Generalization and Maintenance of Behavior Change

1
Generalization and Maintenance of Behavior
Change

• Chapter 28

2
Are These Skills Useful?

• Bobby has learned to independently wash his
  hands, but he only does this when Mrs. Kirk is
  with him.
• Melanie sits nicely and remains on-task during
  math class but not social studies class.
• Rachel learned to count to 100 using blocks last
  year. This year her teacher asked her to count
  out 100 pennies, but Rachel doesnt seem to know
  how.
• Leo can name all of the states using his favorite
  U.S. puzzle, but cannot name them if he is asked
  using the class map.

3
Generalization

• It is meaningless to change behavior unless the
  change can be made to last.
• The behavior has got to occur in a setting other
  than the original training site and in the
  absence of the original trainer.

4
Behavior Principle of Generalization Baer, Wolf
Risley

• A behavior change may be said to have
  generalization
• if it proves durable over time,
• if it appears in a wide variety to other possible
  environments
• if it spreads to a wide variety of related
  behaviors

5
Stimulus Generalization

• When a response is reinforced in the presence of
  one stimulus,
• That same type of behavior tends to be evoked by
  stimuli that share similar physical properties
  with that controlling antecedent stimulus

6
Stimulus Generalization

• If you teach green using this color circle

Students most likely to say green
Students less likely to say green
(discrimination)
Students less likely to say green
(discrimination)
7
Stimulus Generalization

• Sowhen a response has been trained with a
  specific teacher, materials, or setting
• It may occur with other, similar teachers,
  materials, or settings
• The more similar the novel teacher, materials,
  and setting are to the training teacher,
  materials, and setting
• The more likely stimulus generalization will
  occur

8
Discrimination vs. Generalization

• Essentially opposite processes
• As one increases, the other decreases
• Discrimination
• Responding differently to 2 or more stimuli
• Tight degree of stimulus control
• Generalization
• Responding similarly to 2 or more stimuli
• Loose degree of stimulus control

9
Stimulus Discrimination Stimulus Generalization
are a Continuum

• Stimulus
• Generalization

• Stimulus
• Discrimination

10
Articles to Know

• Baer, Wolf, and Risley (1968)
• Some ______________ of applied behavior analysis
• Very 1st issue of JABA
• Generality of Behavior Change as 1 of ABAs
  defining characteristics
• Stokes and Baer (1977)
• An ________________ of generalization
• Reviewed 270 studies on generalization
• Categorized 9 techniques for assessing and
  training generalization

11
Types of Generalization

• Response Maintenance
• Setting/Situation Generalization
• Response Generalization

12
Response Maintenance

• Extent to which a learner continues to perform
  the target behavior after a portion or all of the
  intervention is terminated
• AKA durability, behavioral persistence
• Examples?

13
Setting/Situation Generalization

• Extent to which a learner emits the target
  behavior in a setting or stimulus situation
  thats different from the instructional setting

Mrs. Kirk taught Bobby how to wash his hands in
the school restroom
Will Bobby wash his hands at home?
14
Setting/Situation Generalization

• The more similar the novel teacher, materials,
  and setting are to the training teacher,
  materials, and setting
• The more likely setting/situation generalization
  will occur (PG 619)

Bobby is more likely to wash his hands at home if
the sink and bathroom are similar to the one at
school
Mrs. Kirk taught Bobby how to wash his hands in
the school restroom
15
Schedule of SR like in gen setting multiple
exemplars
Ducharme and Holborn (1997)
16
Barker et al. (2004)
17
Response Generalization

• Extent to which a learner emits untrained
  responses that are functionally equivalent to the
  trained target behavior
• Can we teach creativity?

