Design a Conditional-Discrimination Assessment

To design a conditional discrimination assessment, define the sample stimulus, comparison array, selection response, and relation that determines which comparison is correct for each sample. Plan position, sequence, access, observing responses, prompts, correction, baseline, and probes. For Eitan, keep trained identity matching, conditional discrimination, and untrained emergent relations as separate claims. Accuracy alone cannot reveal which stimulus feature or prompt controlled selection.

Define all four trial elements

Specify the sample, comparison set, correct sample-comparison relation, and Eitan's accessible selection response. Add trial start, observing opportunity, response window, feedback, intertrial interval, and invalidity rules.

Verify sample and comparison access

Check vision, hearing, touch, motor reach, symbol meaning, language, AAC, device timing, and fatigue. An observing response can verify contact without requiring eye contact or one body movement.

Balance arrays and sequences

Rotate correct positions, vary incorrect comparisons thoughtfully, prevent predictable sample order, and control accidental features. Report position allocation and relation-specific accuracy alongside the total.

Separate prompts from baseline

Describe sample prompts, comparison prompts, position prompts, model prompts, time delay, fading, and correction. Assess independent conditional responding in planned probes rather than combining prompted teaching trials with baseline.

Name the conclusion class

Trained conditional discrimination concerns performance on taught relations. Identity matching concerns physically identical comparisons. Reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity, and equivalence require specified untrained tests and histories. Preserve these distinctions.

Use this sequence to design a conditional discrimination assessment

Define Eitan's sample, comparisons, relation, and response, verify access, balance arrays and order, separate teaching from probes, report relation and position data, and limit the conclusion to the tested history.

Build Eitan's conditional-discrimination assessment plan

Create one versioned conditional-discrimination assessment plan for the accessible schedule-matching review. Include Eitan's priority, response, opportunity, antecedent feature, compound, comparison, consequence history, setting, partner, effort, prompts, feedback, order, exposure, access, health, motivation, integrity, agreement, raw data, invalidity, missingness, withdrawal, direct experience, result, uncertainty, decision, owner, correction, and review trigger. Store only decision-relevant information with role-limited access.

Validate Eitan's stimulus-control evidence

Review Eitan's plan for balanced samples, comparison positions, array composition, trial order, and prompt history. Confirm that he can observe and access the sample and every comparison without forced gaze. Reproduce accuracy by relation and position, not only overall. Keep trained baselines and any novel probes separately labeled. A claim about an untrained relation requires the exact trained and tested directions, stable baseline, and suitable control logic.

Keep Eitan's response and experience separate

Measure the defined response under eligible target and comparison opportunities, and ask Eitan separately about clarity, effort, comfort, usefulness, burden, and whether the assessment should continue. Differential responding can coexist with inaccessible materials or an unwanted goal. Enjoyment or confidence can also change without evidence of the tested stimulus relation. Report both evidence streams with their own units, timing, and decision role.

Work through Eitan's example

Eitan completes 24 conditional trials across four sample-comparison relations. Twenty-two are valid and 17 are correct. Simple comparison selections without changing samples are 11/12 correct. Report 17/22 conditional accuracy, 11/12 simple-selection control, two invalid access trials, and each relation's raw count. The result supports sampled conditional performance and never establishes reflexivity, symmetry, equivalence, or broad language understanding. Preserve every planned and valid unit, raw count, denominator, feature state, comparison, prompt, access condition, integrity result, withdrawal, direct report, system failure, correction, and unresolved item. This fictional example demonstrates one assessment control. It offers no universal stimulus function, diagnosis, ability, treatment effect, legal conclusion, coverage decision, payment promise, or outcome guarantee.

Address Eitan's main assessment risk

A matching-to-sample screen can produce high accuracy through position, sample order, prompt history, or one comparison feature. Calling the outcome concept mastery can exceed both the procedure and Eitan's evidence. Review response definition, feature access, comparison, consequence history, motivation, prompts, position, order, effort, health, setting, partner, exposure, integrity, client experience, authority, and causal scope separately. High accuracy never repairs a confounded or inaccessible assessment.

Keep stimulus-control concepts and authority clear for Eitan

The ABAI Basic Principles page lists stimulus control in higher-education content. The BACB Test Content Outline covers stimulus control, simple and conditional discrimination, prompting and fading, generalization, and related concepts 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. For Eitan, these sources do not create licensure, payer approval, or an individualized protocol.

Anchor Eitan's interpretation in comparison and history

Lattal's contingency review supports careful analysis of response-consequence relations beyond close timing. Saini and colleagues reviewed 31 applied multiple-schedule studies and described uses of correlated signals across applications. These sources illustrate history and differential responding. They do not establish that one color, card, display, schedule, or procedure will control Eitan's response or improve a clinical outcome.

Plan generalization explicitly for Eitan

Stokes and Baer organized nine historically influential generalization tactics. Osnes and Lieblein analyze generalization through stimulus control and relevant environmental features. For Eitan, define the intended performance universe, trained set, reserved probes, common stimuli, natural supports, and context-specific results. Historical frameworks guide questions rather than supply a universal modern protocol.

Read gradient evidence narrowly for Eitan

Lalli and colleagues systematically varied therapist distance in one applied assessment and observed different response levels. The study illustrates an ordered stimulus dimension and a case-specific gradient. It does not prescribe exposing Eitan to distress, identify a diagnosis, or predict another gradient. The CASP public summary supplies high-level ABA treatment scope for autistic people, with licensed detail outside this page.

Preserve AAC, assent, and basic access for Eitan

ASHA's AAC portal says AAC users should always have access to their communication tools or devices. Breaux and Smith provide assent-focused practice guidance in an evolving evidence base. For Eitan, follow governing consent and assent sources, honor accessible refusal and withdrawal, and keep adequate food and water, bathroom access, communication, mobility, prescribed care, pain response, rest, safety, relationships, and emergency help available.

Choose Eitan's next bounded action

Eitan chooses a slower sample-to-array transition and asks the team to reserve new pictures for later unprompted probes. Record the qualified owner, evidence, effective date, current supports, access and safety state, implementation check, accessible explanation, disagreement route, and reassessment trigger. Preserve the original assessment when materials or contexts change. A new cue version creates a dated record rather than an error in Eitan's earlier performance.

Close Eitan's stimulus-control review

Review the conditional-discrimination assessment plan with Eitan, the qualified behavior analyst, relevant partners, access owners, and specialists named in the manifest. Confirm that stimulus presentation stays separate from functional control, target and comparison denominators are reproducible, AAC and basic access remain protected, health and sensory questions stay with qualified professionals, and conclusions remain bounded to the tested response and context. Keep this page draft and noindex until every required review is complete.

How to Design a Conditional-Discrimination Assessment