Question of the day - August 19
Sorry to all those who responded to my previous post. I had to make some minor adjustments to the post, though not to the question or answers themselves.
🧠 Question of the Day
📚 Domain H — Selecting and Implementing Interventions
Difficulty: 8/10
A BCBA is designing an intervention for a 9-year-old with autism spectrum disorder whose functional analysis revealed that self-injurious behavior (SIB) is maintained by automatic negative reinforcement (escape from internal aversive stimulation). The client is nonverbal, has severely limited motor imitation skills, and has a history of failing to acquire mand topographies requiring more than two response components. The school team reports that extinction (blocking SIB) is contraindicated due to documented injury risk during response blocking, and the client's classroom has a 1:8 staff-to-student ratio during academic periods. The BCBA has access to a 1:1 para during a 30-minute daily session only. Given ALL of these constraints, which intervention is MOST appropriate as the primary treatment component?
A. Implement a high-density noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) schedule using identified competing stimuli that have demonstrated efficacy in reducing automatically maintained behavior via matched stimulation, delivered continuously during the 1:1 session and faded to an intermittent schedule as SIB decreases, with no response-contingent consequences for SIB
B. Train a simplified functional communication response (e.g., activating a single AAC button) as a mand to access a break, combined with differential reinforcement of the alternative behavior (DRA) and planned ignoring of SIB during the 1:1 session
C. Implement a differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) schedule calibrated to the client's current inter-response time for SIB, with the interval reset contingent on SIB, and gradually thin the reinforcement schedule across the 1:1 session
D. Develop a function-based antecedent intervention using establishing operation (EO) manipulation—specifically, pre-session satiation of the internal aversive state through sensory integration activities—combined with environmental enrichment to reduce the motivating operation for SIB prior to academic demands
💬 Drop your answer in the comments
✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.