One of the basic concepts that RBTs should learn about is the stimulus. In Lesson 1, you’ll learn about this foundational concept within ABA.
In Lesson 2, you’ll learn about Respondent Conditioning. There are a number of alternative terms used to describe Respondent Conditioning including Classical Conditioning and Pavlovian Conditioning. Upon completing this lesson, you should understand the basics of Respondent Conditioning and some of its potential applications.
Lesson 3 will introduce you to the concept of Reinforcement. This is probably the most important concept within ABA and the foundation of may interventions. By the end of the lesson, you should be able to describe reinforcement and distinguish between positive and negative reinforcement.
Lesson 4 builds upon the foundational knowledge you acquired during Lesson 3. It introduces you to different types of reinforcer and looks at how neutral stimuli come to take on reinforcing properties.
While ABA practitioners avoid the use of punishment, it is a common phenomenon. Understanding when and how it occurs is important for anybody who seeks to understand human behaviour. This lesson will provide you with the knowledge to understand punishment and identify how stimuli take on punishing qualities.
What happens when a behaviour that was previously reinforced, stops being reinforced? The answer is Extinction and in this lesson you’ll learn about this principle and its implications.
In previous lessons, we focused on the role of consequences. However, antecedents – that is, what comes before a behaviour – also play an important role in influencing behaviour. This lesson introduces you to key concepts such as stimulus control and the three term contingency. It builds on the knowledge you have already masters and provides a firm foundation for learning about the ABA teaching techniques we discuss later in the course.
We know from previous lessons that behaviours that are reinforced increase in frequency in the future. However, behaviours are reinforced in different ways. Some behaviours are reinforced every time they occur, while others are only reinforced some of the time. The “schedule” of reinforcement for a behaviour impacts on its occurrence. In Lesson 8, you’ll learn about some of the most common types of reinforcement schedule.
Earlier, you learned about the three-term contingency. This lesson introduces you to a fourth factor – motivation. In this final lesson of this module, you’ll learn about the terminology we use to describe different motivational states and how motivation impacts on the other factors within the four-term contingency.