are very
motivating. Consequences have a very large effect on our behavior, even so large that we
may only have to learn a lesson once . For example, you don't have to stick your finger in an
outlet twice to learn that you shouldn't stick your finger in an outlet. Other consequences have
a very small effect on reinforcement is a type of consequence that, by definition, has an effect
on behavior in the sense that it causes it to do it more in the future. Behaviors that lead to
highly desirable outcomes are likely to be repeated again in the future. If you drive a particular
route to work and it has very little traffic, you are likely to drive that route again in the future,
compared to other routes with more traffic.
Stated in more technical terms, reinforcement is a consequence that results in an increase
or maintenance of the future probability of a behavior. In other words, reinforcement is a
consequence that strengthens behavior.
Reinforcement is not a bribe. A bribe is when you give someone a reward before they commit
behavior, usually behavior that is morally questionable. Reinforcement is where a reward is
given after a behavior and is used intentionally to strengthen moral behaviors that benefit the
learner.
Reinforcement works equally well on desired and undesired behaviors. For example, a child
with autism might learn that when he asks for attention, he gets attention, and that can
maintain that behavior in the future. However , depending on how adults interact with
him, he might also learn that when he has a tantrum, he gets attention and that may
result in him having more tantrums in the future . Our job as behavior technicians is to
make sure that adaptive behaviors receive a lot of reinforcement and maladaptive behaviors
do not. Another vitally important thing to know about reinforcement is that it is completely
idiosyncratic. In other words, what might be reinforcing for you may not necessarily be
reinforcing for others. For example, you may like country music, while someone else hates it.
The same may be true for broccoli, Brussels sprouts, etc. Trains may be effective reinforcers
for some students with ASD, while stuffed animals may be effective for others. The only thing
that makes something reinforcing for someone is that it works to improve their behavior
. Never assume something is going to be a reinforcer until you see it working.
5.3.1 Positive and negative reinforcement
So far we have learned that reinforcement is a type of consequence that increases the
probability of a behavior in the future. Reinforcement can be further subclassified in terms of
whether something is given or taken away from the person's environment. The term positive
refers to something that is happening. The term negative refers to something that is taken
away. Positive reinforcement, then, is a consequence that is added to a person's environment
that results in future strengthening of that behavior. Common examples of positive
reinforcement include access to social approval, preferred food, money, etc.
Examples of positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement is the removal of a consequence that results in an increase in the
behavior that resulted in that removal. For example, if the music is too loud, then your
behavior of turning down the volume is negatively reinforced by removing excessively loud
music from your environment. If a child with autism is asked to do work he does not want to do
and asks for a break and he gets a break, giving him a break (i.e., taking the work away) can
negatively reinforce the child's behavior of asking for a break, which would be nice (i.e. asking
for a break is better than engaging in destructive behavior).
Negative reinforcement... are you the non-preferred stimulus that is removed? Be careful
about creating a dynamic in which the student is motivated to escape from you and your
teaching. Positive reinforcement should always outweigh negative reinforcement.

Negative REINFORCEMENT: Enough of the bad reputation! "Negative" refers to something

being removed, not the effect on behavior.
It is important to remember that both positive and negative reinforcement can increase desired
or undesired behavior. For example, if a child has a tantrum while at the grocery store and is
given candy to calm down, the tantrums are likely to occur again during future shopping trips
since this resulted in access to the candy. On the contrary, if the parent gives candy to the
child when he politely helps him put away groceries at home, the polite behavior is reinforced
and will increase in the future. In this same example, negative reinforcement can also be
used. If the child had a tantrum because he didn't like shopping and his parent took him out of
the store, the tantrums are likely to be negatively reinforced and more likely to occur in the
future. However, if the shopping trip ends with the child waiting calmly, the waiting behavior
will be reinforced. As such, negative reinforcement can increase appropriate or inappropriate
behaviors, depending on how we apply it. In short, positive reinforcement is when a behavior
results in being given something preferred, while negative reinforcement is when a behavior
results in taking away something that is not preferred. Both are reinforcement because they
increase the strength of a given behavior.

