what is differential reinforcement our goal here throughout this series is to make it as simple as possible pretend you are explaining aba to your grandma to your best friend to your neighbor who knows nothing about it simplify simplify simplify the simpler you can make it to where it makes sense to you the better off you are so what is differential reinforcement well all you're doing is reinforcing certain behaviors putting other behaviors on extinction commonly you'll pick a target behavior to reinforce everything else is going on extinction very straightforward that's all differential reinforcement is of course it leads to discrimination and differentiation because if we are trying to discriminate between red and blue well our chosen behavior if i say pick blue to reinforce is picking blue i'm putting picking red on extinction that's differential reinforcement don't try to overcomplicate it don't make it harder than it is all right so let's get to the types now first one dro differential reinforcement of other behaviors now dro is probably more unique than the other five because it's the only one where we are focused on the behavior not occurring at all from the beginning we're only delivering reinforcement if the behavior isn't occurring so what are we doing we're picking a target behavior let's call our target behavior screaming whenever that behavior is not occurring we're delivering reinforcement so whenever screaming is not occurring you're delivering reinforcement that means the true absence of behavior or absence of screaming we are delivering reinforcement the behavior cannot happen at all typically you'll put that on some sort of schedule so our behavior in this case screaming doesn't happen for two minutes then we deliver reinforcement what is the key here the key here is absence of behavior not occurring a couple more things it does not teach a replaced behavior which is important to remember because when we reduce behaviors we typically try to replace them but with dro we are not doing that it's also good for dangerous or high rate behaviors or behaviors that need an immediate decrease because remember we're not trying to get fancy here we're just trying to deliver reinforcement whenever behavior is not occurring we've had clients before where the behavior is at such a high rate that we will deliver reinforcement the moment that behavior stops that's how that's how high the rate is we try to catch them at any point of the behavior not occurring that's dro let's look at our question brian cooks his children breakfast in the morning his son will throw food at people at the table this is maintained by attention ryan is now praising his son anytime he is not throwing food what type of intervention is this obviously pretty easy after we talked about it right what's the key here brian is now praising his son which is reinforcement maintained by attention anytime he is not throwing food brian is reinforcing in the absence of the behavior therefore brian is using dro start breaking it down like that when you get a dr question a differential reinforcement question ask yourself am i reinforcing for a behavior not occurring am i teaching a replacement behavior those two questions there are going to narrow it down immediately okay dri differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors you can consider dri kind of the brother or the sister of dra they're similar but there's one major difference the major difference is in the name don't overthink this differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors well what does incompatible mean it means it can't occur at the same time right it doesn't go together that's exactly what we're doing with the dri we're picking a target behavior for decrease we're picking a replacement behavior that cannot occur with the target behavior in other words they're topographically incompatible but remember let's keep it simple pick a behavior that cannot occur with the target behavior most common example target behavior for decrease standing up out of your chair what is the replacement behavior that cannot occur with the target behavior of standing up sitting down easily right the best example for dri we have our target behavior for decrease which we are putting on extinction we're reinforcing for sitting down sitting down is incompatible dri does teach a replacement behavior again you're going to reinforce when the replacement behavior occurs but not when the target behavior you're going to put the target behavior on extinction very very straightforward right it's in the name itself what you need to remember is you're teaching a replacement behavior okay a replacement behavior that is topographically incompatible james will sit on a dock and put his feet over the water his mom is worried he might fall in so she wants to teach him a different way to sit on the dock what type of intervention should she use okay well this one's a little more tricky than our last one james is sitting on a dock with his feet over the water his mom is worried he might fall in so we're looking at a safety issue if we're going to teach a new behavior do we want it to be compatible with sitting on the dock with his feet over the water well no because it's going to become a safety issue so she's teaching him a different way she wants it to be topographically incompatible with putting feet over the water or putting himself in danger in other words so what type of intervention should you use well let's go a little deeper why isn't it dro well because we're teaching a replacement behavior for one two okay we're going to reinforce a target behavior right we want the behavior to occur the oro we don't want the behavior to occur b dri is obviously our answer dra we're about to talk about it's similar to dri except for one major difference and then drh we will talk about in a little while but drh is systematically increasing a behavior which we're not doing here we're trying to straight up replace this safety behavior with a new type of way of sitting on the duck that is dri incompatible behaviors dra differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors arguably the most common probably the most common type we use okay it's the easiest to use and probably the most effective right because with dra it's just like dri pick a target behavior for decrease pick a replacement behavior teach is a replacement behavior what's the main difference well dra your replacement behavior can happen at the same time as the old behavior which we'll see in our question so dr is the most simplest right pick a replacement behavior reinforce the replacement behavior put the target behavior for decrease on extinction very very simple so blaine will pull on his mom's shirt until she looks at him blaine's mom now only acknowledges blame when he says excuse me what type of intervention is this okay what is blaine's mom doing right she's putting pulling on her shirt extinction she's acknowledging excuse me we're teaching a replacement behavior of excuse me we're putting a behavior on extinction so the question becomes right because we're teaching a replacement behavior and if we're teaching a replacement behavior it has to be dri or dra so now we ask ourselves well are they compatible can you pull a mom's shirt and say excuse me yes therefore we know it's dra simple as that that's how we break them down are we looking at a behavior in the absence yes dro no let's move on teaching