1.6 Baseline vs. Intervention Example
So let’s say that I want to see what happens when I spray my cat with water after she scratches the couch. Right now, every time she scratches the couch, I yell at her. So the baseline phase in this example is yelling. I want to test the effects of spraying her with water, so that is the intervention.
Look at the behavior under different conditions:
Baseline
What you’re currently doing; the treatment is NOT implemented
Intervention
The treatment that you want to test
Isn’t the cat the subject in this case? Wouldn’t baseline be the cat’s behaviour of scratching the couch? Wouldn’t yelling be an unsuccessful intervention and then spraying the cat be a different intervention?
If yelling is the baseline, then yelling is the antecedent.
That’s a good point, and I see what you’re saying. The cat is definitely the subject, but in a single subject design the baseline isn’t just the behavior, it’s the behavior under whatever conditions currently exist. So in this case the baseline would be the cat scratching behavior while yelling is happening, since that is the current condition.
I believe that the subject is the behavior of scratching the couch and that yelling is the baseline because that is currently how they are dealing with said behavior.
This made more sense, thank you for clarifying.
Wouldnt the treatment of spraying the cat with water cause negative reinforcement and possible cause the cat to become afraid of its owner instead of teaching the cat a positive response/ behavior.
It is interesting case study. In my personally idea, yelling which the baseline, spraying the intervention, both theoretically speaking what it is or explaining what the example or behavior meaning, however, those behaviors do not positively do the problem solving.
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Trying to stop the cat from sctratching her couch, she yells at her cat, which is the baseline-current problem solving method. Intervention treatment would be spraying water to the cat.
From what I understand is that, the behavior is my cat scratching the couch. The baseline is me yeling when she does it. The intervention would be spraying her with water instead. I also think that positive reinforcement would help so my cat doesn’t hate me too much and I would reward her for using the scratching post for example so she learns the right behavior.
If you are employing an intervention, does the baseline remain the same, and you add the intervention? For example, in this situation, the cat’s behavior and the yelling constitute the baseline. Do you add the new intervention and keep yelling to see if the cat’s behavior changes, or do you stop yelling (the old intervention) and add the new intervention?