5.3.2 Conditioned and unconditioned reinforcement

Another important distinction within reinforcement is the distinction between conditioned and
unconditioned reinforcement. Unconditioned reinforcement is where the effectiveness of a
reinforcer does not depend on a learning history. Instead, that consequence is a reinforcer
simply due to genetics and natural selection in the evolution of the species. Examples of
unconditioned positive reinforcers are food when a person is hungry (i.e., lack of food), water
when a person is thirsty (i.e., lack of water), heat when a person is cold, and sweet and salty
tastes. Examples of unconditioned negative reinforcers are escape from extreme
temperatures, escape from loud noises, and escape from physically painful stimuli. All of
these are unconditioned reinforcers because people do not need to learn to become
reinforcers, they are reinforcers for all humans (except very extreme cases).
Reinforcers that have become effective due to the person's learning history are called
conditioned reinforcers. They are reinforcers that are acquired during a person's life and vary
greatly from one person to another. For example, although most people like sweet foods
(unconditioned reinforcer), some people prefer one type of candy while others prefer another.
Likewise, one person may prefer country music while another may prefer rap music. And one
person may prefer broccoli, while another may prefer carrots, while a third person may hate all
vegetables. There is nothing in the genetic makeup of these different people that determines
which of those stimuli will be reinforcing. Instead, these different people have learned to prefer
these different reinforcers because of their learning history.
The most common way in which stimuli become conditioned reinforcers is by pairing them with
existing reinforcers. The classic example you may have heard of is "Pavlov's dog." Pavlov, a
Russian researcher in the early 20th century, was the first scientist to document that, when a
dog repeatedly contacts a neutral stimulus (bell) immediately before a strong stimulus (food),
then the bell comes to have some of the functions of the strong stimulus. Specifically, after the
bell had been paired with food several times, when the dog only heard the bell, it salivated,
showing that pairing the bell with food caused the bell to have some of the same effects on the
dog's behavior. food.
The principle of responder conditioning was first demonstrated with dogs, but it turns out that
this fundamental learning principle works with almost every other animal on the planet,
including humans.
For example, a particular food or drink that you had at particularly reinforcing times in your
childhood (e.g. (e.g., lemonade on summer vacation) can still be a powerful reinforcer for you
because of that history of pairing it with pleasant events from your past. A primary goal of
working with students with ASD is to establish stimuli that the student is not initially motivated
to (e.g., attention) to be reinforcers, by repeatedly pairing them with stimuli that are already
reinforcers (e.g., video games, food, etc.). ). For this reason, it is often a good idea to praise
the student when you give him a reinforcer. By repeatedly praising when giving reinforcers,
you are pairing the praise with a powerful reinforcer and therefore conditioning the praise to be
a reinforcer in the future.
Records. Token reinforcement is a common method of maintaining motivation for students
with ASD. Tokens are conditioned reinforcers that the student obtains for correct answers,
which can be exchanged later for more powerful reinforcers. For example, in an integrated
preschool for children with and without ASD, a teacher might give students a point each time
they follow an instruction the first time it is given. Once a student earns 10 points, they can
choose a "treasure" from the "treasure chest," a box containing toys. When conducting
discrete trial training with a young student with autism, it is common to create a “chip board,”
which is a board or laminated sheet of paper that has space to earn a specific number of chips.
When the board is full of tokens, the student can exchange them to earn a larger reinforcer.
This larger reinforcer is called a backup reinforcer.
Making the tokens themselves interesting or preferred can improve the effectiveness of a
token economy. For example, using stickers of a student's favorite cartoons as chips may
work better than using completely neutral stimuli, such as poker chips .
Guidelines for Effective Token Use
 Follow the rules for earning tokens in the skill acquisition plan precisely (for example,
every time the learner performs a specific behavior, they earn a token)
 Make sure the student sees that they have earned a token (it is often a good idea to
give it to them and ask them to place it in the jar, on the board, or anywhere else tokens
are kept until they are exchanged for a reinforcer)
 Give the token to the student immediately after the behavior that meets the criterion
 Follow the rules in the skill acquisition plan for when the student can exchange tokens
(for example, after ten tokens, choose a backup reinforcer)
Examples of token economies:
 Fill a sticker chart with stickers of the student's favorite characters
  Completing puzzle pieces of a student's favorite animal
 Add marbles to the jar
 Build rings from a stacking toy
 Receive coins to make a purchase
5.3.3 Continuous and intermittent reinforcement programs
The timing and frequency at which you give reinforcement is called the reinforcement schedule
. There are two basic reinforcement schedules: continuous and intermittent. With continuous
reinforcement , a particular behavior results in a particular reinforcer each time the behavior
occurs. Intermittent reinforcement schedules are schedules in which a particular behavior
produces a particular consequence, but not every time the behavior occurs. It is commonly
believed that intermittent schedules of reinforcement lead to strong maintenance of behavior.
