Behavior Analysis
LECTURE
2
METHODS IN BA
Review
 What are the ABC’s of behavior analysis?
 Antecedents, behavior and consequences
 Why are the ABC’s important to us?
 Because behavior analysis is concerned with how antecedents
and consequences (environmental events) are related to
behavior
 What is applied behavior analysis
 Our attempts to solve behavior problems by altering the
antecedents and consequences of behavior
 Before exploring interventions, its important we look
at the methods used to attain information in
behavior analysis
Behavioral Assessment
 Problem solving, in all psychology, begins with an
assessment of the problem. However behaviorists use a
very specific technique called Behavioral Assessment.
Behavioral Assessment: the attempt to (1) define the target
behavior (2) identify functional relations between the
target behavior and its antecedents and consequences; and
(3) identify an effective intervention for changing the target
behavior
 Let address each number!
Defining the target behavior
 What is the target behavior?
Target behavior: the behavior to be changed by an
intervention
 Behavior Analysts are interested in changing the rate
of behavior, the target behavior is normally the
behavior that either needs to occur less, or it needs to
occur more.
Defining the target behavior
 The target behavior is usually defined in collaboration with
the client.
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This can be done by interviewing the client, and sometimes those people
close to the client
Or client observations
Sometimes questionnaires are used to achieve this end
 The point of this is to identify the actions that client does that
are problematic
 Note: behavioral assessments target actual specific behavior,
not fuzzy words like lazy, sarcastic, rude, unappreciative,
insincere etc.
 It is often the case that most people don’t identify the actual
behaviors that need to be changed
 Lets think of an example….
Defining the target behavior
 ‘My son Sid has anger problems, I want you to
reduce my sons anger’
 What is the target behavior here?
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Is anger a behavior?
 What does Sid do to make his father think he has
anger issues
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Hits people
Yells at his dad
Throws his food on the floor
Identifying the functional relations
 Once you know the target behavior, the next goal is
to identify functional relations between the target
behavior and its antecedents and consequences
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Again this can be done via interview
 Lets say that Sid’s problem is that he has a tendency
to throw things, we need to know when this behavior
occurs.
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The answer to this question need to be specific. There will be
situations that Sid throws things, and there will be situations
when Sid doesn't’t throw things, we need this information
Identifying the functional relations
 Suppose Sid’s Dad describes a time in a grocery store when Sid
began to throw things. We need to find out:
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Who was present?
What time was it?
Had anyone said anything to Sid?
What happened when Sid began to scream?
Did Dad shout at him?
Did other people at the shop stare?
Were they asked to leave?
 You need a detailed description about what happened before, during
and after the target behavior
 Once you have learned of these antecedents and consequences, you
need to ask the same set of questions about another episode
 Very soon you will have a pretty good idea about the antecedents
and consequences that usually accompany the target behavior
Identifying the functional relations
 Your interview notes will probably suggest some
hypothesis about relation between the target
behavior, its antecedents and consequences
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For example, you may have come to the conclusion that Sid’s
tantrums happen when he is around food, and his request to
have the food is denied. The tantrums are usually followed by
Sid receiving the food he wanted.
 This is a reasonable hypothesis, but is it true?
Identifying the functional relations
 In order to know this we have to conduct a functional
analysis
Functional analysis: the process of testing hypotheses
about the functional relations among antecedents,
target behavior and consequences
 A functional analysis begins with observations of the
client, and whenever possible these are made in the
natural environment, where the target behavior is a
problem
Identifying the functional relations
 In Sid’s case you might go to a grocery store and
watch Sid and his Father
 If Sid throws things you note what happened before
and after he started throwing things
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Did it begin when someone entered the area?
When someone said something?
When Dad suggested leaving?
After throwing things, was he shouted at? Spanked? Given a
toy?
Identifying the functional relations
 When you have identified a functional relation
between the target behavior, antecedents and
consequences
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For example, you notice that Sid begins throwing things when
he and his father reach the chocolate section, and that
throwing things continues until his Father gives Sid chocolate
 Then you can test this relation!
 For example, you could have the Father go back to the
chocolate area and see if the throwing begins
 Note: if its not possible to re-create the situation
then you may manufacture one
Identifying an intervention
 Once we know the target behavior, the antecedents
and consequences, we can come up with tentative
intervention plan
 We then discuss and test this plan with the client,
and observe if we can reduce or increase the
frequency of the target behavior
How to observe and record events
 In order to conduct a behavioral assessment we have
to do two things
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Observe events
Record events.
 We now turn to some basic principles concerning the
recording and analysis of behavior:
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Recording behavior rate
Measuring the reliability of rate data
Graphing behavior rates
Evaluating the effects of an intervention
Recording behavior rates
 Recording rate data means determining how many
times a particular behavior occurs within a given
period
 There are a number of informal and formal ways of
doing this
Informal ways of determining behavior rate
 One way is to simply ask the person who is engaging
in the behavior
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However, people’s retrospective estimates are usually wrong
e.g. if a particular behavior is unflattering then the person will
create a biased estimate
 Giving people a survey may improve accuracy
 But you're still asking for a retrospective assessment
 And asking close friends of the clients will be equally
inaccurate
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Because they too will have to rely on their memory and are still
open to bias
Formal ways on determining behavior rate
 As behaviorist, we cannot rely on hearsay when it
comes to pinning down behavior rates with
precision.
