BCBA Selecting Interventions Practice Questions
Selecting and Implementing Interventions tests clinical judgment: choosing function-based interventions, writing measurable goals, planning for side effects and relapse, and making data-based decisions.
What Domain H covers
The 6th Edition Test Content Outline lists 8 tasks in this domain. Baseline has practice questions mapped to every one of them.
- H.1Writing measurable intervention goals
- H.2Recommending interventions: evidence, preference, contextual fit
- H.3Choosing socially valid replacement behavior
- H.4Mitigating unwanted effects of reinforcement, extinction, punishment
- H.5Planning for relapse
- H.6Data-based decisions about procedural integrity
- H.7Data-based decisions about intervention effectiveness
- H.8Collaborating with others
What to master
- Matching interventions to function, the evidence base, client preferences, and the setting's resources.
- Selecting socially valid replacement behaviors.
- Planning for unwanted effects of reinforcement, extinction, and punishment, and for relapse.
- Using treatment-integrity and outcome data to decide when to modify an intervention.
Common traps
- Picking a procedure that reinforces the problem behavior's function (for example, time-out for escape-maintained behavior).
- Continuing an intervention that isn't working instead of revisiting the assessment.
- Choosing a plan caregivers can't implement consistently.
Free Selecting Interventions practice questions
Try these original questions written to match the format of the BCBA exam.
1. A student's aggression is maintained by escape from difficult tasks. Which intervention is most function-based?
- Response cost, with the student losing points for each instance of aggression
- Delivering praise every five minutes regardless of the student's behavior
- Teaching the student to request a break, then gradually increasing demands
- Time-out from the classroom for two minutes after each instance of aggression
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Teaching the student to request a break, then gradually increasing demands
Functional communication training gives the student an appropriate way to access the same reinforcer (escape), and demand fading builds tolerance. Time-out removes the student from the task — for escape-maintained behavior it can actually reinforce aggression.
2. To promote generalization, a clinic therapist starts using the same worksheets, desk layout and visual schedule that the client's classroom uses. This strategy is called:
- Teaching sufficient examples
- Programming common stimuli
- Using indiscriminable contingencies
- Training loosely
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Programming common stimuli
Programming common stimuli means including features of the generalization setting in the teaching setting. Teaching sufficient examples means using many different examples; training loosely means varying non-critical aspects of instruction.
Practice all 56 Selecting Interventions questions
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