okay welcome back hope you all had a great weekend today we're continuing our let's learn aba series with the seven dimensions of applied behavior analysis these seven dimensions should guide both intervention creation and intervention implementation meaning they're important for bcbas and rbts alike if we can start to practice while adhering to these seven dimensions more closely we'll become better practitioners and we'll start to see better outcomes as always if you're new to the channel welcome if you're returning welcome back please like and subscribe check out rbt exam review dot com for rbt materials and bcba study dot com for bcba materials questions comments please let me know i'd love to help as always work hard study hard let's learn aba first things first what are the seven dimensions of aba now there's different ways to remember it how i always remembered it my favorite way was bat cage so we have behavioral applied technological conceptually systematic analytic generality and effective it's the first step in learning these you have to learn what the seven are don't get them confused with the attitudes of science and some of the other categories we have as we're learning about aba these are what we consider the dimensions so once again come up with your own or use bad cage behavioral applied technological conceptually systematic analytic generality and effective first one behavioral now probably the most obvious one we are behavior analysts right we're behavior technicians or studying behavior behavior seems very obvious but there are three major components we must consider when we think about what behaviors we're choosing first the behavior we chosen must be the one that needs improvement meaning we need to directly observe the behavior of interest if we are let's say working in a classroom setting don't just interview a teacher or interview peers and start choosing behaviors that way let's focus on what we can observe and choose a behavior precisely the one that needs to be improved in other words direct observation two the behavior must be measurable as we know we need to be able to measure it reliably to change it reliably and then the behavior that changes must be the clients not the observer not the teacher not the parents the environment affects our behavior the environment leads to changes in the behavior what we do in the environment leads to changes in the behavior when we change a behavior we need to ensure the thing that's changing is the behavior of interest not how we're handling the child not how the parents handling the child not how the teachers handling the child think about a kid maybe who engages in intense aggression that parent might do everything in their power to change their behavior to avoid aggression if we're changing their behavior the parents behavior are we really changing the aggression no we're just changing antecedence and consequence in that moment leading to less aggression we need to make sure we're targeting the client's behavior and not anyone else's so behavioral observable measurable target the client obviously some non-examples of behavior in aba have to do with things like mentalisms and private events that aren't observable or measurable common ones you hear are frustration stress anger boredom well he was just angry so he threw the chair he's bored in class that's why he doesn't learn well or he's frustrated so he just doesn't want to do his homework we can't observe them we can't measure them it doesn't fit into the behavioral component this is probably the most obvious and easy one next applied this one's very important we need to enhance and improve the lives of our client meaning if i go into a house as a bcba and i ask the parent what do you want to see changed and they say well my my kid is annoying annoying is not enhancing and improving lives now maybe they're less annoying for the parent but that could be subjective maybe the kid isn't annoying maybe the parent is just perceiving it as annoying or they're interrupting their day we're looking for things like social skills communication skills adaptive skills vocational skills can they hold a job what about when they're 18 what about when they're 21 what about when they're adults are we going to enhance and improve their lives are we going to improve their ability to socialize are we going to improve their abilities to communicate this is the idea behind applied are the behavior socially significant are they meaningful do they matter ultimately do they improve the day-to-day life experience of the client or others around the client we have to be very careful and thoughtful when we choose our behaviors that we choose applied behaviors meaningful socially significant behaviors that are going to improve the lives of others technological replication rbts don't have to worry about this as much this is more for bcbas and practitioners who are designing treatment plans designing handbooks teaching others we need to be sure we are writing procedures in a way that are replicable consider you writing a treatment plan that's effective for a client you leave that aba company or that business and no one can replicate what you did well good for you for writing a great intervention but you failed to be technological because no one can teach it no one can replicate it procedures must be teachable to rbts parents other practitioners just because i write the most complex intervention in the world if nobody can do it if i can't explain it it's no good to anybody we are a science of behavior change of important applied behavior change meaning when we write procedures they need to be able to be put in place not only by us but everybody around them we're only with the client every so often can the parent do what we do can teachers do what they what we do now obviously they're not trained like we are but we should still be able to design and explain procedures in a way that are replicable by other people around us so again procedures are written and identified in a way that a reader can reproduce the procedures keyword replication a couple non-examples of technological we just talked about leaving the company and no one can replicate your treatment plan happens all the time or how about a different example i work for a bank i get promoted my replacement is unable to replicate my job based on the training manual well whose fault is that whoever wrote the training manual what if i wrote the training manual and the person behind me doesn't understand it it's not technological that's a problem especially in aba