It is important to keep this point in mind when addressing both desired and unwanted behavior;
We want to be sure to continue reinforcing the desired behavior on a reduced schedule, but we
want to be careful not to intermittently reinforce the undesired behavior.

There are four types of intermittent reinforcement schedules: fixed rate, variable rate, fixed
interval, and variable interval . The program determines which occurrences of the target
response will be followed by reinforcement. Reinforcement ratio schedules specify how a
target response is required before reinforcement is delivered. A fixed-ratio reinforcement (FR)
schedule is when a reinforcer is delivered after a set number of target responses. For
example, after every five correct answers during the DTT, the student gets a 1-minute break
(FR5). A variable ratio (VR) reinforcement schedule is when a reinforcer is delivered after an
average number of occurrences of the target response. For example, after one of five correct
answers in DTT, the student earns a 1-minute break (VR5). Sometimes the student may only
need to complete three correct answers, sometimes four, sometimes six, and sometimes
seven, but the overall average required to get a break is five.
Reinforcement schedules that specify the amount of time that must elapse after the last
reinforcer was given before the behavior can be reinforced again are called interval schedules.
A fixed interval (FI) reinforcement schedule is when a behavior is reinforced after a set "fixed"
amount of time since the last reinforcement was given. For example, a child may need a break
before they can ask for a break again (FI5). If you ask for a break before that, there is no
penalty, but you just don't get the break. In other words, the first time you ask for a break after
waiting at least 5 minutes after the last 5 minutes have passed since your last break, you get a
break again. A variable interval (VI) reinforcement schedule is when the first occurrence of a
target response is reinforced after an average period of time. For example, the number of
minutes the student would have to wait since their last break can change each time, from 3 to
7 minutes, but on average 5 minutes in total (VI5).

Average intermittent reinforcement: "Sometimes this works to get what I want, I'll try it!"
5.3.4 Tips for effective delivery of reinforcement immediately.
Immediate. You should give the student the reinforcer as quickly as possible after the
behavior you are trying to reinforce occurs (e.g., within 1 second, if possible).
Enthusiastic. Be sure to be optimistic and enthusiastic when using praise as reinforcement.
Quota. Make sure the student really needs to perform the behavior to get the reinforcer. If the
student can get the reinforcer for free without performing the behavior they are trying to
reinforce, then your reinforcement procedure will not work as well.
Large enough . Make sure the amount of reinforcer you are giving is large enough for the
reinforcer to be effective. For example, 30 seconds of a video game may not be long enough
to make the game fun and may not be an effective reinforcer, while a minute or 2 minutes may
be enough.
Specific. It's usually a good idea to name the behavior when you give reinforcement (e.g.,
"Look at him, he's got his shoes!").
Use expansions. When reinforcing verbal behavior, it is often a good idea to model
expansions of the verbal behavior you are reinforcing. For example, if you are giving the
student reinforcement for labeling a red dog as "red," you might say, "That's right, it's a red
dog" instead of simply saying, "That's right, it's red."
Maximize motivation operations. For a reinforcer to work best, the learner should not have
received much of it recently (see Section 5.4).
5.4 MOTIVATION OPERATIONS
Antecedents can have a powerful effect on consequences whether they are effective
reinforcers or not. For example, if you already had a full chocolate cake for breakfast,
chocolate cake probably won't be a powerful reinforcement after dinner that night.
Antecedents that affect the potency of reinforcers are called motivational operations.
Motivation operations are divided into two types: (1) establishment operations and (2) abolition
operations. Setting operations increases the potency of a reinforcer and temporarily evokes
behaviors that have been reinforced by that consequence in the past. For example, if an adult
with autism has not eaten in a few hours, food becomes a stronger reinforcer and he or she is
likely to ask for food or engage in other behaviors that elicited food in the past.
The most common type of setting operation is deprivation and simply means not having a
reinforcer for some time. The term deprivation sounds negative or unethical, but its technical
meaning in ABA is not. It is simply a name for what happens to most of us every day. Every
day when we wake up, we deprive ourselves of food because we haven't eaten for a long time.
