Behavior Management and Intervention
What this domain tests
Function-based intervention design: choosing antecedent strategies, reinforcement systems, and reduction procedures that match the function you identified.
Core rules
- Behavior is lawful and communicative; intervene on function, not on topography alone.
- Reinforcement is the primary tool: deliver immediately, consistently, and contingently; thin schedules gradually (continuous to intermittent).
- Differential reinforcement: DRA (reinforce a functionally equivalent alternative), DRI (reinforce an incompatible behavior), DRO (reinforce any other behavior during a specified interval), DRL (reinforce lower rates).
- Extinction withholds the maintaining consequence; expect an extinction burst and spontaneous recovery, and never use it alone for dangerous behavior.
- Punishment procedures (response cost, time-out) must be contingent, brief, and paired with reinforcement for replacement behavior; check whether they accidentally strengthen the function.
- Antecedent strategies: precorrection, high-probability request sequences, offering choices, active supervision, structured transitions.
- Group contingencies: independent, dependent, interdependent; token economies and level systems need explicit fading plans.
Worked example
Jayden rips worksheets and is sent to the hall, where he calms down and misses math. The pattern shows escape from demands maintained by removal. A time-out in the hall reinforces the function. Function-based plan: precorrect before independent work, offer a choice of two problem sets, teach and reinforce a break card (DRA), and reinforce completion with a preferred activity. Track task completion and break-card use; the reduction procedure is reinforcement-based, and the escape is made less valuable through demand fading.
Traps that cost marks
- Selecting DRO by habit when the function is attention or escape.
- Reprimanding a student whose behavior is maintained by adult attention, which delivers the reinforcer.
- Writing a BIP with no replacement-behavior teaching step, no data collection, and no fading criteria.