Practice question
Concepts and Principles

Identify stimulus control in instructional contexts.

Original BCBA scenario practice question with answer explanation and wrong-choice notes.

Question

Difficulty: medium. Skill: apply. Type: applied scenario.

During matching pictures in a community outing, the young child says "help" only when the therapist holds up a help card, but not when the card is absent. What does this pattern most directly show? The BCBA is reviewing the decision with a trainee.

A
The response has generalized across all relevant settings
B
The response is maintained by automatic reinforcement
C
The response is on extinction
D
The response is under stimulus control of the help card

Correct answer

Explanation

Answer D

Stimulus control is shown when a response occurs more often in the presence of a particular antecedent stimulus.

Why the other choices are weaker

A
Choice A

The response occurs only with one stimulus, so generalization is not shown.

B
Choice B

The scenario does not show automatic reinforcement.

C
Choice C

The scenario describes when the response occurs, not withholding reinforcement.

Study tags

Stimulus ControlDiscriminationExtinction

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