Therefore, food is a strong reinforcer first thing in the morning for most people. Then, around
noon, food becomes a stronger reinforcer because you haven't eaten since breakfast
(assuming you haven't snacked in the meantime), so you're food deprived again. Deprivation
is not a negative thing, it is simply a name for the normal day-to-day and hour-to-hour changes
in potency that happen to reinforcers when we haven't had them for a while.
Of course, some antecedents do the opposite of establishing operations. Abolition operations
are antecedents that decrease the potency of a reinforcer and temporarily suppress the
behaviors that have earned that reinforcer in the past. For example, if a teenager with autism
has just drunk a large glass of water, water is no longer a powerful reinforcer at that point and
she is unlikely to ask for water. Later, if he has not had water again for a long time, then the
lack of water will be an establishing operation (water deprivation), which makes water a
powerful reinforcer again. Satiety is the term that refers to having recently had a reinforcer,
and therefore the reinforcer becomes less powerful. So if you want to make a reinforcer more
powerful (for example, for teaching), use deprivation, and if you want to make a reinforcer less
powerful (for example, to avoid challenging behavior to get that reinforcer), use satiation. .
Chapter 6, Behavior Reduction, describes in more detail how to use satiation to reduce
challenging behaviors with a procedure called noncontingent reinforcement.
Consider the student's recent history and how this may alter your teaching approach. Use
background modifications to set the student up for success (e.g., snack if very hungry, demand
to fade if sleep deprived, etc.).
5.5 DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING (DTT)
DTT is among the best-researched and best-known treatment and education procedures for
teaching skills to students with ASD. DTT is a teaching method in which learning tests are
presented in rapid succession, with a clear beginning and end to each test. There are three
parts to a discrete test: (1) the instruction given by the technician, (2) the student's response,
and (3) the consequence given by the technician. Skills commonly taught through DTT include
matching, basic listener response (e.g., identifying object labels or following simple
instructions), motor and vocal imitation, language skills involving actions, features, functions,
cause, and effect, categories and academic skills, including letters, numbers, shapes and
colors.
The rationale for DTT is that students with AED often require a large number of learning
opportunities to master skills and DTT was developed to ensure as many learning
opportunities as possible.
The benefits of DTT are that it produces rapid learning, many learning opportunities can be
presented quickly because learning is teacher-directed, it helps people with AED learn
structured work expectations, and it is easy to train staff to implement it. Potential drawbacks
to discrete trial instruction include that it may teach rote responding if done poorly, that skills
learned may not generalize to the less structured natural environment, and that it does not
reinforce student spontaneity, per se.
General Features of Most DTT Skills Acquisition Programs:
 The interaction between the behavioral technician and the student is divided into three
different units. The evidence consists of (1) the instruction given by the technician, (2)
the student's response, and (3) the consequence of the student's response, which is
immediately delivered by the behavior technician.
 Teaching in DTT tends to be more structured. There is a predictable exchange
between the behavior technician and the student. This does not mean that teaching
must be robotic or rote, simply that there is a predictable structure.
 The reinforcers used in DTT may not be related to the skills being taught. Any
reinforcer that is potent can be used in DTT, regardless of whether it is related in any
meaningful way to the skill being taught.
 Prompts are used to help students respond correctly and then the prompts fade away.
 Rehearsals are initiated by the behavior technician. The behavior technician who is
teaching the student with autism specifies when each test begins by capturing the
student's attention and presenting an instruction.
 DTT tends to be fast paced. The behavior technician maximizes the number of
attempts made and minimizes the amount of time the student has to wait between
attempts.

Some people are not familiar with high-quality DTT and refer to all DTT as "drill and kill,"
meaning that DTT hurts a person's motivation to learn because it is repetitive and boring.
However, nowhere within discrete trial teaching protocols are behavior technicians instructed
to be boring, use an artificial tone of voice, provide repetitive and ineffective reinforcers, or use
meaningless teaching materials. Like everything else in ABA, DTT should be fun, upbeat, and
motivating for the student. For example, if you are teaching colors, you could present a test for
the student to sort toys into piles based on color and then give the student the toy they want
from one of the piles as reinforcement for that test.

5.5.1 IMPLEMENTING DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING

1. Get the student's attention.
2. Deliver the instruction. Express instructions in a clear and optimistic way, not robotically. It
is not necessary to use an artificial tone of voice.
3. Pair a message with the instruction, if it is a message test. See the directions section below.
4. Wait up to 3 seconds for the student to respond.
5. If the student answers correctly, reinforce immediately and enthusiastically. Deliver any
reinforcers you have identified through a brief, very recent multiple-stimulus preference
assessment (see Section 4.1.1).
