Course Title: Behavior Change Programming 114
Instructor: James O'Heare, CABC, CDBC, PABC
Course Description:
This course is a thorough treatment of the technology of constructing a comprehensive behavior change program. There are three stages to managing a behavior change project: functional assessment; behavior change programming; and post-intervention maintenance. This course will explore the last two stages. It starts with strategies for going systematically from your contingency statement of the problem and working with clients to set quantitative behavior objectives and choose the appropriate behavior change procedures. The most powerful behavior change procedures will be discussed in detail, including differential reinforcement and systematic desensitization. It proceeds to implementation of the program and monitoring the behavior to ensure the objectives are being met. It ends with devising a maintenance program for after the intervention procedures are completed.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completing this course, the student will be able to:
- Identify the stages in a behavior change project
- Identify the components of the intervention stage of a behavior change project
- Contrast and compare the constructional approach to the eliminative approach to changing behavior
- Determine quantifiable behavior objectives for the behavior of concern and track them quantitatively
- Choose appropriate behavior change procedures for the problem contingencies in question including both antecedent control procedures and/or postcedent behavior change procedures
- Describe systematic desensitization and respondent extinction and explain what behaviors they are appropriate for
- Describe differential reinforcement and its variants, including shaping and for what situations these are most appropriate
- Describe more aversive approaches to changing behavior including extinction, negative punishment, graded negative reinforcement and positive punishment and explain why these are best avoided in favor of less aversive approaches
- Identify exactly what information should be included in a complete written behavior change program and the structure of such a document
- Describe how to effectively coach clients on the procedures they will need to carry out
- Describe how to implement the behavior change program and adjust as appropriate to achieve objectives
- Describe how to shift from intervention stage to the maintenance stage
Texts:
- General Behaviorology by Lawrence E. Fraley, Chapter 1. Natural Science of Behavior at http://www.behaviorology.org/pdf/gGenBgCh1NatlSciBeh.pdf
- O’Heare, J. (2008). An analytical evaluation of ‘differential negative reinforcement of successive approximations to alternative behavior’ in changing aggressive behaviors: A contribution to the dialogue. Journal of Applied Companion Animal Behavior, 2(33-49).
- O’Heare, J. (2009). The least intrusive effective behavior intervention (LIEBI) algorithm and levels of intrusiveness table: A proposed best-practices model. Journal of Applied Companion Animal Behavior, 3(1), 7–25. http://www.associationofanimalbehaviorprofessionals.com/liebi.pdf
- Course Notes
- Recommended but NOT required:Miltenberger, R. G. (2008). Behavior Modification Principles and Procedures (4th. ed.). Toronto: Thomson Wadsworth.
Course Evaluation:
This course will be evaluated by short essay assignments that will reflect and demonstrate mastery of the course topics and achievement of the learning objectives. The final grade will be the mean average of the assignment grades.
Prerequisites:
- Principles of Behavior 104
- Functional Assessment 108
CEUs: Continuing Education Credits Available. See Course Approvals page for credits.