Chapter 10

 Fading is the gradual change over successive trials of an antecedent stimulus that
controls a response so that the response eventually occurs to a partially changed or
completely new antecedent stimulus.
 Parents are likely to fade out their help and support when a child is learning to
walk or to ride a bicycle. A dance instructor might use less and less hand pressure
to guide a student through new dance steps. And as a teenager progresses in
drivers’ education, the driving instructor is likely to provide fewer and fewer hints
regarding traffic regulations.
 Errorless discrimination training, sometimes referred to as errorless learning,
is the use of a fading procedure to establish a stimulus discrimination so that no
errors occur.
 Errorless transfer of a discrimination can occur, and it has at least three advantages
over procedures involving trial and error:
o Errors consume valuable time.
o Second, if an error occurs once, it tends to occur many times, even though
it is being extinguished.
o Third, the nonreinforcement that occurs when errors are being extinguished
often produces emotional side effects such as tantrums, aggressive
behavior, and attempts to escape from the situation.

Script-fading procedures have been used to teach children with autism to initiate
interactions with others. Fading can also be used to teach tracing, copying, and drawing
shapes (e.g., circles, lines, squares, and triangles), numerals, and letters of the alphabet.

Dimensions of Stimuli for Fading

 A dimension of a stimulus is any characteristic that can be measured on some

continuum.
 As illustrated by the preceding examples, fading occurs along dimensions of
stimuli, such as the loudness of the question that Veronica presented to Peter, the
pressure of a teacher’s hand that guides a child’s printing, and the clarity of dots
that a child might be expected to trace.
 Thus far, we have talked of fading across very specific stimulus dimensions, but
fading can also occur across changes in a general situation or setting.

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Fading

 Final target stimulus

o The final target stimulus should be chosen carefully. It is important to
select it so that the occurrence of the response to that particular stimulus is
likely to be maintained in the natural environment.
o Some fading programs make the error of stopping with a stimulus that does
not include some aspect of the situation that the learner will frequently
 encounter in the natural environment.
o When others approached Peter in his natural environment and asked
“What’s your name?” they would not likely mouth “Peter.” Therefore,
Veronica conducted the last step of the program, in which Peter responded
correctly to the question “What’s your name?” completely on his own.
 The Starting Stimulus: A prompt
o A prompt is a supplemental antecedent stimulus provided to increase the
likelihood that a desired behavior will occur, but that is not the final target
stimulus to control that behavior.
 Instructor Behavior as prompts
o Physical prompts (also called physical guidance) consist of guiding the
learning through touch. Parents frequently use physical guidance to help
their children learn new behavior, such as holding their hands while
teaching them to walk. Beginning dancers, martial arts students, and novice
golfers often find a guiding hand to be helpful.
o Gestural prompts are certain motions that a teacher makes, such as
pointing to the correct cue or making signals directed to the learner without
touching him or her. A teacher, for example, might extend a hand in a
palm-downward motion as a prompt for children to talk softly.
o Modeling prompts occur when the correct behavior is demonstrated
o Verbal prompts are verbal hints or cues. A driving instructor might use
verbal prompts by telling a student driver to “check over your left shoulder
before pulling out.”
 Environmental Alterations as Prompts
o Environmental prompts consist of alterations of the physical environment
in a manner that will evoke the desired behavior.
o A student might ensure that a study area contains only objects and materials
related to studying.
 Extra-Stimulus Vs Within- Stimulus Prompts
o An extra-stimulus prompt is something that is added to the environment
to make a correct response more likely
o A within-stimulus prompt is a variation of the SD or the S∆ to make their
characteristics more noticeable and therefore easier to discriminate.
o A behavior analyst may provide any or all of these types of prompts to
ensure the correct response.
Fading Vs Shaping: Fading involves the gradual change of a stimulus while the response
stays about the same; shaping involves the gradual change of a response while the
stimulus stays about the same.

Chapter 11

 A behavior chain, also called a stimulus-response chain, is a consistent

sequence of stimuli and responses that occur closely to each other in time and in
which the last response is typically followed by a reinforcer.
 The three major methods of teaching a behavior chain are the total-task
presentation method, the backward-chaining method, and the forward-chaining
method.
 The total-task presentation method, an individual attempts all of the steps from
the beginning to the end of the chain on each trial and continues with total task
trials until that person learns the chain
 Prompting is provided at each step as needed, and a reinforcer follows the correct
completion of the last step.
 With the backward-chaining method, the last step is taught first, then the next-to-
last step is taught and linked to the last step, then the third-from-last step is taught
and linked to the last two steps, and so on, progressing backward toward the
beginning of the chain
 The forward-chaining method teaches the initial step of the sequence first, then
teaches and links together the first and second steps, then the first three steps, and
so on until the entire chain is acquired
Comparision between shaping, fading and chaining

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Behavior Chaining

 The Task Analysis

o For maximum effectiveness of behavior chaining, the behavior sequence
 must be broken down into manageable components, and the proper order of
the components must be maintained.
o The process of breaking down a task into smaller steps or component
responses to facilitate training is called a task analysis.
 Independent Use of Prompts by Learners
o Many individuals can use prompts independently to guide the mastery of a
chain of behaviors.
o For learners able to read, a written task analysis might effectively prompt
them to appropriately complete behavior chains
 Preliminary Modeling Trial
o In some cases, such as with persons with developmental disabilities or
young children, it may be desirable to model the entire sequence while
verbally describing the performance of each step
 Training the Behavior chain
o The step or steps to begin depend on whether you use total-task
presentation, backward chaining, or forward chaining.
o If the learner performs a response incorrectly or fails to begin responding at
any step within a reasonable period of time, you should proceed with error
correction. Provide the necessary instruction or physical guidance to help
the learner perform that step correctly. After an error is corrected, go on to
the next step.
 Ample Social and other reinforcers
o Sometimes a natural reinforcer that follows the completion of a chain will
be sufficient to maintain it.
o In addition, providing a primary or unconditioned reinforcer (such as an
edible) contingent upon successful completion of the last step in the chain
is often desirable.
 Assistance at Individual steps
o Depending on the details of the task analysis, providing some additional
instruction or physical assistance in correcting errors may be necessary.
o Across successive trials, this extra assistance should be faded as quickly as
possible. Don’t provide assistance to the point of creating a dependency in
the learner. That is, be careful not to reinforce errors or waiting for your
help at particular steps.
 A behavior chain that has some components that are functional in producing the
reinforcer and at least one component (called a superstitious com- ponent) that is
not functional is called an adventitious chain.
 A common kind of undesirable adventitious chaining occurs when an
inappropriate and nonfunc- tional response precedes one or more appropriate
responses that are reinforced; both the inappropriate and appropriate responses are
thereby strengthened.
 Other examples of the Unaware-Misapplication Pitfall involve self-control
problems that plague many people. The undesirable behavior chains that
 characterize such problems are not adventitious chains because all of the
components are functional in producing reinforcement. However, they are inad-
vertent or unintentional in that one or more of the components of the chain are
undesirable. Consider the problem of overeating.
 Although undoubtedly a variety of possible reasons for overeating exists, one of
the more frequent causes may be the unintentional development of undesirable
behavior chains.
 Olenick and Pear observed that some children made a large number of errors even
when it appeared that they could name the pictures appropriately.
 The researchers suggested that for these youngsters, a chain had developed in
which errors on question trials were reinforced by imitation trials because an
easier response (imitation) was reinforced on these trials.