6. If the student answers incorrectly or does not respond, implement a correction procedure.
The specific correction procedure will be specified by your BCBA (see Section 5.3.2).
7. Record data quickly.
8. Regain the student's attention (if necessary) and present the next instruction. The time from
the consequence of a test to the instruction on the next test, called the intertest interval, should
be as short as possible (no more than 3 seconds).
DTT should be FUN! Keep the pace of teaching fast, while also:
 It encourages
 Sitting in places other than a table (e.g., bean bag, floor, couch, play structure)
 Incorporate learning into play
 Use reinforcers that are related to the context and activity
 Various praise
5.5.2 Error Correction Procedures
When the student gives an incorrect answer during the DTT, a correction procedure will
usually be implemented. For example, you can repeat the instruction while giving an
immediate full prompt, to ensure that the student gives a correct response at the next learning
opportunity. Different schools and agencies use different error correction procedures, but the
general reason is to use prompts to prevent the student from making repeated errors.
5.5.3 Mastery Criteria
Mastery criterion is the rule for deciding when a particular skill or a particular phase of a skill
acquisition program is mastered, based on the accuracy of the learner's performance. For
example, after a child has demonstrated at least 90% correctness in identifying the body parts,
“hand,” “tummy,” and “head,” in random rotation, with at least two behavioral technicians
different and in at least two days, we could say that those three objectives have been
mastered with that particular instruction. Different schools and service providers have slightly
different mastery criteria, but most have 80% correct or higher on at least two different
behavior technicians and two different days. Some BCBAS prefer 90% or more, for 3 days.
Be sure to check with your BCBA supervisor .
5.6 NATURALISTIC TEACHING PROCEDURES
ABA teaching can also seem natural in its delivery and can be integrated into play or daily
routines. A variety of naturalistic teaching procedures have been developed and shown to be
effective with students with ASD. Naturalistic teaching procedures are known by several
names, including: natural environment training, fundamental response training, environmental
teaching, and incidental teaching. Each version of naturalistic teaching has its own unique
characteristics and we do not have enough space for a complete review of each. However,
most naturalistic teaching procedures include the following common features: child-directed
learning, use of reinforcers related to the teaching interaction, motivation embedded in the
teaching context, interleaving of mastered skills, and less focus on maximizing the maximum
possible. number of learning opportunities (although this objective is not neglected).
5.6.1 IMPLEMENTING NATURALISTIC TEACHING
To implement naturalistic teaching, see the skills acquisition plan. Each plan will specify
unique details based on the needs of each student. However, the following steps generally
apply to most naturalistic teaching methods:
1. Prepare the environment. Identify the skills to be taught and organize the environment
with the child's interests in mind, while maintaining control over particular opportunities
to be devised (e.g. preferred items out of reach, etc.) Organize the environment in
consequence before being responsible for teaching the student.
2. Engage the student in an organized environment of game interaction. The goal is for
the organized environment to evoke an initiation on the part of the student (e.g. For
example, playing next to the toy out of reach, giving him a toy that needs batteries,
painting without a brush, etc.). Make sure you have the student's attention and create a
clear opportunity for them to respond.
3. The student starts. This is when the learning opportunity really begins. The student
can reach for the object, look at it expectantly, make gestures, etc. You are looking for
some indication from the learner that they are motivated to interact with you (i.e., there
is a strong motivating operation).
4. If the student's initiation is already sufficient to reinforce, reinforce the response. In
other words, if the learner's first initiation is the target response, reinforce it with a
reinforcer that is related to the interaction. For example, if upon seeing a paintbrush
missing from a painting set, a student said to his behavior technician, "Brush please,"
the behavior technician would give him a paintbrush.
 5. If the student's initiation is not enough to reinforce, ask for a response. For example, if
the student's first initiation was to reach for a paintbrush but he or she does not say
anything, the technician could use the echoic cue by saying "Brush."
6. If the student responds correctly to your message, reinforce it and fade the message
over time. See the section on prompts and prompt fading for techniques for this.
7. Make sure the environment is set up for another learning opportunity. This ensures that
more than one learning opportunity can be realized. For example, you can allow the
student to use the brush for 30 seconds and then say "My turn" and take their turn, thus
creating another opportunity for the student to ask.
