QABA QASP-S cheat sheet

Core ethical principles include benefit others, treat others with dignity, act with integrity, ensure competence, and do no harm; each applies to assessment, treatment, and supervision decisions.

Informed consent must be obtained before assessment or intervention, must describe procedures, risks, benefits, alternatives, and the right to withdraw at any time, and must be documented.

Confidentiality may be broken without consent only for legally mandated reasons: suspected abuse or neglect, imminent risk of serious harm, court order, or medical emergency.

Mandated reporting duties override confidentiality; suspected child or vulnerable-adult abuse must be reported to designated authorities within the state-specified timeframe.

Multiple relationships that could impair objectivity or create risk of exploitation are avoided; unavoidable ones are disclosed, documented, and managed with a plan.

Scope of competence is defined by education, training, and supervised experience; cases outside that scope are referred to a qualified professional rather than attempted.

The least restrictive effective procedure is selected first; more intrusive or punishment-based procedures require added justification, consent, peer review, and data monitoring.

Decisions about a client's program are based on objective, graphed data rather than anecdote, opinion, or a single observation.

QASP-S practice occurs under the supervision of a qualified behavior analyst (QBA); activities outside the supervision agreement or outside the credential's defined scope are not performed.

A usable operational definition is observable, measurable, objective, and complete; it passes the 'dead man's test' (a dead person cannot perform it) and specifies examples and non-examples.

Continuous measures include frequency, rate, duration, latency, inter-response time, and percent of opportunities; discontinuous measures include partial interval, whole interval, and momentary time sampling.

Partial interval recording usually overestimates behavior, whole interval recording usually underestimates it, and momentary time sampling is closest to true rates when intervals are short.

Interobserver agreement is computed by total count, mean count-per-interval, exact interval agreement, or occurrence/nonoccurrence agreement; 80-90% or higher is generally the accepted criterion.

Preference assessments progress from single stimulus to paired stimulus to MSWO; a preference hierarchy is not proof of reinforcement until a reinforcer assessment shows responding increases.

Functional behavior assessment has three tiers: indirect (interviews, rating scales), descriptive (ABC recording, scatterplots), and experimental functional analysis with manipulated contingencies.

Baseline is ended when data are stable in level and trend; highly variable or ascending baseline data weaken the internal validity of the subsequent intervention comparison.

Standard line graphs plot sessions or time on the x-axis and the behavior measure on the y-axis, with phase change lines separating conditions and equal interval scaling on both axes.

Permanent products, trial-by-trial data, and task-analysis step data are used when frequency counts cannot capture performance, such as academic work or chained routines.

Behavior is maintained by one or more functions: attention, escape or avoidance, access to tangibles or activities, or automatic sensory consequences; the function determines the intervention selected.

Antecedent interventions include noncontingent reinforcement, high-probability request sequences, functional communication training, priming, and environmental rearrangement.

Extinction withholds the maintaining reinforcer; expect an extinction burst, response variability, and spontaneous recovery, and do not apply it alone to severe behavior without review.

Differential reinforcement variants: DRA reinforces a specific alternative response, DRI reinforces a behavior incompatible with the target, DRO reinforces the absence of the target, DRL and DRH alter rates.

Prompting follows a planned hierarchy (most-to-least, least-to-most, or time delay) and prompts are faded systematically to prevent prompt dependence.

Shaping reinforces successive approximations toward a terminal response; chaining teaches a task analysis in forward, backward, or total-task order.

Reinforcement schedules range from continuous to intermittent (FR, VR, FI, VI); intermittent schedules, especially variable ratio, produce persistence and greater resistance to extinction.

Skill acquisition combines discrete trial teaching, natural environment teaching, and fluency building, with mastery criteria written in advance (for example, 80% across three consecutive sessions).

Generalization and maintenance are programmed from the start through multiple exemplars, natural contingencies, and training across settings, people, and materials.

Behavior skills training is the default staff training package: instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback repeated until a preset performance criterion is met.

Effective feedback is immediate, specific, behavioral, and balanced, pairing praise for correct steps with corrective guidance, followed by re-observation to confirm change.

Treatment integrity is measured by direct observation with a component checklist and reported as the percentage of planned steps implemented correctly.

Task clarification precedes training: written checklists stating what to do, when, and how reduce ambiguity and set the standard against which performance is scored.

Supervision must be documented with date, duration, activities, observed performance, feedback delivered, and follow-up actions; records support the required supervision hours.

Delegation is limited to tasks the supervisee has been trained and observed to perform competently; new tasks require training and monitoring before independent use.

Pyramidal training uses a trainer-of-trainers model to extend limited supervision capacity; integrity of training at each level must be checked.

Self-monitoring and permanent-product checklists are low-cost supplements to direct observation but should be calibrated against periodic direct observation.

A training needs assessment establishes baseline staff performance before training so that improvement can be demonstrated rather than assumed.

Written and verbal reports describe observable behavior and environmental events; subjective labels such as 'lazy' or 'manipulative' are replaced with operational descriptions.

Caregiver training uses behavior skills training and is evaluated by caregiver adherence data and client outcome data, not by attendance or satisfaction alone.

The HIPAA minimum necessary standard limits disclosure of protected health information to what is needed for the specific purpose and only to appropriate recipients.

Interdisciplinary coordination requires clarifying each discipline's role, agreeing on shared goals, and aligning consequences for behavior across home, school, and clinic.

Disagreements among team members are resolved by returning to graphed data and client outcomes, with the discussion and resolution documented in the record.

Progress reports to families and non-behavioral professionals translate technical terms into everyday language and state goals, current performance, and next steps.

Transition and discharge planning begins early and includes fading schedules, training natural caregivers, and arranging maintenance and generalization supports.

Cultural responsiveness means considering the family's language, values, routines, and preferences when selecting goals, procedures, and reinforcers.

Team meetings follow a structured agenda, review data, assign action items with owners and deadlines, and are followed by written summaries.