 We need someone to observe the behavior and tally
the number of times it occurs within a given period
 There are two ways to count or record behavior;
 Continuous recording
 Interval recording
Continuous recording
Continuous recording: recording each and every
occurrence of a target behavior within a given period
 As implied in the definition this involves observing a
client and counting each time they exhibit the
behavior
 We would do this for a pre arranged period of time,
say half an hour to one hour
 There would usually be one or two observation
periods for a number of days
Continuous recording
 Why not follow people around all day?
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The person is unlikely to enjoy being followed around all day
Also, as a behavior analyst were interested in problem behavior that
occurs within a certain context, it would be a waste of time to be
there all day when the behavior problem only occurs in certain
situations
 In order to count behavior, analysts usually employ a
tally sheet, which would include:
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Time and date of the observation period
The locations where observations were made
The name of the observer and the observations being made.
A space for tally marks indicating the target behavior
A notes section where other contextual notes are kept
 In the modern age, mechanical counters are often used
Interval recording
 Some behaviors occur too frequently to be able to
count accurately each occurrences over a certain
time period
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For example, imagine measuring each time someone tapped
their foot in a 30 minute period, if that person was prone to
foot tapping!
 When behavior occurs at a high rate then we turn to
interval recording
Interval recording: recording whether a behavior
occurs during each of a series of short intervals within
an observation period
Interval recording
 In interval recording, behavior is recorded during
very small intervals, often less than 30 seconds,
during an observation period
 In these periods we don’t count every time the
behavior occurs, just if it occurs
 If it does the researcher makes a tally mark for that
given time period
Measuring the reliability of rate data
 Lets say I'm measuring the amount of times a student
gets out of her seat without permission
 In order to do this, every 30 minutes, for 10 seconds I
record whether she leaves her seat in that time
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What kind of recording is this?
 The data show that the student leaves her seat on 50% of
the intervals
 How do we determine if that 50% figure is accurate?
Inter observer reliability
 One way to do this is to have two people observe the
same behavior
 If they come up with the same answer then we feel
relatively confident that the answer is correct.
 In our research we call this
Inter observe reliability: a measure of the degree of
agreement in data tallies made by two or more observers
 There are several ways of calculating inter observer
reliability
Inter observer reliability
 Reliability of continuous data
 Observer 1 records that a behavior occurs 100 times in a half an hour
period. Observer 2 records 150 times.
 In order to work out the inter observer reliability, we divide 100 by 150
and then multiply the answer by 100, giving us an inter observer
reliability of 67.
 Reliability of interval data
 Count the number of intervals on which the two observers agree. Lets say
6 in this case
 Then you divide by the total number of intervals observed. Lets say 10.
 Then you multiply answer by 100 to get the inter observer reliability of
60.
 Most behaviorists would be happy with a reliability score of
90, anything below 80 would be seen as unreliable
Improving reliability
 The major way in which we lessen the gap between
two observers, or increase the reliability, is to
precisely define the nature of the target behavior.
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For example, what would aggression look like in a classroom.
This has to specific in order to people to record the behavior
properly
 Once reliable data have been recorded then what
does it mean, interpreting data is greatly facilitated
by presenting it in graphical format
Graphing behavior rates
 Students often hate graphs, mostly because of the
link to Mathematics
 However, the point of graphs is to make difficult
material easier to understand.
 In behavior analysis there are two types of graphs
that we use to make formidable data as simple of
possible
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Simple frequency graphs
Cumulative frequency graphs
Simple Frequency Graphs
Simple frequency graph: a graph in which each data
point indicates the number of times a behavior
occurred a particular time
 Remember that the point of graphs is to help us see
any trends in the data
 Lets say for example we were examining how many
essays of a given subject that a student was
completing over a 10 day period
Simple Frequency Graphs
4
Essays
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Days
7
8
9
10
Cumulative Frequency Graphs
Cumulative frequency graph: a graph in which each
data point indicates the total number of times the
behavior has occurred up to that point
 While simple frequency graph shows the number of
times a behavior occurs during a certain period
 A cumulative frequency graph shows the total
number of times the behavior has occurred during
that and all previous periods
 Note: if your cumulative frequency graph ever goes
downwards, then you have done it wrong!
Cumulative Frequency Graphs
25
Essays
20
15
10
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Days
7
8
9
10
Evaluating the effects of an intervention
 The job of applied behavior analysts is to solve behavior
problems i.e. increase or decrease the rate of behavior.
 But how can they be sure that the changes in behavior
they get are due to their efforts?
 You all know that with group design studies we run
statistical tests to see whether the differences between
two groups of people are significantly different.
 However, group designs are not particularly helpful
answering questions about the effects of experience on
individual behavior.