Naturalistic teaching can be used to teach a wide variety of skills. For example, if you were
teaching colors and the child you were working with loved balloons, you could sit with her in
front of a stack of deflated balloons of different colors. When you reach for one of the
balloons, it will be an opportunity for you to ask which balloon you want by indicating the color.
The reinforcer for her to correctly label a color would be you blowing up that balloon and giving
it to her.
Naturalistic teaching may seem like play, but it should always include effective prompting
and contingent reinforcement.
Independent living skills can also be taught using naturalistic teaching procedures. For
example, if going outside to play is a powerful reinforcer for a student, then you could use
going outside as an opportunity to teach them how to put on their shoes. To do this, you can
say to the student: "Alright, let's go out and play!" as she walked with him towards the door. At
the last second before opening the door, you can say "Oops" and point to your bare feet and
shoes next to the door. You could then use a cue to help him put on his shoes and then go
with him to play outside, thus reinforcing the putting on shoes behavior.
As noted above, there are many versions of naturalistic instruction, and depending on the
BCBA supervising your work, there will be slight differences in how the above steps are
implemented. For example, in pivotal response training, it is common to reinforce an attempt
at a correct response even if there is no improvement over previous performance. Other
versions of naturalistic teaching will specify the correct response to reinforce. Be sure to check
with the skills acquisition plan and supervising BCBA to ensure you are implementing the
program as designed.
Potential benefits of naturalistic teaching include better generalization, collateral improvements
in nondirected skills, and potential preference for students and their families. Potential
drawbacks to naturalistic teaching may be that it relies on student motivation (which can be
especially difficult for students with ASD who demonstrate restricted interests), requires
planning, and the ability to modify instruction on the spot on the part of the student. behavior
technician and, finally, the integrity of treatment, as well as consistency among behavior
technicians, may be more difficult.
5.6.2 BALANCING DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING AND NATURALIST TEACHING
Most high-quality ABA programs for students with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) today
carefully evaluate what combination of DTT ( Discrete Trial Training) and naturalistic teaching
is appropriate for each individual skill being taught to each student. With most of the students
you work with, you will probably do a combination of DTT and naturalistic training to teach
skills. Generally speaking, DTT is what ensures a lot of practice and naturalistic teaching is
what ensures that the learner can demonstrate the skill in their natural environment (i.e.
generalization).
A great way to ensure that a student gets enough structured practice and enough
generalization is to frequently alternate between DTT and naturalistic teaching. For example, if
you are teaching a young child with autism the names of body parts, you can first run a block
of discrete trials, in which you point to his head and give the instruction "What is this?", where
the student's expected response is "Head." When the student gives a correct response, you
would reinforce it with whatever reinforcer you are working towards, e.g. E.g., praise, tokens,
high fives, head tickling, etc. In later trials in that block, you can do the same thing, but also for
your arm and abdomen. After completing a reasonable amount of work on a discrete test (for
example, perhaps 5 to 15 correct answers, depending on the student), you can give the
student a break. During the break, you can play with the student on the floor and come up with
ways for the student to label those same body parts for a natural consequence that is a
powerful reinforcer. For example, if tickling is a strong reinforcer for that child, you might tickle
his arm for a second and then stop and give him an "expectant" look and shrug, as if to tell him
that you don't know what he wants. If the student then says "arm", I would tickle his arm. If
she doesn't say arm, you would prompt her to say it, perhaps by modeling the word "arm." If
he then says the target answer or some approximation, then you would tickle his arm. Then
he would do the same with other parts of the body, all integrated into the fun activity of tickling.
Most high-quality ABA programs for children with autism frequently alternate between more
structured DTT and less structured naturalistic instruction if a student is found to benefit from
both types of instruction. The client learns that the day is made up of a back and forth "dance"
between the behavior technician and the student, frequently changing from more structure to
less structure. In addition to ensuring plenty of practice and generalization training, this
frequent change of format helps prevent the child and the behavior technician from becoming
bored and helps the child become more flexible with transitions, which is a challenge for many.
children with ASD.
Learning opportunities are important. The behavior technician's job is to ensure quality and
quantity.
5.7 SHAPING
Shaping is a procedure in which you reinforce successive approaches to a behavior, to create
new forms of behavior. Start by reinforcing a form of behavior exhibited by the student that
most closely matches the terminal behavior you are trying to establish. For example, when a
student with autism is learning his or her first words, he or she may not be able to pronounce a
complete word and may need to begin by reinforcing a small approximation of the word. For
example, if an apple is an effective reinforcer and you are teaching the student to say "apple"
to ask for (mand) apples, you can begin by giving the student an apple when he says "a."