18
SUDS Subjective Units of Distress Scale
Tx ERP
Wetterneck and Woods (2006)
19
Planning for Generalization

• Select target behaviors that will meet natural
  contingencies of reinforcement
• Example
• Evans falling out of his chair is maintained by
  attention
• In choosing a replacement behavior, observe what
  the other students in the class do that result in
  attention for them
• Teach Evan to do that!
• Specify all desired variations of the target
  behavior and the settings/situations in which it
  should and should not occur after instruction has
  ended
• List all the forms of the target behaviors that
  need to be changed examples?
• List all the settings/situations in which the
  target behavior should occur examples?

20
5 Major Strategies for Promoting
Generalization

• Teach the Full Range of Relevant Stimulus
  Conditions and Response Requirements
• Make the Instructional Setting Similar to the
  Generalization Setting
• Maximize Contact with Reinforcement in the
  Generalization Setting
• Mediate Generalization
• Train to Generalize

21
1. Teach the Full Range of
Relevant Stimulus Conditions
and Response Requirements

• Teach sufficient examples
• Teach the student to respond to a subset of all
  possible stimulus and response examples and then
  assess generalization on untrained examples
  (generalization probe)
• Examples Item taught, format of presentation,
  setting, person teaching
• General Case Analysis
• Select teaching examples that represent the full
  range of variations in the generalization setting
• Example Teaching the concept of dog

22
2. Make the Instructional Setting
Similar to the Generalization Setting

• Program common stimuli
• Include typical features of the generalization
  setting into the instructional setting
• Examples preschool and classroom setup
• Teach loosely
• Randomly vary noncritical aspects of the
  instructional setting within and across teaching
  sessions
• If some aspect of the materials, setting, method
  of presentation doesnt matter
• Change it from time to time so the learners
  response doesnt come under tight stimulus
  control of those irrelevant features

23
Baers (1999) Recommendations

• Use 2 or more teachers
• Teach in 2 or more places
• Teach from a variety of positions
• Vary your tone of voice
• Vary your choice of words
• Show the stimuli from a variety of angles, using
  sometimes one hand and sometimes the other
• Have other people present sometimes and not other
  times
• Dress quite differently on different days
• Vary the reinforcers
• Teach sometimes in noisy settings, sometimes in
  quiet ones
• In any setting, vary the decorations, vary the
  furniture, and vary their locations
• Vary the times of day when you and everyone else
  teach
• Vary the temperature in the teaching settings
• Vary the smells in the teaching settings
• Within the limits possible vary the content of
  whats being taught
• Do all of this as often and as unpredictably as
  possible

24
3. Maximize Contact
with Reinforcement
in the Generalization Setting

• Teach the target behavior to levels of
  performance required by naturally existing
  contingencies of reinforcement
• Example Teaching a greeting, holding a door
• Program indiscriminable contingencies
• Arrange it so that the learner cant tell if the
  next response will produce reinforcement
• So that when hes in the natural environment,
  hell continue to engage in the target behavior
  often enough/long enough to contact reinforcement
• Guidelines
• Begin teaching with CRF gradually thin the
  schedule (e.g., FR5) and make variable (e.g.,
  VR5)
• Begin teaching with a 0 sec delay between
  response and reinforcer gradually increase the
  delay
• Each time a delayed reward is delivered, explain
  to the learner that hes receiving the reward for
  specific behaviors performed earlier (to help the
  learner learn the rule describing the contingency)

25
3. Maximize Contact
with Reinforcement
in the Generalization Setting

• Ask people in the generalization setting to
  reinforce the target behavior
• Teach the learner to recruit reinforcement
• How?
• Applicability?

26
4. Mediate Generalization

• Arrange for something or someone to ensure the
  transfer of the target behavior from the
  instructional setting to the generalization
  setting
• Contrive a mediating stimulus
• Bring the target response under the control of a
  stimulus that will be in the gen setting
• Example train mom and send the spoon home
• Example reinforcement systems in gen ed
• Teach self-management skills
• Learner takes the self-management system into the
  generalization setting

27
5. Train to Generalize

• Reinforce generalization as a response class
• Instruct the learner to generalize
• Reinforce response variability
• How?

28
Newman et al. (2000)