Behavior Analysis

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Unit 6 Application of Behavior Analysis Case 1 Brendan Provide the rationale for the behaviorist's selection of behavior chaining to help Brendan. The rationale for the behaviorist’s selection of behavior chaining to help Brendan would be to break down his learned behaviors in steps so that each response to the steps already learned leads to the next step, “A behavior chain is a specific sequence of discrete responses, each associated with a particular stimulus condition,” (Cooper, Heron, & Heward (2007), pg 435 ). Discuss the concepts of primary and secondary reinforcement and how these work in behavior chaining. You may provide a different example to illustrate these concepts if necessary. Primary reinforcement fulfills the need of the behavior, “A stimulus change that functions as reinforcement even though the learner has had no particular learning history with it is called an unconditioned reinforce. (Some author’s use the terms primary reinforce and unlearned reinforce as synonyms for unconditioned reinforcers),” (Cooper, Heron, & Heward (2007), pg 269). The Secondary reinforcement is related to the need of the behavior, “A conditioned reinforce (sometimes called a secondary reinforcer or learned reinforcer) is a previously neutral stimulus change that has acquired the capability to function as a reinforcer through stimulus-stimulus pairing with one or more unconditioned reinforcers or conditioned reinforcers,” (Cooper, Heron, & Heward (2007), pg 269). How the concepts of primary and secondary reinforcement work in behavior chaining is by how it all is connected to positive reinforcement. For an example say that I go to take a pot off of the stove that is bubbling over because I heard it bubbling over (secondary), I take the pot off of the stove and move it before it makes a big mess and get burned (primary). If I could have taken steps to
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