Antecedent: A stimulus (i.e. a verbal cue, activity, event or person) that immediately precedes a behavior. This stimulus may or may not serve as discriminative for a specific behavior.

Consequence: A stimulus (i.e. a verbal response, the acquisition of a reinforcing item or activity) that contingently follows a behavior. For instance, if a little girlīs crying results in attention from her teachers, then teacher attention would be considered a consequence that followed the crying behavior.

Consequence Interventions: Strategies that address the stimuli (i.e. a verbal response, the acquisition of a reinforcing item or an activity) that contingently follow a behavior. Two strategies can be used when problem behavior occurs more frequently than appropriate behavior: increase reinforcement for appropriate behavior, and decrease reinforcement received for engaging in problem behavior.

Extinction: Reinforcement is withheld from a previously reinforced behavior and therefore the behavior decreases. The goal of withholding reinforcement is to decrease the target behavior.

Fading: The systematic, gradual removal of prompts that promotes an independent, uncued response from a learner.

Function: The consequences that are related to maintaining the occurrence of a behavior. Documented functions of problem behavior include (a) attention, (b) desire for activities or items, (c) escape from attention or activities, and (d) escape from or obtain physiological stimulation.

Generalization: The use of a newly learned skill in a setting that is different than the setting in which the skill was initially learned.

Gustatory Stimulation: Any stimulation related to the act of tasting or the sense of taste.

Negative Reinforcement: Behavior increases when an aversive stimulus is removed.

Positive Reinforcement: Behavior increases when a stimulus is delivered.

Punishment: A consequent stimulus that reduces the probability a behavior will occur.

Reinforcement: The state of receiving or presenting a reinforcer. A stimulus that when presented immediately following a response increases the probability that the response will occur again. Can be the presentation of a reward or removal of something unpleasant.

Setting Event: Any occurrence that affects a student's responses to reinforcers and punishers in the environment. Setting events can be due to environmental, social, or physiological factors. Occurrences that affect a behavior at one point in time may change the likelihood of a targeted behavior at a later point.

Setting Event Interventions: Interventions that address setting events involve developing approaches that identify social, environmental, and physiological events that may temporarily alter the value of reinforcers and punishers within the student's environment. Setting event interventions may involve minimizing the likelihood of the setting event, changing expectations on days when setting events occur, or neutralizing the setting event.

Shaping: Reinforcing successive approximations towards a desired response. Shaping is used to teach a new behavior by manipulating the consequences presented.

Stimulus: Anything that elicits or evokes action in a person or creates a response in a muscle, nerve, gland or other excitable tissue or organ of the body.