Behavior Bubbles

Knowing about types of continuous measurement is one of the requirements on the RBT competency assessment to become a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT). It is important to know the types of measurement as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is data driven. This implies that we rely on the data collected to gauge if a client is making appropriate progress. The data collected helps us to make a decision on whether an intervention is working.

According to Cooper, Heron, and Heward (2007), continuous measurement is defined as “measurement conducted in a manner such that all instances of the response class(es) of interest are detected during the observation period.”

Let us look at some types of continuous measurement and see some examples to further illustrate the concepts below.

Frequency
Frequency in ABA terms is looking at the number of times a behavior occured. For example, Tim hit a total of 5 times during the 1-hour session.

Duration
Duration looks at how long a behavior may have occured for. For example, Sarah cried for 5 minutes. Looking at the diagram before, the duration would be shown by the green box.

Duration can also be utilised for positive behaviors such as looking at how long a client stays on a given task during a lesson. For example, Jim took 5 minutes to complete his worksheet.

Latency
Latency looks at how much time it took for the response to occur after the stimulus was presented. For example, should the therapist give the SD “touch nose” and Mary touched her nose after 4 seconds, latency would look at the amount of time which passed after the SD was provided and when the client touched their nose which is 5 seconds. Looking at the diagram below, latency would be represented by the blue arrow.

Interresponse Time (IRT)
IRT looks how much time had passed between two consecutive responses in the same response class. For example, should Jack engage in a kicking behavior, where he kicked once and kicked a second time 10 seconds later, the IRT would be 10 seconds.

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To check your understanding, try answering the questions below merging the types of continuous measurement together! You can check your answers at the end of the post!

1) Thomas was jumping on the trampoline. His mother told Thomas to come down from the trampoline to get ready for lunch. Thomas continued jumping for 8 seconds before going down from the trampoline. After getting ready for lunch, Thomas spotted a mushroom on his plate. He did not want to eat the mushroom and screamed for 2 seconds. His mother came to see what was happening and Thomas screamed for another 5 seconds. While his mother ignored Thomas, she heard Thomas scream another 4 times for 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 2 seconds and 8 seconds respectively. Thomas’ mother entered the room and told Thomas to eat the mushroom. After 3 seconds, Thomas took a bite of the mushroom. He took a second bite of the mushroom after 7 seconds and a third bite after 3 seconds. Thomas was then allowed to leave the table.

1a) What is the Interresponse time for Thomas to eat the mushroom?
1b) What is the frequency of Thomas’ screaming?
1c) What is the latency of Thomas eating the mushroom?
1d) What is the duration of Thomas’ screaming?

2) Whilst in class, Jane’s teacher asked Jane to name her two animals. Upon hearing the question, Jane hit herself and started coughing for 4 seconds. After coughing, she hit herself while answering the question, stating a camel. Jane hit herself whilst thinking for 5 seconds before stating the second animal, a penguin. Her teacher praised Jane and gave her a worksheet on animals to complete. Jane saw the worksheet and hit herself 3 times. Jane took 5 minutes to finish the first 4 questions and took another 8 minutes before finishing the remaining 6 questions on the worksheet. She hit herself one more time before handing in the worksheet to her teacher.

2a) What is the duration Jane took to finish her worksheet?
2b) What is the interresponse time Jane took to answer the question?
2c) What is the latency Jane took to answer the question?
2d) What is the frequency of Jane’s hitting behavior?

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As a special note, please note that the type of measurement utilised should depend on the behavior being looked at. For example, if screaming has a consistent duration of 4 seconds each incident but occurs multiple times a session, taking frequency data might be recommended instead of duration data. The inverse occurs for collecting data with regard to hitting behavior should hitting occur at such a high frequency that it is hard to count (i.e. 15 times in 5 seconds). In this situation, it might be worth considering to take duration data for how long each hitting incident lasts for rather than counting the number of times the client engaged in the hitting behavior.

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Hope you enjoyed reading this post and that it helped to provide you with a clearer picture of continuous measurement! Feel free to comment below to suggest ideas for posts.

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Thank you for reading to the end! Here are the answers for the above questions on frequency, duration, latency, and interresponse time.

1a) 7 Seconds
1b) 6 Times
1c) 3 Seconds
1d) 25 Seconds

2a) 13 Minutes
2b) 5 Seconds
2c) 4 Seconds
2d) 7 Times

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References
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2007). Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.