Single case experimental design
 Instead single case experimental designs are more appropriate
Single case experimental design: a research design in which the
behavior of an individual is compared under experimental and control
conditions
 Here, we compare the performance of an individual under one
condition, with that same individuals performance under other
conditions.
 Instead of running statistical tests, we plot the data on a graph and
examine it.
 Behavior analysts want effects of practical significance, not
statistical significance
Single case experimental design
 Now in order to test a particular variable on behavior,
you must manipulate that variable while holding all other
variables constant.
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In group research you do with by employing a control group
 In single case design, one way to do this is to use a
baseline period
Baseline: a period during which the behavior under study
is recorded, but no attempt is made to modify it
 This data provides the basis for comparison. More
psychologically, the baseline gives you a standard against
which you can measure the effects of the IV
Single case experimental design
 Once you have the baseline period, you can then
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introduce the IV
Since now you are not only recording behavior, this
stage of the experiment is now called the
intervention period
To determine the effect of the intervention, you
compare performance during baseline with
performance during intervention
You do this by looking at the graphical
representation of both periods
Lets think of a example….
ABAB Reversal design
 How do we know that the difference found between
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baseline and intervention is because of our intervention
Imagine that we gave math lessons by a booklet,
subsequently we gave lessons on the computer. We aim
to see which medium would produce more assignments
being completed.
The data looks as though the individual completes more
assignments during the computer instructed lessons
However what if the reason for the increase in lesson
completion is because, as the student started the
computer lessons, the students teacher threatened to tell
his parents if he didn't’t improve in Math.
This may have powered the results
ABAB Reversal design
 One way to rule out this is by
ABAB reversal design: a single case design in which
baseline and intervention conditions are repeated with the
same person.
 In ABAB design you essentially run the experiment twice
to ensure that confounding variables didn’t power the
results
 Example?
Multiple baseline design
 ABAB design wouldn't’t work if you were solving a
serious behavior problem, as you wouldn't’t want
them to return to baseline just to check you're
intervention worked
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For example, imagine some who was very violent
 In situations like this you need to replicate without
returning to baseline
 Behaviorists do this using Multiple baseline design
Multiple baseline design: a single case design in which
the effects of an intervention are recorded across
situations, behaviors, or individuals
Multiple baseline design
 In multiple baseline experiments, as the name implies,
there are multiple baseline periods
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As an example, think of Teddy, a four year old boy who has a
problem with screaming loudly, in many different places, until
people give in to his request.
We want to see, if ignoring Teddy when he screams will reduce his
screaming behavior.
Of course, we cant employ ABAB design here as we don’t want him
returning to baseline!
Therefore we create multiple baselines; one in school, one at home,
one in church etc.
Then, once the baseline is stable in one place, the intervention is
administered. This is then repeated for the other baselines
The data may look something like this
Multiple baseline design
Multiple baseline design
 When looking at the data, you compare the behavior that
occurs during the baseline and intervention across each
situation
 If you get similar results across all situations then there
is little doubt that the change is due to the intervention
 You can also have multiple baseline across different types
of behavior
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For example, if teddy stamps his feet and hits people, then we could
set up baselines for those behavior too, then measure the effect of the
intervention
 You can also employ multiple baseline with different
people presenting with a similar issue, to determine if
your intervention worked
Alternating treatment designs
 ‘But you're only using one intervention in these
studies, what if you wanted to compare
interventions?
 If you wanted to study the effects of different
treatments then one way to do it could be to employ
traditional group design experiments that you all
have run
 However you could also employ an
Alternating treatment design: a single case design in
which two of more interventions alternate
systematically
Alternating treatment designs
 This design involves alternating the treatments in one client
 However, in order to rule out extraneous variables, it would
be important to counterbalance the conditions within each
client, and to run the study with a few different clients to see if
the results are consistent
Flash cards
 behavioral assessment
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define target behavior; 2 identify functional relations b/w behavior and
antecedents/consequences; 3 identify effective intervention for changing target behavior
 target behavior
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behavior to be changed by an intervention
 functional analysis
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process of testing hypotheses about the functional relations among antecedents, target
behavior, and consequences
 continuous recording
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recording each and every occurrence of a behavior during a prescribed period
 interval recording
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recording whether a behavior occurs during each of a series of short intervals within an
observation period
 inter-observer reliability
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measure of the degree of agreement in data tallies made by two or more observers
 simple frequency graph
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graph in which each data point indicates the number of times a behavior occurred at a
particular time
Flash cards
 cumulative frequency graph
 graph in which each data point indicates the total number of time the behavior
has occurred up to that point
 single-case experimental design
 research design in which behavior of an individual is compared under
experimental and control conditions
 baseline
 period during which the behavior under study is recorded, but no attempt is
made to modify it
 ABAB reversal design
 single case design in which baseline and intervention conditions are repeated
with same person
 multiple baseline design
 single case design in which the effects of an intervention are recorded across
situations, behaviors, or individuals
 alternating treatments design
 single case design in which two or more interventions alternate systematically