ABA Exam Coach

D.7: Distinguish among reversal, multiple-baseline, multielement, and changing-criterion designs.

Free practice questions for this part of the BCBA, with an explanation for every option.

An adult client wants to cut down on smoking. After a 7-day baseline averaging 30 cigarettes a day, the BCBA sets a daily limit of 25, then 20, then 15 cigarettes, moving to the next limit only after the client meets the current one for several days. Which design is this?
  1. A. Changing-criterion
    Correct. A changing-criterion design shows control when behavior repeatedly changes to match each new criterion set in a stepwise sequence.
  2. B. Multiple-baseline across behaviors
    Incorrect. A multiple baseline staggers the intervention across separate behaviors, settings, or people. Here one behavior is targeted with stepwise criteria.
  3. C. Multielement
    Incorrect. A multielement design rapidly alternates two or more conditions. It does not move gradually through criteria.
  4. D. Reversal (A-B-A-B)
    Incorrect. A reversal design withdraws and reinstates the intervention. It does not use a series of performance criteria.
To find out which prompting procedure helps a learner acquire tacts faster, a BCBA runs most-to-least prompting and constant time delay in separate sessions on the same days, switching between them in a counterbalanced order and using equivalent target sets for each. Which design is this?
  1. A. Multielement (alternating treatments) design
    Correct. Rapidly alternating two or more conditions independent of the level of responding, with counterbalancing, is the defining feature of a multielement (alternating treatments) design.
  2. B. Changing-criterion design
    Incorrect. No stepwise performance criteria are being set.
  3. C. A-B-C-B design
    Incorrect. An A-B-C-B design introduces conditions in sequential phases, each lasting several sessions, not alternating session by session.
  4. D. Multiple-probe design
    Incorrect. A multiple-probe design is a version of the multiple baseline that uses intermittent baseline probes. It does not rapidly alternate treatments.
A BCBA is teaching a student to read three separate sets of sight words. Once learned, reading is unlikely to reverse, and withdrawing instruction would be inappropriate. Which design would best show experimental control?
  1. A. Changing-criterion design with one set of words
    Incorrect. A changing-criterion design suits shaping one behavior toward stepwise criteria, not acquiring discrete sets of new skills.
  2. B. B-A-B design beginning with instruction
    Incorrect. A B-A-B design still depends on reversibility during the withdrawal phase, which these skills lack.
  3. C. Multiple-baseline across behaviors (word sets), introducing instruction to each set at staggered times
    Correct. A multiple baseline needs no withdrawal. Control is shown when each word set improves only after instruction is introduced to it, while the untaught sets stay stable.
  4. D. A-B-A-B reversal design across the three word sets
    Incorrect. Reversal designs need behavior to return to baseline when the intervention is withdrawn, and learned academic skills usually do not.

Take the free diagnostic