To calculate a response versus nonresponse contingency difference, create mutually exclusive, comparable windows for Yara. Count consequence and no-consequence outcomes after the response and during valid nonresponse opportunities. Calculate P(consequence given response), P(consequence given no response), and subtract the second from the first. Show all four cells, truncated windows, missingness, base rates, and contextual limits before interpreting the difference.

Construct the four cells

Classify each eligible window as response with consequence, response without consequence, nonresponse with consequence, or nonresponse without consequence. Retain missing and invalid windows outside the cells.

Use comparable windows

Match duration, setting, consequence definition, opportunity, observation coverage, and access. Resolve overlaps prospectively with a declared rule.

Calculate both conditionals

Divide response-consequence by all response windows. Divide nonresponse-consequence by all valid nonresponse windows. Show fractions and decimals before subtraction.

Interpret direction and scale

Positive values indicate greater observed consequence probability after response, zero indicates equal conditional probabilities, and negative values indicate lower probability. Sampling error and confounding remain.

Keep the causal boundary

The difference is a descriptive sequential measure. Serial dependence, common antecedents, schedules, prompts, partner behavior, and measurement choices can produce or alter it.

Use this sequence to calculate a response versus nonresponse contingency difference

Define Yara's events and windows, build four raw cells, preserve missingness, calculate both conditionals and their difference, audit base rates and confounds, and report only the sampled dependency.

Build Yara's four-cell contingency worksheet

Create one versioned four-cell contingency worksheet for the community-class break-support review. Include Yara's priority, response class, consequence class, learning history, response and nonresponse states, time windows, value, availability, effort, delay, magnitude, quality, duration, rules, prompts, access, health, integrity, agreement, raw cells, invalidity, missingness, withdrawal, direct experience, result, uncertainty, decision, owner, correction, and review trigger. Store only decision-relevant information with role-limited access.

Validate Yara's contingency evidence

Reproduce Yara's four cells: 18 response-break, 6 response-no-break, 9 nonresponse-break, and 21 nonresponse-no-break. Confirm 24 and 30 condition totals, 0.75 and 0.30 conditionals, and 0.45 difference. Audit opportunity eligibility, window overlap, truncation, repeated events, timestamp precision, schedule-driven breaks, and prompts. Keep every invalid window in the coverage record. A positive difference indicates sampled dependency while reinforcement and causality require other evidence.

Keep Yara's dependency, function, and experience separate

Measure response-consequence dependency within eligible response and nonresponse states. Evaluate later functional effects with evidence suited to that question. Ask Yara separately about clarity, effort, comfort, usefulness, burden, and whether assessment should continue. A strong conditional difference can coexist with an unwanted or inaccessible arrangement. Positive experience can also improve while the measured dependency stays unchanged.

Work through Yara's example

Yara has 24 valid response windows, with the defined break delivered in 18 and absent in 6. She has 30 valid nonresponse windows, with the break delivered in 9 and absent in 21. P(break|response) is 18/24 = 0.75. P(break|no response) is 9/30 = 0.30. The contingency difference is 0.45. Four truncated windows remain outside both conditionals. Preserve every planned and valid unit, raw count, denominator, response state, nonresponse state, consequence delivery, contact, value, prompt, rule, access condition, integrity result, withdrawal, direct report, system failure, correction, and unresolved item. This fictional example demonstrates one assessment control. It offers no universal contingency, behavioral function, diagnosis, trait, treatment effect, legal conclusion, coverage decision, payment promise, or outcome guarantee.

Address Yara's main assessment risk

Using all observation minutes as the nonresponse denominator can flood the comparison with periods when no break opportunity existed. Omitting the nine nonresponse breaks would inflate the response dependency. Review response and consequence definitions, comparison states, timing, base rates, learning history, value, availability, effort, rules, prompts, access, health, context, client experience, authority, and causal scope separately. A large conditional difference cannot repair an inaccessible or ethically unsound arrangement.

Keep contingency concepts and authority clear for Yara

The ABAI Basic Principles page lists behavioral contingencies in higher-education content. The BACB Test Content Outline covers contingencies, reinforcement, schedules, rule-governed behavior, measurement, assessment, and intervention as examination content. The current BACB Ethics Code addresses competence, involvement, consent and assent when applicable, assessment, risk, data, documentation, and evaluation for covered people. These sources do not create licensure, payer approval, or an individualized plan for Yara.

Treat contingency as more than close timing for Yara

Lattal's conceptual review presents contingency as a functional relation with empirical, theoretical, and practical dimensions. Poling and Li critique vague technical use of the word. For Yara, define the response, consequence, dependency, time window, history, and claimed functional effect instead of letting the label carry missing evidence.

Use sequential measures cautiously for Yara

McComas and colleagues discuss challenges in calculating contingencies from natural-environment sequential data. Valid response and nonresponse states, comparable windows, base rates, temporal precision, and raw cells matter. A conditional difference can describe Yara's sampled events while leaving reinforcement, behavioral function, and causality unresolved.

Preserve rules, alternatives, and mixed control for Yara

Tarbox and colleagues discuss rule following and report a small teaching study. Reed and Kaplan explain relative response allocation and obtained reinforcement in matching analyses. These sources help frame rules, prompts, direct outcomes, concurrent alternatives, bias, and effort. They provide no universal protocol or source-of-control conclusion for Yara.

Preserve treatment scope, AAC, assent, and access for Yara

The CASP public summary supplies high-level ABA behavioral-health-treatment scope for autistic people, with licensed detail outside this page. ASHA's AAC portal says AAC users should always have access to their communication tools or devices. Breaux and Smith provide assent-focused guidance in an evolving evidence base. Follow governing sources and keep health care, food, water, bathroom access, communication, mobility, rest, relationships, safety, and emergency help available to Yara.

Choose Yara's next bounded action

Yara asks the team to preserve scheduled breaks and use the worksheet to improve partner responsiveness rather than make breaks harder to access. Record the qualified owner, supporting evidence, effective date, current supports, health and access state, implementation check, accessible explanation, disagreement route, and reassessment trigger. Preserve the original assessment when people, systems, responses, consequences, or preferences change. A new arrangement creates a dated version rather than an error in Yara's earlier performance.

Close Yara's contingency review

Review the four-cell contingency worksheet with Yara, the qualified behavior analyst, relevant partners, access owners, and specialists named in the manifest. Confirm that close timing stays separate from response dependency and later functional effect, raw cells and denominators are reproducible, AAC and basic access remain protected, health questions stay with qualified professionals, and conclusions remain bounded to the sampled response, consequence, time, and context. Keep this page draft and noindex until every required review is complete.

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