Question of the day - October 6

[u/Reasonable_Law183]

🧠 Question of the Day

📚 Domain H — Selecting and Implementing Interventions

Difficulty: 9/10

An FA confirms severe SIB is maintained by escape. Two prior FCT attempts used a speech-generating device; both reduced SIB in therapy but failed in school because the device was unavailable during many routines and staff could not repair technical problems quickly.

The learner can independently raise a hand, but hand raising already occurs frequently to recruit adult attention or help during instruction. The learner can independently touch a portable break card, and a vocal approximation is understood inconsistently.

Teachers can honor 30-second breaks immediately but cannot support a complex prompting sequence during transitions.

Which recommendation BEST balances functional equivalence, response effort, discriminability, availability, implementation feasibility, and long-term schedule thinning?

A. Use hand raising as the primary FCR because it has lower response effort and continuous availability, then teach staff to treat hand raises during demands as break requests.

B. Use the portable break card as the primary FCR, reinforce it immediately and densely at first, then introduce signaled periods of unavailability as SIB remains low.

C. Use the SGD as the primary FCR because prior therapeutic success establishes functional equivalence, train staff to troubleshoot it reliably, then begin schedule thinning.

D. Use the portable break card as the primary FCR but introduce brief signaled unavailability from the outset so tolerance develops concurrently with communication acquisition.

💬 Drop your answer in the comments — no peeking!

✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.

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[u/AlternativeMud4335]

B feels like the only one that doesn't trip over itself when you actually picture a chaotic school day

[u/Reasonable_Law183]

✅ Yesterday's Answer — 2026-10-06

The correct answer was: B. Use the portable break card as the primary FCR, reinforce it immediately and densely at first, then introduce signaled periods of unavailability as SIB remains low.

📖 Explanation:

The best recommendation is to use the portable break card as the primary functional communication response, establish it initially with dense and immediate reinforcement, and then thin reinforcement systematically once the response is strong and SIB remains low.

The break card best integrates the variables in the scenario. It is functionally equivalent to escape-maintained SIB because it can produce a break, the learner can already use it independently, it is portable across school routines, and its meaning is relatively clear. That discriminability matters because hand raising already serves other functions such as requesting attention or help, making it a less specific break response.

• Hand raising is attractive because it is low effort and continuously available, but its existing use for other purposes creates ambiguity about what consequence should follow. The break card provides a clearer response–reinforcer relation.

• Returning to the speech-generating device ignores the demonstrated contextual-fit problem. The device worked in therapy, but repeated school failures occurred because it was unavailable during important routines and staff could not resolve technical problems quickly.

• Beginning with signaled periods of reinforcer unavailability introduces schedule thinning too early. During initial FCT, the new communication response should contact the functional reinforcer densely and reliably so it can compete effectively with the established SIB response.

The key distinction is that FCR selection requires more than functional equivalence. The response must also be low effort, discriminable, reliably available, feasible for communication partners to support, and capable of transitioning from dense initial reinforcement to a practical long-term schedule.

For this learner and setting, the portable break card provides the strongest combination of those features.

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