Key Takeaways:

• Key Challenges for RBT Trainees: Many trainees struggle with concepts such as Extinction, Negative Reinforcement, Interval Recording (Whole, Partial, Momentary), and Differential Reinforcement (DRA, DRO, DRI).
• Clarifying Concepts: Understanding Extinction as a process of removing consequences is vital, while Negative Reinforcement often involves re-teaching students that negative means to take away, rather than something “bad”. Additional explanations can help staff differentiate these concepts from misinterpretations due to their common use in conversational language.
• Effective Training Strategies: Active-response techniques, such as flashcards and quizzes, can reinforce understanding of challenging topics. Engaging them in discussions during training can enhance their comprehension. We have an explanation pre-made for each concept below. Feel free to give them a try with your trainees during group or 1:1 discussions!

As a BCBA overseeing the training of Registered Behavior Technicians, you understand the importance of ensuring that your team is well-prepared for the exam. We are two doctoral BCBAs who have worked with thousands of students and identified the most common concepts that need extra support. In this blog, we’ll explore the top four topics that tend to challenge trainees the most. By focusing on these areas, you can enhance your team’s grasp of critical concepts, ultimately leading to better outcomes for their clients.

Here are the top four topics we’ve learned they need extra help understanding:

• Extinction: What it truly means to implement it.
• Negative Reinforcement: How it differs from punishment.
• Types of Interval Recording: Discriminating among whole, partial, & momentary time sampling.
• Types of Differential Reinforcement: Distinguishing among DRA, DRO, & DRI.

The good news is we’ve integrated extra practice into our online RBT training for these concepts. As a supervisor, you might want to target these areas in your group meetings or discuss them one-on-one as individuals prepare for their RBT exam. Let’s review a few of these in detail:

Why These Concepts are Challenging:

Generally, when we have taught students live or online, we have noticed the vocabulary words that confuse them the most are those they have already heard in everyday conversation. Unfortunately, students sometimes struggle to create a new reinforcement history with those common words within the RBT context. It will take some extra practice through various means of active responding and explaining through different exemplars or methods of explanation, but of course, mastering these for the RBT exam is entirely possible!

Extinction

This is a tricky concept because it often evokes images in people’s imaginations about dinosaurs and things going simply, “POOF!” Gone. Like extinguishing a flame. And there’s not much else that comes to mind. It’s difficult for people to remember that extinction is not just an outcome. Yes, the outcome is that the behavior is gone, but more importantly, we steer trainees toward thinking about the PROCESS. This is because (as you know) they are often the ones implementing extinction procedures and teaching replacement behaviors.

Here’s Another Way to Explain Extinction: Remind RBTs that extinction is a PROCESS they will perform. They will remove a consequence that maintains a behavior until the behavior stops. (And of course, prompt the replacement behavior. If they think of dinosaur extinction, suggest that they think of a dinosaur that can no longer find its food. What “feeds” the behavior is now gone. Extinction is removing a consequence that once fed or maintained the behavior.

Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement is often tricky for new RBT students because they likely have also heard this one used in everyday conversation. Because of this, virtually everyone entering the ABA field (understandably) needs a little re-teaching to understand this definition. Most people use the term negative reinforcement synonymously with punishment. Or, some people mistakenly think of it as “reverse psychology.” Regardless of the error type, the history of everyday conversation makes it confusing for folks studying for the RBT exam. They have to learn what negative reinforcement means in Applied Behavior Analysis through additional practice and conversation.

Here's Another Way to Explain Negative Reinforcement: To reinforce means to strengthen. Think of reinforcing a house or structure. Reinforcement makes a wall stronger, a frame stronger, etc. Now apply this to a behavior. Reinforcing a behavior makes it stronger (and more likely to happen again). Now comes the tricky part. Most people think the word “negative” means something “bad”. Explain to the RBT student that “Negative” in ABA is like a negative number. It means to subtract or take away. When they see the word “negative reinforcement,” try having them slow down and take in each word at a time.

