Wednesday January 22 2014 9 31 AM Test 1 Set of notes Principles and Procedures of Behavior Modification and Therapy a discipline that focuses on developing replicable procedures that help solve problems of human behavior such as are evident in children with autism and other developmental disabilities poor school performance of junior high students marital phobias and health problems Behavior taught needs to be maintained Goals make things better solve or at least ameliorate societal problems such as mental retardation create solutions that are replicable procedure that can be used by other people who are trained in the procedures develop a better basic understanding of human behavior Dealing with human Problems Focus on overt observable behavior as the measure of whether or not there is a problem and whether or not the intervention is effective Primary emphasis to use environmental rearrangement s as the intervention of choice Interventions based primarily on the laws of learning discovered in behavioral research Why do you need them Objective measures provide the best evidence that an intervention designed too change behavior is or is not working the measure tells you whether or not the problem was increased Behavior needs to be Observable see it smell it taste it hear it etc Reliably recorded Quantifiable numerical units if possible To be useful in addressing human problems your measurement needs to Measure the real problem Is reliable people agree that behavior occurred or did not Is sensitive to the amount of change that you are interested in producing Is particle telomeres control cell production and as you get older and older you lose them until you die Some control types of measurement systems Electrical or mechanical recording won t have it 98 of the time monitors or instruments Recording by human observers Self recording not as believable as 2 or more people recording Measurement of permanent product outcome Direct observations by ourselves yes it happened or did not Ex Record write down how many cigarettes you ve smoked and report it to your therapist Advantages and disadvantages of each Advantages Easy to use highly reliable constant recording possible inexpensive Disadvantages expensive may not be believable another person is present Advantages of permanent product Ex Weight watchers programs Convenient because you do not need to observe behavior directly Convenient to evaluate reliability since can have a second observer look at permanent products at a different times Disadvantages May not be certain who produced permanent product may not be certain what behaviors produced the permanent product Permanent product isn t used very often Definitions of behavior A description of behavior In terms of events that an observer can hear or see So that two independent observers seeing or hearing the same events agree that the events did or did not happen at the same moment in time Definitions may be refined many times What might be definitions of Slapping another person Slapping Open hand contact with another person s face with head moved forcefully from a natural position Slapping Person s hand comes into contact with another person aggressively and without consent of other person An example of vigorous play of preschool child An example of self injurious behavior of a young child with autism maintained by attention or consequences also releases endorphins ex head banging when head hits the wall the thumping sound can be heard 10 feet away Scratching self Biting self Eye poking Slapping face Pulling hair out of head A person smiling at someone An example of disruptive behavior in a 9th grade English class Direct observation by human observers is the most common method of recording behavior in behavioral research To use direct observation by human observers you need most widely used a definition of a behavior hardest a method of recording the amount of behavior a evaluation of reliability of recording Common methods of recording behavior frequency measure count the number of times behavior occurs during an observation trantrums duration measure record how much time behavior occurs during an observation sleeping and studying interval by interval measure divide observation period into small time blocks and score whether or not behavior occurs in each of the time blocks 10 seconds of time at a time and score if the behavior occurred during that particular interval time sampling observe frequently for brief moments during an observation and score whether behavior occurred or not during each moment that you observe observer who is scoring the behavior can t watch them all the time teacher is the example can be very inaccurate What measures is the best one to use it depends primarily on the behavior you are measuring and what characteristics of the behavior are of the greatest applied importance Examples Tantrums total amount of time Hitting others Sleeping duration Studying duration Time Sampling random but needs to be done on a predetermined schedule In interval by interval they watch the entire time in time sampling observers only observe for a brief amount of time Response per opportunity recording A special case of frequency recording Some behaviors can occur or can appropriately occur only when there is an opportunity Example answering question greeting someone following instructions In these cases you would use two frequency counts the frequency of opportunities and the frequency of the behavior occurring when the opportunity occurs Example Jim followed 12 of the 15 instructions that were given to him on Monday Evaluation of the reliability of recording Reliability between observers to calculate look at the doc For frequency measures and duration measures you typically have just totals from the observers to compare Frequency measure count of times behavior occurs during an observation rate of behavior or number of behaviors divided by time observed Example 10 hits observed in 2 hours would be 10 2 or 5 hits per hour Duration measure record how much time behavior occurs during an observation of time behavior occurred or number of minutes or sec behavior occurred divided by total time observed Example 30 minutes of tantrums observed in 3 hours 180 minutes would be 30 180 X 100 17 of time engaged in tantrums Interval by interval divide observation period into small time blocks and score whether or not behavior occurs In each of the time blocks Time sampling observation