ABSTRACT
Clear, fluent speech was the terminal behaviour Dawn chose for Andrew. The terminal behavior didn’t occur at all before shaping; its operant level was zero. The initial and intermediate behaviors were prerequisites for the next behavior in the successive approximations. Select and differentially reinforce response that more closely approximates the terminal behavior. Differential reinforcement involves reinforcing a single set of responses within a response class and withholding reinforcement from another set of responses within that response class. People often confuse stimulus fading with response shaping, as well as with a procedure they call reinforcer reduction. A similar type of gradual change may entail the replacement of one type of reinforcer for another—reinforcer reduction. Now, people often make the mistake of calling lever-press training procedure shaping, but it isn’t; it’s chaining or training a behavioral chain because it involves a series of different responses behaviorally chained together.
