BA430 Unit 7 Preference Assessment Paper Example

Bubbles Ranked First Twice, Then Lost: A BA430 Unit 7 Preference Assessment Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

BA430: Behavior Assessment

Unit 7 Preference Assessment Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the cooperative, the student and every ranking are composite and illustrative; the articles cited are real.

Why Wyatt Needed a Preference Assessment

Wyatt is six, has autism and speaks a few words. His head hitting had increased over the summer, and the record review led to a pediatric referral; his ear infections were treated in October, and the hitting fell by more than half within two weeks. My supervising behavior analyst now leads the assessment of the remaining head hitting and mouthing, and she asked me to run his preference assessments, which are within my training. His kindergarten teacher needed to know which items might work as reinforcers for teaching new skills, and his parents wanted to know what he liked, because he rarely asked for anything.

Preference assessments identify items a person chooses when given options. They are a step toward finding reinforcers, but not the same thing; a preferred item may or may not increase behavior when delivered contingently.

Choosing Items Safely

Because Wyatt mouths objects, every item had to be safe to put in his mouth or large enough not to be swallowed. With his parents and teacher, I chose eight items: bubbles, a light-up spinner, a squishy ball, a picture book, a toy car, a tablet with a music video, a puzzle and a small trampoline. Edibles were excluded at his parents' request.

Paired-Stimulus Assessment

Fisher et al. (1992) compared a paired-stimulus assessment, in which items are presented two at a time and the person chooses one, with a single-stimulus format, in which each item is presented alone. With participants with severe and profound disabilities, the paired format produced clearer differences among items, and items it identified as highly preferred tended to function as more effective reinforcers than those identified by the single-stimulus format.

With eight items, every pair is presented once, which took twenty-eight trials. Each chosen item was available for twenty seconds. The assessment took about thirty-five minutes across two sittings because Wyatt left the table twice. Bubbles ranked first, chosen in all seven trials in which they appeared, followed by the tablet and the spinner. The book and the puzzle were never chosen.

Multiple-Stimulus Without Replacement

DeLeon and Iwata (1996) evaluated a multiple-stimulus format without replacement, in which all items are presented in an array, the person chooses one, and that item is removed for the rest of the session before the next choice. They compared it with the paired-stimulus format and with a multiple-stimulus format in which items were replaced. The format without replacement took less time than the paired format, produced similar rankings, and identified items that functioned as reinforcers.

I ran three arrays of the eight items in one sitting of about twelve minutes. Bubbles again ranked first, followed by the spinner and the tablet. The bottom of the list matched the paired assessment closely.

Two formats, same winner, a third of the time: the multiple-stimulus format seemed to settle it.

Free-Operant Assessment

Roane et al. (1998) evaluated a brief free-operant preference assessment, in which all items are available at once for five minutes and the observer records how long the person engages with each. They found that it identified preferences quickly, that items it identified functioned as reinforcers, and that it produced less problem behavior than the paired-stimulus format, likely because nothing is taken away.

In two five-minute sessions, Wyatt spent most of his time on the trampoline and the tablet, and only brief moments with the bubbles. No head hitting occurred, compared with three episodes during the paired assessment, all when a chosen item was removed after twenty seconds.

Why the Rankings Differed

Bubbles ranked first when they were offered as a choice but not when Wyatt could do anything he liked. One explanation is that bubbles require an adult to blow them; in the choice formats, selecting bubbles brought an adult's close interaction, while in the free-operant session the adult sat back. Another is that the trampoline was too large to present in an array and was available only in the free-operant session. Each format measured preference under different conditions.

Testing the Items as Reinforcers

Preference does not guarantee reinforcement. I ran a brief reinforcer assessment with his teacher's simple matching task. In baseline, Wyatt matched pictures for an average of under a minute before leaving. When thirty seconds of bubbles followed every two matches, he worked about three minutes; with the trampoline, eight minutes; with the tablet, nine. Bubbles, ranked first twice, were the weakest of the three.

The result has a likely explanation. Bubbles were valuable for a short period with an adult's attention but lost their value quickly. The trampoline and the tablet held their value across repeated access.

Preferences at Home

Wyatt's parents asked whether they could run an assessment at home, where he spends most of his waking hours. I showed them the multiple-stimulus format with five household items they chose, including a kitchen whisk he loves to spin, a blanket with a satin edge and a ride-on tractor. His father ran three arrays on a Saturday morning and sent me the rankings by text. The whisk ranked first, an item no one at school would have thought to offer. His teacher bought a similar whisk for the classroom, and in the next week's reinforcer check it kept Wyatt matching pictures for six minutes. Including the family turned the assessment into something they could repeat whenever his interests changed, without waiting for a specialist's visit, and it gave them a way to show the school what Wyatt enjoys.

Recommendations for the Team

Wyatt's teacher will use the tablet and the trampoline as reinforcers for teaching sessions, rotating them to reduce satiation, and will run a brief multiple-stimulus assessment each morning, since preferences can shift from day to day. The team will avoid formats that remove items repeatedly, which produced head hitting. The bubbles will be used for social play with adults, which Wyatt seems to enjoy for its own sake, rather than as a reinforcer for work.

Conclusion

Three preference assessment formats produced different rankings for Wyatt. Paired-stimulus and multiple-stimulus assessments ranked bubbles first, and the free-operant format favored the trampoline and tablet, with no head hitting. The research by Fisher, DeLeon and Roane and their colleagues explained the strengths of each format, and a brief reinforcer assessment showed that only the items with sustained engagement maintained his work.

References

DeLeon, I. G., & Iwata, B. A. (1996). Evaluation of a multiple-stimulus presentation format for assessing reinforcer preferences. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 29(4), 519-533. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1996.29-519

Fisher, W., Piazza, C. C., Bowman, L. G., Hagopian, L. P., Owens, J. C., & Slevin, I. (1992). A comparison of two approaches for identifying reinforcers for persons with severe and profound disabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25(2), 491-498. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1992.25-491

Roane, H. S., Vollmer, T. R., Ringdahl, J. E., & Marcus, B. A. (1998). Evaluation of a brief stimulus preference assessment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 31(4), 605-620. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1998.31-605