Behavioral Dimensions

The manner in which behavior is defined and measured is of critical importance to the success of any behavioral analysis. The characteristics of the target behavior must be sufficiently well defined to allow clear distinctions to be made between “instances” (cases where the target behavior has been emitted) and “noninstances” (cases where some other behavior has been emitted). Moreover, care must be exercised in the selection of the behavioral dimension monitored to evaluate changes in the behavior over time. Different results might be noted if, for example, the frequency of a target behavior is tracked instead of the proportion of instances relative to noninstances (e.g., percent accuracy).

Although the number and types of dimensions that could be ascribed to behavior are virtually unlimited, a ...