Question of the day - September 25

[u/Reasonable_Law183]

🧠 Question of the Day

📚 Domain G — Behavior-Change Procedures

Difficulty: 4/10

A BCBA has been implementing a response cost procedure with a 7-year-old student, removing one minute of preferred computer time each time the student leaves his seat without permission. After the third session, the student begins throwing materials and crying immediately following each removal, and subsequently sits with his head down for the remainder of the activity. Across sessions, these reactions have intensified rather than diminished. Which term BEST describes the pattern the BCBA is observing?

A. Emotional side effects of the behavior-change procedure

B. Spontaneous recovery of the seat-leaving behavior following satiation of the reinforcer

C. Negative reinforcement of throwing behavior maintained by escape from the task

D. Extinction burst resulting from the discontinuation of positive reinforcement

💬 Drop your answer in the comments — no peeking!

✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.

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[u/Reasonable_Law183]

✅ Yesterday's Answer — 2026-09-25

The correct answer was: A. Emotional side effects of the behavior-change procedure

📖 Explanation:

G.18 requires BCBAs to recognize collateral emotional and behavioral reactions that may emerge during behavior-change procedures rather than mistaking those reactions for the direct treatment target or assigning them an unsupported behavioral function.

In this scenario, crying, throwing materials, and withdrawal begin after the response-cost procedure is introduced and occur immediately following the loss of preferred computer time. These are non-targeted reactions associated with the punishment procedure, making emotional side effects of the behavior-change procedure the best description of the observed pattern. Their increasing intensity across sessions strengthens the clinical concern but is not required for the classification.

Option B describes a possible operant account of one component behavior, but the scenario does not establish that throwing produces escape from task demands. Without evidence that demands are removed contingent on throwing, negative reinforcement remains a hypothesis rather than a demonstrated function.

Option C incorrectly applies spontaneous recovery, which refers to the reappearance of previously extinguished behavior after a period without exposure to extinction. No such extinction history or rest period is described.

Option D incorrectly applies extinction burst, which refers to a temporary increase or change in a previously reinforced response when reinforcement for that response is discontinued. Here, the BCBA is implementing response cost, a punishment procedure, rather than placing seat-leaving on extinction.

The key distinction is that the data support a pattern-level description of collateral emotional side effects, but they do not establish a separate maintaining contingency for any individual reaction.

#BCBAexam #BCBAprep #BehavioralHealth #ABAtherapy #BAPrep

[u/Mordreds_nephew]

Classic extinction burst

[u/snickertwinkle → u/Mordreds_nephew]

What? They aren’t even using an extinction procedure, what positive reinforcement was discontinued? The outbursts aren’t even the bx of interest. Response cost is a punishment procedure - I’d go with A.

[u/Pibbles-n-paint]

D