Practice question
Behavior Assessment

Conduct assessment before selecting intervention.

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

Question

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

A teacher reports that the adolescent engages in throwing materials, but no direct data or baseline information are available. What should the BCBA do first? The team wants the next step to be defensible from the current data.

A
Define the behavior and collect assessment data on antecedents, consequences, and patterns

Correct answer

B
Implement extinction in every setting immediately
C
Choose a reward menu without assessing the behavior
D
Add a punishment procedure before assessment is complete

Explanation

Answer A

Intervention selection should be based on operational definitions, baseline data, and assessment of relevant variables.

Why the other choices are weaker

B
Choice B

Extinction requires identifying the maintaining reinforcer and planning for safety.

C
Choice C

Preference information may help later, but function and baseline are missing.

D
Choice D

Punishment-first choices are weaker when function, safety, and less intrusive options have not been addressed.

Study tags

Functional AssessmentBaselineFunctional Analysis

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