After several successive sessions or days of reinforcing "a," you may only reinforce "a-puh"
and then the full, correctly pronounced word, "apple." Your BCBA supervisor will specify which
particular approximations of a behavior to reinforce and the criteria for moving from reinforcing
one approach to another.
5.8 TASK ANALYSIS AND SHAINING
When teaching complex skills to people with autism, it is often helpful to break the skills down
into smaller, easier-to-teach steps. A task analysis (TA) involves breaking down a complex
skill into small, teachable steps, which form a behavioral chain of sequential responses to
create a complex behavior. For example, to wash your hands, you would probably do
something like the following chain of behaviors: turn on the water, wet your hands, get soap,
rub your hands, rinse your hands, turn off the water, dry your hands with a towel.
When teaching a complex chain of behavior, the first step is to create a TA that specifies the
sequence of shorter behaviors that make up the longer, more complex behavior. The BCBA
supervising a student's program can start with an existing TA (for example, from a previous
student or from a syllabus) or create a custom one for each task and/or student.
Encouraging and reinforcing each behavior in a TA is a teaching procedure called chaining.
There are three variations of chaining: (1) forward chaining, (2) backward chaining, and (3)
total task presentation. Forward chaining is where the initial step in the behavior chain
sequence is taught first, while the behavior technician directs or completes the rest of the
steps. To teach the first step, give the initial instruction and give the student the opportunity to
respond. For example, I would take the student to a sink and say, “Wash your hands,” and
then wait for the student to turn on the faucet (the first step in the chain). If he does it
independently, then you will walk him through the rest of the steps for washing his hands and
then provide positive reinforcement when he is done. If she didn't do the first step
independently, you would provide her with a cue (for example, physically guide her hands to
turn on the faucet). After several days or sessions of doing this, the student will begin to
complete the first step independently and then focus on teaching the second step, and so on,
until they can wash their hands without assistance. Figure 5.2 shows forward chaining using a
TA to teach the skill of brushing teeth. Rather than teaching the initial step first, some BCBAS
prefer to teach the latter step first so that independent responding with natural completion of
the task is immediately followed by reinforcement. Backward chaining is where all steps within
the behavior chain are driven by the behavior technician other than the final step, which is
taught to the student. For example, to wash your hands, you would instruct the student to
follow all the steps until the last step (drying their hands) and then stop and wait for the student
to dry their hands independently. Doing so will provide positive reinforcement. If he doesn't,
you'll ask him to do it and then give him reinforcement.
After several sessions or days, the student will begin to dry their hands independently. You
can then give it the opportunity to do the penultimate step (turn off the water) independently,
and so on, for the rest of the chain. Some BCBAS prefer to teach all steps in a chain at the
same time. Full task presentation involves presenting the entire task to the student and having
him complete all the steps until he learns the chain. For example, you would give the
instruction “Wash your hands” and observe what the student does. It allows him to complete
the chain of behaviors independently until he makes a mistake or does not respond, at which
point you instruct him to complete the current step correctly and then stop prompting him and
watch what he does next. In other words, you are using the least amount of prompts
necessary to help the student complete all the steps in the chain. The reinforcement is then
delivered after completing the last step in the chain (drying hands).
Examples of skills commonly taught using TA and chaining:

 Wash your face

 Brushing teeth
 Dressing and undressing
 Make a sandwich
 Tie shoes
 Set the table
The prompts (Prompts) are an additional help and it is essential that they fade quickly and
effectively so that the student with autism does not become dependent on them in order to
respond. For example, when teaching a student to sit still on the mat during circle time, the
behavior technician may have introduced a small mat with the student's name on it as a cue to
sit still in his or her designated spot. Once the student is doing this successfully, it is time to
systematically fade that message away. First, the technician can fade the size of the mat
smaller and smaller as the student becomes successful. The mat can then be removed
completely so that the overall learning environment now takes on discriminative control of the
student's sitting behavior.
There are several ways in which prompts can be grayed out . Cue fading is a type of stimulus
fading, a procedure in which some aspect of a stimulus slowly and systematically fades away.
With all cue fading procedures, you go from providing more prompts early in learning to
providing less later, until the learner responds correctly and independently without your help.
Generally speaking, indications can be dimmed from low to high (LTM) or high to low (MTL).