When trainees see the word “negative,” teach them to think subtract (or take away) a consequence. Then when the RBT students see the word reinforcement, teach them to think that the behavior becomes stronger or happens more. Now they understand that negative reinforcement means a behavior is strengthened or happens more often due to something being taken away. For example, a child finishes a school task so that they no longer have to keep working. In our Registered Behavior Technician Training, we also have our students perform active responses by sorting exemplars among concepts that often get confused with negative reinforcement. These include positive reinforcement and punishment. It's just one way we help prepare people for success in discriminating among these new and tricky RBT concepts.

But let's talk about interval data collection now for a bit.

Whole, Partial, and Momentary Time Sampling

These are tough concepts because interval recording isn't the most common method of data collection for RBTs. Some BCBAs have their staff use it on a daily basis, but many do not. Nevertheless, these terms are important to understand according to the RBT 2.0 Tasklist. We also build in extra practice for discriminating among these three data collection methods.

Another Way to Explain Whole And Partial Interval Recording: Again, we like to break the name down and have students think carefully of each word, one at a time. When you break down the words, “Whole Interval”. Whole means the entire thing. Next, Interval means the RBT is recording for some amount of time. So we remind students that to mark an interval, the behavior has to happen the entire time. Think of it as completing a marathon. A person can’t say they finished the race unless they go the entire distance. The same idea applies to Whole Interval Recording. Whole Interval means the behavior happens the entire time. For Partial Interval, we encourage students to really focus on the word “PART.” Partial means the behavior can happen during any PART of an interval and still be recorded. Finally, the most difficult data collection method for most trainees is momentary time sampling.

Another Way to Explain Momentary Time Sampling: To mark an interval, the behavior must be occurring at the moment you observe. It’s similar to taking a picture of someone. If a person is smiling at the time of the picture, it's recorded. Afterward, when you look at the picture, you can see the person smiling. But, if a person smiles before or after you take the picture, it doesn't get captured. It's the same concept for momentary time sampling. Because it's a discontinuous recording method, unfortunately the data collection does not always capture every instance that a behavior occurs in real life. We devote extra active responding time for students to grasp the differences among these different types of interval recording. It’s something that a majority of trainees are exposed to for the very first time in their careers!

Differential Reinforcement (DRA, DRO, DRI)

Finally, there’s the common hurdle to understanding Differential Reinforcement and its subtypes: DRA, DRO, and DRI. We use flashcards in our training and sorting to give more practice with these concepts. We also use shortened definitions to help people learn all the vocabulary words for the RBT Exam, including these concepts. Overall, when people think of Differential Reinforcement, they seem to understand that the RBT reinforces differently for different situations or behaviors. But memorizing “Differential Reinforcement of Alternative” vs. “Differential Reinforcement of Other” vs. “Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible” takes more work.

Another way to Explain DRA, DRO, and DRI: We explain that alternative behavior means another behavior that is typically more adaptive for the person. When one behavior is not being reinforced, what’s the alternative (aka the other behavior choice)? Next, there’s differentially reinforcing “Other” behavior. We emphasize that it is ANY OTHER behavior besides the target behavior. Truly, anything besides the single target behavior that we don’t want to occur. Finally, Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible behavior is delivering reinforcement for a behavior that cannot be performed at the same time as the target behavior. Take a look at some examples of quick definitions to study these key concepts below. This is another study feature of our training.

Trainees may appreciate shorter, easier-to-study vocabulary definitions like this:

• Differential reinforcement of alternate behavior = Only reinforce alternate behavior that has same function
• Differential reinforcement for other behavior = Only reinforce any other behavior than the target bx
• Differential reinforcement for incompatible behavior = Only reinforce a behavior that can't be done at the same time as target bx

We hope you found this information useful in preparing your staff for the board exam. Sometimes, finding a slightly different way to explain a difficult concept can be the key to helping a student. If you're looking for embedded practice in these concepts, consider our 40-hour RBT training. We use active responding through type-in flashcards, quizzes with immediate descriptive feedback for all answers, and interactive discrimination activities to help key concepts stick. Free supervisor tools and bulk discounts are always available too!