Applied Behavior Analysis: Assignment

Katt Goodson
PS 360 Applied Behavior Analysis
Oct 7th, 2014
Professor Harla Frank
Unit 6 Assignment
Application of Behavior Analysis
Brenda is 17 years old and plays competitive tennis. In fact she hopes to get a scholarship to play in college. Brenda’s coach asked her to go see a sports psychologist who specializes in ABA because she is having difficulty with her serve. She does not have enough speed and accuracy to win matches. Her coach has tried every strategy he knows with no success. Based on her interview with Brenda and her review of videotapes of his serve, the behaviorist decides to use chaining to help. The behaviorist will break down Brenda’s serve into individual units of behavior such as the starting position; ball toss;
In other words, chaining refers to the process of linking behaviors together to achieve a final result. A task analysis must first be conducted before starting this technique. It helps to determine the different components in the sequence. This means breaking the behavior down into small parts. The behaviorist can watch the behavior, do it themselves, or just write a list of components. In relation to Brenda’s case, forward chaining would contribute greatly to her success in serving. In forward chaining, behaviors are linked together beginning with the first behavior in the sequence. Brenda will do the first step, such as the starting position, independently. The behaviorist will help her in the following steps. Once this step is mastered, she will proceed to doing the second step on her own. This will continue until the entire chain is
In the single- opportunity method the behaviorist will assess Brenda’s ability to perform each behavior in the task analysis in correct order. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). The assessment for Brenda will start here when the behaviorist asks Brenda to start with the starting position and as she is trying to be successful she will be getting assessed from the behaviorist. In this method Brenda is showing that she can become better in tennis, since the tasks have been getting better this behavior is done with the assessment being performed, as they move to steps three and four which are ball toss and swing of the racket, however the because she takes more than 30 seconds to respond to the fourth step the assessment is stopped, however she has earned that 100% accuracy on the first two steps. The multiple- opportunity method of task analysis assessment watches the person’s level of mastery from all the behaviors in the task. However the difference here is that since Brenda can’t seem to complete the steps swinging of the racket on her own is the behavior analysis will then complete the steps for her as she watches even though she has those steps correctly until this