Skill acquisition is the largest section of the RBT exam, covering how to teach new behaviors and skills. Master prompting, reinforcement, teaching procedures, and behavior change systems.
Skill acquisition is the heart of ABA therapy—teaching new skills and behaviors to improve clients' lives. This section accounts for 30% of exam questions, making it the most heavily weighted section. You must understand:
Understand the target behavior, materials, prompting strategies, and reinforcement outlined in the plan.
Gather materials, set up the environment, and review procedures before teaching.
Provide assistance as needed and systematically reduce prompts to promote independence.
Demonstrate the target behavior for the client to imitate.
Reinforce successive approximations of the target behavior until the final goal is achieved.
Break complex tasks into steps and teach them in sequence (forward, backward, or total task chaining).
Gradually remove prompts or cues to transfer stimulus control to the natural discriminative stimulus.
Teach the client to respond differently to different stimuli (e.g., responding to 'touch red' but not 'touch blue').
Reinforce desired behaviors while placing undesired behaviors on extinction.
Use naturally occurring opportunities in the environment to teach skills.
Teach in the natural environment following the client's lead and interests.
Use structured teaching trials with clear antecedent, response, and consequence components.
Use self-paced learning with mastery requirements before progressing.
Build speed and accuracy of skills through repeated practice.
Teach language skills based on Skinner's analysis (mands, tacts, echoics, intraverbals).
Identify potential reinforcers using various assessment methods (single stimulus, paired choice, multiple stimulus).
Test whether preferred items actually function as reinforcers by measuring their effect on behavior.
Use tokens as conditioned reinforcers that can be exchanged for backup reinforcers.
Use continuous or intermittent schedules (FR, VR, FI, VI) as appropriate for the learning stage.
Ensure learned skills continue over time after direct teaching has ended.
Teach skills across settings, people, and materials so they occur in all relevant contexts.
Use written agreements specifying behaviors and their consequences.
Teach clients to monitor and regulate their own behavior.
Use extinction, differential reinforcement, or other procedures to decrease problem behaviors while teaching alternatives.
Structured teaching with three components: Antecedent (instruction), Response, and Consequence.
Teaching in natural settings following the learner's interests and motivation.
Breaking complex tasks into smaller steps taught in sequence.
Reinforcing successive approximations toward a target behavior.
A consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again
Assistance provided to help a learner perform a behavior correctly
Systematically reducing prompts to promote independence
Reinforcing successive approximations toward a target behavior
Breaking complex tasks into steps taught in sequence
Structured teaching with clear antecedent, response, and consequence
Teaching skills in natural settings following the learner's interests
The transfer of learned skills across settings, people, and materials
Practice these questions similar to what you'll see on the RBT exam. Skill acquisition questions often present scenarios requiring you to identify the correct procedure.
1. An RBT is teaching a child to wash their hands. They teach the steps in order, starting with turning on the faucet and ending with drying hands. What chaining procedure is being used?
Answer: B — Forward chaining teaches steps in order from the beginning. The learner masters step 1, then steps 1-2, then 1-3, and so on.
2. An RBT gives a child a token for every correct response. After earning 5 tokens, the child exchanges them for a preferred toy. What procedure is being implemented?
Answer: B — A token economy uses conditioned reinforcers (tokens) that can be exchanged for backup reinforcers (toys, activities).
3. Which schedule of reinforcement provides reinforcement after a variable number of responses?
Answer: B — Variable Ratio (VR) schedules provide reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses, which produces high, steady response rates.
4. An RBT wants to teach a child to say "ball." They start by reinforcing any vocalization, then only sounds close to "ball," and finally only the word "ball." What procedure is this?
Answer: C — Shaping involves reinforcing successive approximations of the target behavior. Each step gets closer to the final goal.
5. During a preference assessment, an RBT presents two items at a time and records which one the learner chooses. What type of preference assessment is this?
Answer: B — Paired stimulus (forced choice) preference assessment presents two items at a time to determine relative preference.
Focus extra time on: reinforcement schedules, prompting hierarchies, chaining types, and the difference between DTT and NET. These appear frequently on the exam.
Memorize most-to-least and least-to-most prompting hierarchies. Understand when each is appropriate and how to fade prompts systematically.
Create a comparison chart for DTT vs NET vs Incidental Teaching. Know the advantages and when to use each approach.