RBT Assessment Study Guide: Assessment is the Unit B of the RBT Task list second edition and also favorite topic for many RBTs. On this page, you will find the RBT Assessment study guide from B1 to B3 chapters.
According to Palomba and Banta book, Assessment is the systematic collection, review, and use of information about educational programs undertaken for the purpose of improving student learning and development.
RBT Measurement Study Guide (A1 to A6)
RBT Assessment Study Guide (B1 to B3)
The first step for starting an ABA program is to assess the child’s current skill level. There are a number of assessments available, and providers should try to get an assessment that is as comprehensive as possible. Solid assessments provide a baseline upon which to begin building an ABA program. In addi- tion, the assessment outcomes can provide year to year objective markers of progress (or lack thereof) of the interventions chosen.
RBT Task List for Assessment:
As of March 31, 2025, the most recent version of the RBT Task List is the 2nd Edition, which has been in effect since November 1, 2019. According to the 2nd Edition of RBT Task list, we have the following chapters from B1 to B3.
- Conduct preference assessments (B1)
- Assist with individualized assessment procedures (e.g., curriculum-based, developmental, social skills) (B2)
- Assist with functional assessment procedures (B3)
#1 Conduct preference assessments (B1)
A Preference is something that an individual is more likely to accept or approach relative to other stimuli. RBT may needs to Conduct preference assessments to identify potential reinforcers that will motivate a child to work. Generally we conduct the preference assessments Prior to starting any intensive teaching.
Preference assessments are two types
- Free Operant – Conducted with activities or toys and a stop watch/timer for 5 to 15 minutes. It determines student’s preferences by measuring the duration of toy play. If the student stops playing with an item/activity, but does not choose another, note what the student was doing during this time as well as the duration. This may include self-stimu- latory behaviors.
- Multiple Stimulus – Conducted with edibles or item/activities. It measures Frequency and Rank Order. If the student does not make a selection within 30 seconds, the assessment should be ended and the items left should be scored as “Not selected”.
#2 Assist with individualized assessment procedures (B2)
We’ll be picking up into Section B, Task List Item Number 2, assisting with individualized assessments.
So, what this means is you may be tasked with assisting with the administration of an individualized assessment. That assessment can be administered in whatever setting.
Now, some examples of different assessments that can be administered: you have the PEAK assessment, you have the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills, you have the Assessment of Functional Living Skills, the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Programs, that’s the VB-MAPP, you have the Essentials for Living assessment, you have the Vineland, you, so on. You have so many different assessments, but those are just a few examples of the different assessments that can be administered to one of our clients.
So, to kick things off, one of the responsibilities that can be assigned to you is to probe certain things or tests. We call it probing in ABA, but what it means is to test different skills that the client may have before the BCBA comes in to start administering the assessment. So, they may ask you to see if the client knows their colors, see if they know their numbers, see if they can respond to their name, see if they can follow an item as you go from left to right, so on, see if they can match. They may ask you to test or probe. They may ask you to probe those things before they come in to start administering the entire assessment.
You can be asked to create or present certain materials during the assessment. You can be asked to set up the entire testing environment. So, that can mean you literally put certain items in place, put certain preferred items in place, looking for the client to request those things when they see them. Uh, it could be you literally sterilizing the environment, or you can be enhancing the environment. But your BCBA should be the person giving you all of the details on how they want you to set up the environment, or what materials they want you to create, and how they want you to present them when the time comes.
#3 Assist with functional assessment procedures (B3)
We are currently in Section B and we are going to be talking about Task List Item Number Three, assisting with functional assessment procedures. So, in this section, we will discuss what a functional assessment is, why we do functional assessments, how we conduct functional assessments, and what your role is as an RBT during a functional assessment.
So, what is a functional assessment or functional behavioral assessment, FBA? So, an FBA hypothesizes about the relationship between the behaviors and the environmental events. What this means is we use an FBA to help develop what we think can be the function, or the reason, why a particular behavior is occurring. In the field of applied behavior analysis, we identify specific functions of behaviors.
So, you have behaviors that occur where the individual is seeking social positive reinforcement as a consequence for their behavior, which, in other words, means they’re seeking attention. So, what that means is a behavior can have an attention function. So, when they engage in that behavior, um, the consequence they’re looking for is some form of attention. You have individuals, they may engage in behaviors in order to receive some type of tangible reinforcement. That may look like, um, a specific item or a specific activity. So, what that means is they’re looking to gain access to something. So, when they engage in that behavior, we can hypothesize that the function of that behavior is access, they want access to some type of tangible.
Individuals may engage in behaviors that result in social negative reinforcement as well, where they’re looking to escape or avoid something aversive. So, the behavior, so we can hypothesize that that behavior would have an escape function. And the last one that we’ll discuss is where an individual engages in the behavior and not really looking for any type of social reinforcement, they’re looking for some form of sensory stimulation, where that sensory stimulation is more reinforcing than any type of social reinforcement. And so, what we will hypothesize is that, that particular behavior will have an automatic function.
So, there’s three different ways to conduct an FBA. You can do a functional analysis, you can do a descriptive assessment, or you can do an indirect assessment. Your supervising BCBA will be the one to make that decision, and they will let you know how you are going to go about conducting the functional behavior assessment.