ABA Exam CoachLessons · G. Behavior-Change Procedures
G.5 · Motivating operations and discriminative stimuli
Ever run a perfect teaching trial and get… nothing? Often the problem isn't your prompt or your reinforcer. It's what came before the response. Let's make your antecedents work for you.
Key takeaway
A motivating operation changes how valuable a consequence is right now. Establishing operations raise that value and abolishing operations lower it. A discriminative stimulus signals that a response is more likely to be reinforced here, because it has been reinforced more often when the SD was present than when it was absent. Good procedures use both: teach while the learner wants the item, and in the presence of cues that signal it's available.
A motivating operation changes how valuable a consequence is right now. Establishing operations raise that value and abolishing operations lower it. A discriminative stimulus signals that a response is more likely to be reinforced here, because it has been reinforced more often when the SD was present than when it was absent. Good procedures use both: teach while the learner wants the item, and in the presence of cues that signal it's available.
Members get the full lesson video, notes and a 5-question test
The video walks through the idea, worked examples, the trap people fall into and an exam-style question. The notes and the checkpoint come with it, and your results feed your Where to focus plan.