when we want to build up our database of useful interventions they're only useful if other people can do them okay we're only one person in a big pond right in a way that other people can replicate it next conceptually systematic people overthink this one all we're saying when we talk about being conceptually systematic is we want to adhere to the principles of aba we want to derive our procedures from aba principles it's easy this day and age with all these different ideas different therapies different opinions floating around who try to branch out into other ideas if you're a behavior analyst or an rbt and you're only trained in aba you should derive everything from aba principles can you explain your treatment in one of these four principles is the behavior being controlled by your consequences are you are you using reinforcement are you using punishment are you using extinction if you can't explain your procedure based on one of these principles you're not being conceptually systematic the idea is we're preventing a bag of tricks right we're just coming up with patchwork tricks that work temporarily we don't know why they're working we can't explain them they might work in the moment but two weeks from now they stop working we don't want a bag of tricks we want a toolbox of well-designed procedures derived from reinforcement punishment and extinction and consequences so can you explain what principle you've chosen that you derived your procedure from all right analytic analytic means demonstrating a functional relation ultimately do you control the occurrence and not occurrence of the behavior or do other things life is complicated the environment is always changing it's impossible for us to control every variable oftentimes when we do interventions there are a million other things at play in play so if we see the behavior changing can we be sure where the reason is changing or something else going on let's say i'm targeting math for improvement i do an intervention for a month and the client's ability to solve multiplication problems skyrockets up later on you find out they were also receiving private expensive high quality math tutoring now who controls the behavior that's a functional relation can you reliably prove that functional relation because if we can't it's going to be very difficult to achieve some of the other dimensions right if we can't reliably predict that we can change the occurrence and not occurrence of the behavior then how can we reliably say that war achieves anything like generality so some examples of functional relation relations the most obvious is your independent variable controls the dependent variable whatever you're introducing into the condition whether it be let's say a differential reinforcement procedure a positive reinforcement procedure that is what is causing the behavior change nothing else and we need to be sure of that if we're analytic we have demonstrated a reliable functional relation generality okay perhaps the most important of all too often do we teach in a clinical or home-based setting all these great skills all these great behaviors all these great applied things we're analytic we're technological we adhere to all these dimensions and then what happens we leave the training environment and the kid can't do anything it's the worst outcome we've just wasted all that time for no generality ultimately generality means behavior occurs in non-teaching settings and behavior lasts over time yes maintenance is a type of generalization that's all generality is it's the simplest concept but perhaps the hardest one to get right behavior leads to new on top behaviors so we might lead to derived behaviors if you know stimulus equivalence types or maintenance response generalization stimulus generalization we can generalize across settings people time different environments on and on very very important it does mean no good to teach a kid to have a conversation in a contrive consult controlled setting and then he goes to a birthday party and can't talk to anyone we're failing the client we're failing to generalize this is why maybe this is the most important piece of it all and then finally effective are we making actual change has the behavior improved enough to be socially important too often i see both rbts and bcbas alike look at their data and say wow behaviors change significantly they're they're stopped being so aggressive or man their social skills have really improved okay but how much is it practical is it socially important is it making a difference is it noticeable the data says one thing and we are driven by data but if the client stakeholders or the teachers or the peers see no difference we're not effective and it makes no difference it's the same thing as generality we can teach all these skills if we're not generalizing we're not being good enough if we're not changing behavior in a socially important way in a way that's noticeable in a way that's making meaningful change in the lives of clients it's not effective so what are some non-effective aba examples teaching social skills without improving a client's social life we see this all the time in the autism community we teach all these social skills and the client still can't make friends teaching communication skills without improving a client's ability to meet their needs great we can use pecs in the clinical setting but they don't use it at home who cares it's not effective and then teaching skills that hold no value in life now that's subjective of course however we need to be cognizant of what we're doing and what we're teaching and we're not being ineffective by teaching useless or meaningless or not changing behavior enough those are the seven dimensions they're very straightforward the questions can be tricky because these are all kind of blend together at some point people often confuse applied and analytic those are confusing effective and applied can be confusing okay behavioral technological except systematic and generality pretty straightforward it's really the applied analytic and effective that you need to do a little studying on okay first things first though you have to know all seven so find a way to remember all seven and then we can start applying each so once again behavioral applied technological conceptually systematic analytic generality and effective thank you for watching today check out bcba study dot com for bcba study materials or in rbt exam review dot com for rbt materials questions comments please let me know have a great week work hard study hard see you soon