a replacement okay dri or dra well can the replacement happen simultaneously or with the other old behavior yes dra no dri in this case what type of intervention is this well it's going to be a dra keep it simple okay the last three rbts be aware of these bcbas have to know them rbts just be aware okay it would do you good though to stick around and learn something but let's talk about differential reinforcement of higher rates now for the next three drh drd and drl we're not necessarily teaching a replacement behavior okay we're targeting a single behavior right in this case higher rates it's in the name what do you think we're doing well we're picking a target behavior and trying to increase it the key becomes how are we going to increase it do we just really nearly reinforce the behavior for happening a lot of times no systematically right you're going to pick an amount in an interval so let's say the amount is two times the interval is across two minutes then reinforces the behavior happens more than the set amount within the interval so if the behavior happens more than two times in two minutes reinforce we're trying to increase a known behavior very straightforward right again higher rates pick a target behavior pick an amount if the target behavior happens more than that amount in a certain amount of time boom reinforcement what are we putting on extinction here well if the behavior doesn't happen more than our set amount of time no reinforcement is delivered right it's withheld very straightforward you develop an intervention where you reinforce your client if they answer three math problems within five minutes next time they must complete five and five minutes then they must complete eight and five minutes what is the intervention well we've picked an amount we've picked an interval and we're slowly increasing that interval right to higher rates what is the intervention clearly drh i think drh is the easiest right it kind of sits alone we're targeting a behavior increase but we're not teaching a replacement it's kind of like dro right and dro what are we doing well we're not teaching a replacement and we're targeting behavior for immediate decrease right so dro drh kind of sit alone dri dra and dra are kind of together right now these next two drd and drl also kind of exist in the same way except again a major difference so drd differential reinforcement of diminishing rates we're picking a target behavior for decrease so let's say [Music] getting up out of your chair so we're going to pick an amount and a criterion so our amount is five times out of your chair in an hour what are we gonna do think about drh our amount is five times our criterion is an hour when do you think we're going to reinforce well if the behavior happens less than the set amount so if they get out of their chair less than five times in the hour reinforce and then gradually gradually decrease the amount more and more lower and lower it's basically the opposite of drh right almost the polar opposite of drh and again does not teach a replacement telling you this stuff differential reinforcement does not have to be hard and the good news is you might get a bunch of questions on differential reinforcement if you can ace this right you get a lot easy question on the exam so let's try to make this simple because it is question your kids will not stop asking you questions on a road trip you tell them they are allowed four questions in the next 10 minutes or you won't stop for ice cream after 10 minutes you change it to three questions what intervention is this clearly drd right we want to start decreasing our amount so we pick four questions and our criterion is 10 minutes next three questions 10 minutes what are we reinforcing anytime the behavior happens less what's on extinction anytime the behavior happens more right so they're gonna they're gonna get reinforcement the ice cream right if they answer lower and lower rates of questions or they will be withheld ice cream if not so what type of intervention is this differentiating differential reinforcement of diminishing rates okay finally drl differential reinforcement of lower rates very similar to drd except a couple major differences what are we going to do first pick a target behavior this case decrease notice the trend right we're picking target behaviors either for decrease or increase then we're going to pick an amount with a time period or an irt so you can use the amount with the criterion like drd or we can use irt so what are we trying to do we're trying to lower the rate again it's in the name of behavior and what is rate frequency over time so if my amount over time is i take 60 bytes in a minute which is a byte per second it's very high rate i want to lower that how would we do that with an irt well we take a predetermined irt right in this case if a byte is happening every second we really need to lower that right so maybe we pick five seconds to start if the behavior happens less than five seconds and less than that irt we reinforce so you can do both here you can do i mean you can do either here right either the amount with the criterion or the irt so very similar to drd difference being we're trying to decrease but we're not trying to eliminate so in our previous example are we trying to eliminate eating of course not we need them to eat right we just need to eat them to eat slower or at a lower rate the url also does not teach replacement so really you can start thinking about dro living by itself dra and dri together drh drd and drl are kind of all in the camp together and then drd and drl are pretty similar right start breaking it down into categories john is finally participating and raising his hand in class however john raises his hand almost 30 times per class which is too many what intervention would you use to target this behavior what are we trying to do here trying to lower the rate do we want to get rid of this behavior no so we're looking at a drl we want to lower the rate of hand raising if he's raising his hand almost 30 times per class that could be 30 times an hour 30 times in 45 minutes it's a lot right we might want to get down that that down to 10 minutes an hour 10 times an hour five times an hour point being is we don't want to eliminate it but we do want to decrease it therefore we're going to use a drl all right let's wrap it up summary what are we doing we're reinforcing a behavior putting other behaviors on extinction pick a target right reinforce something put others on extinction very very straightforward for the test think dro if it's happening in the absence of a behavior or if the behavior doesn't occur that means at all right dro dro is strictly behavior does not happen when talking about replacement behavior think dri and dra what's the main difference dra not topographically similar can occur at the same time dra can reduce behavior i think drd and drl right drl we're not actually trying to eliminate it and then increase behavior think drh remember drd drl drh don't teach replacements telling you differential reinforcement if you can get this down it's going to help you a ton a ton of time on the exam okay so work on this until you have it keep drilling keep drilling keep drilling keep drilling it's going to pay off okay questions comments please let me know like and subscribe check out rbt exam review dot com or bcba study dot com for all of our study 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