To identify high-probability requests, define each request and acceptable response, provide required communication and motor supports, present repeated opportunities in comparable conditions, and report completed responses over eligible opportunities. Screen health, motivation, setting, partner, timing, and consequence differences. A familiar, preferred, easy, or previously mastered action is only a candidate until direct evidence shows a high response probability in the intended context.
Define how to identify high-probability requests
Specify the wording or signal, response form, response window, supports, partner, setting, and consequence. Decide whether prompted responses count and keep them separate from independent responses. Describe what makes an opportunity invalid.
Use repeated screening
The medical-examination study presented candidate requests three times daily across five days and used requests with at least 80% completion for its two participants. Those details make the research reproducible. They remain study procedures rather than a universal threshold or dose.
Test the intended context
A request completed at home may function differently at a clinic, school, store, or noisy community site. New partners, group attention, pain, fatigue, equipment, or schedule changes can alter probability. Recheck after a material context change.
Keep scope and safeguards visible
The BACB outline covers measurement, preference assessment, contextual fit, and data-based decisions. The Ethics Code addresses assessment, client involvement, consent and assent when applicable, risk, and evaluation. ASHA supports access to AAC during screening.
A practical example
Sofia receives six accessible opportunities for each of three candidate actions. Responses are 6/6, 5/6, and 3/6. One 5/6 response used a prompt, so independent counts are 6/6, 4/6, and 3/6. The team preserves both counts and reviews its predeclared rule.
Questions families can use
What exactly was requested? How many eligible opportunities occurred? Which supports and prompts were present? Were settings comparable? What threshold was chosen and why? When does the pool expire?
Sources
- Behavior Analyst Certification Board, BCBA Test Content Outline, 6th edition
- Shillingsburg and colleagues, Increasing Compliance With Medical Examination Requests Directed to Children With Autism
- Davis and Reichle, Variant and Invariant High-Probability Requests
- Mace and colleagues, Effects of Reinforcer Quality on Behavioral Momentum
- Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Finni resources
