ABCs of Preference Assessments

A preference assessment is a structured method to identify highly preferred items or actions that can be used as reinforcers to keep motivation levels high when teaching individuals with autism or other special needs.

How do we know what's going to work to reinforce the learner? Remember, an item only serves as a reinforcer if it increases the likelihood that a behavior will occur again in the future.

So how do we figure it out?

We can guess…

Although watching the learner and figuring out what their preferences are is the first step in conducting a preference assessment, guessing isn’t exactly scientific, and therefore, doesn’t qualify as true ABA.

So what do we do?

We can conduct a preference assessment.

Common types of preference assessments include:

1. Single item presentation: provide items one at a time to the learner, record the learner’s behavioral response and the duration of the engagement.

2. Free operant: several items are available at once, and data is collected on which items the learner engages with and for how long (Roane et al., 1998).

3. Paired stimulus (forced choice): items are presented two at a time, so that each item is paired with every other item, and the learner chooses one. Data is recorded on which item is chosen from each pair (Fisher et al., 1992).

4. Multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO): several items are presented at once; after the learner chooses one, it is removed, and the learner chooses again from the rest, which gives a ranked list (DeLeon & Iwata, 1996).

You can learn more about preference assessment by going here.

References:

Roane, H. S., Vollmer, T. R., Ringdahl, J. E., & Marcus, B. A. (1998). Evaluation of a brief stimulus preference assessment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 31(4), 605–620.

Fisher, W., Piazza, C. C., Bowman, L. G., Hagopian, L. P., Owens, J. C., & Slevin, I. (1992). A comparison of two approaches for identifying reinforcers for persons with severe and profound disabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25(2), 491–498.

DeLeon, I. G., & Iwata, B. A. (1996). Evaluation of a multiple-stimulus presentation format for assessing reinforcer preferences. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 29(4), 519–533.

Copyright © by Special Learning Inc. All right reserved.

No part of this article may be reproduced without written permission. For information, email contact@special-learning.com.