Introduction
The AABP provides this Core Areas of Competence document as a means of approving education providers and certifying bodies, allowing candidates for professional membership to demonstrate competence in the technology of behavior.
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This document may be used by education providers or certifying bodies as a means of determining or reviewing current certification standards or curriculum development.
Professional Dog Trainer (PDT) Core Areas of Competency
1. Coaching / Instructing and Professional Relationship / Case Management
1.1. Interpersonal communication skills
1.1.1. Communication skills (for example, but not specifically, paraphrasing, appropriate use of open and closed questioning, verbal tracking, mirroring, summarizing, empathizing, nonverbal prompting / minimal encouragers) that promote effective exchange of relevant and on-topic goal-directed information.
1.1.2. Working cooperatively with clients to determine realistic and quantifiable goals/objectives, finding scientifically supported minimally intrusive effective solutions that may include behavior change procedures (i.e., training), including appropriate antecedent control procedures (aka. management of the environment that sets the occasion for the behavior) that will help meet the behavioral objectives, and flexibly instructing clients through the training process.
1.2. Organizational skills, including maintaining appropriate records of, policies and procedures (e.g., scheduling, service contracting, liability waivers, confidentiality waivers, billing, informed consent forms), communicating these matters effectively to clients, and doing so securely with regards to confidentiality.
1.3. Liability issues, including liability exposures of the client and of the professional, as well as means by which they are limited and understood by each party, including through liability clauses in service contracts and informed consent discussions.
1.4. Working with veterinarians, including the referral relationship, appreciating medical issues and the role of the trainer/behavior consultant and the veterinarian in this cooperative allied professional relationship.
2. Principles of Learning and Behavior
2.1. Constructional versus eliminative strategy, including the preference to increase the learner's repertoire of behaviors rather than merely reducing it.
2.2. Operant conditioning
2.2.1. Law of Effect and the 3-Term contingency (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence) and relationship between the environment (A and C) and behavior (B)
2.2.2. Four quadrants: Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment
2.2.3. Operant extinction and relevant effects such as the extinction burst and spontaneous recovery
2.2.4. Conditioned and unconditioned reinforcers, including the benefits and limitations of each
2.2.5. Antecedents including setting events, motivating (or establishing) operations and discriminative stimuli
2.2.6. Variables influencing the effectiveness of reinforcement, including: Contingency; Contiguity; Reinforcer magnitude; Naturalness/preparedness of behavior-reinforcer relationship; Motivating operations; Previous learning history
2.2.7. Variables influencing the effectiveness of punishment, including: Contingency; Contiguity; Punisher intensity; Introductory intensity of punisher; Managing reinforcement; Motivating operations
2.2.8. Simple schedules of reinforcement, their effects on behavior and how to choose among them in different circumstances, including: Continuous reinforcement; Variable and fixed ratio; Variable and fixed interval; Variable and fixed duration; Limited hold; Differential reinforcement of high rates of responding; Differential reinforcement of low rates of responding
2.3. Respondent conditioning
2.3.1. Respondent conditioning procedures and their influence on behavior, including: Trace conditioning; Delayed conditioning
2.3.2. Variables influencing respondent conditioning, including: CS-US contingency; CS-US contiguity; Stimulus features; Prior experience with CS and US; Number of CS-US pairings; Inter-trial interval
2.3.3. Conditioned emotional responses and their role as motivating operations for operants
2.4. Problematic effects of aversive stimulation, including: Problematic respondent associations; apathy/general behavioral suppression; countercontrol; aggression; learned helplessness; degradation of the human animal relationship; stress-induced compulsions and other potential ramifications for using aversive stimulation and that these side effects are possible / likely even if all requirements are met for effective punishment
3. Training Technology
3.1. Training with prompts (e.g., physical / tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory) and why and how to fade prompts and transfer stimulus control to discriminative stimuli, versus training by capturing operants rather than prompting.
3.2. Appropriate choice of reinforcers in a given situation and control of antecedent conditions, including setting events that are conducive to effective training toward specific objectives, and motivating operations to increase the effectiveness of reinforcers, and where appropriate decrease the effectiveness of reinforcers for alternative behaviors.
3.3. Shaping (i.e., differential reinforcement of successive approximations of target behaviors) with and without prompts, determine / plan approximations, criteria for moving to the next approximation, how to handle declining progress and/or frustration (including how to choose when to prompt and not to prompt), and how to transfer stimulus control to a discriminative stimulus and train toward maintenance.
3.4. Training complex behaviors via backward chaining, forward chaining and total task chaining, including how to choose among the chaining procedures, how to carry out a task analysis, how to train individual behaviors (e.g., with and without prompts), how to connect individual component behaviors and train toward maintenance. How to distinguish between chaining as conventionally defined and chaining-like processes such as sequencing, which involves interjected cues to form a series of behaviors or series of chains.
3.5. Criteria for deciding when shaping or chaining are most appropriate to the training objectives.
3.6. Schedules of reinforcement and appropriate choice for acquisition and into maintenance, including continuous reinforcement and the intermittent schedules of fixed and variable ratio, interval, duration, and differential reinforcement of high rate of responding and low rate of responding, and limited hold, and how to thin schedules flexibly as appropriate.
3.7. Programming for generalization, including natural versus contrived reinforcer use, reinforcing instances of generalization and training in various environments.
3.8. Discrimination training, including establishing stimulus control to a specific discriminative stimulus by providing S- and SD trials in various environments, and including error-allowed and errorless discrimination training.
3.9. Common Tools / Equipment (species specific)
3.9.1. Tools and their proper and improper use (e.g., clickers, head halters, harnesses, collars, leashes for dog training) including the principles of learning by which they operate, and alternative conditioned reinforcer options.
3.9.1. Aversive stimulation based tools (e.g., choke chains, prong collars, shock collars) including the principles of learning by which they operate and the detrimental effects associated with utilizing them (not including actual use if these tools in accordance with the AABP professional Practice Guidelines).
4. Professional Ethics
4.1. The role of professional associations and certifying bodies and relevant codes of ethics or professional practice guidelines addressing topics such as: Professionalism; Competence; Confidentiality and its exceptions; Boundary issues with allied professions; Informed consent; Marketing and advertising.
4.2. Ethical decision making / Working through moral dilemmas.
4.3. Principle of least intrusive effective intervention, including: Foundational ethical principle of respect for the liberty of sentient beings and our obligation to use the least intrusive method possible; Process of working through a sequential hierarchy of intrusiveness and the criteria to be met at each level before moving to a more intrusive level; Levels of intrusiveness in terms of corresponding procedures and strategies.
5. Biological Context for Behavior (aka Species Typical Behavior) (Dog)
5.1. Life cycle, development and sensitive periods.
5.2. Interpreting vocal and postural behavior (e.g., social distance increasing versus decreasing).
5.3. Common problem behaviors including understanding of their common topologies, antecedent conditions and maintaining consequences, including: Jumping up; Barking; Aggressive behaviors; Separation distress; Compulsions; Coprophagia.
Professional Dog, Cat or Parrot Behavior Consultant (PDBC, PCBC, PPBC) Core Areas of Competency
1. Coaching / Instructing and Professional Relationship / Case Management
1.1. Interpersonal communication skills
1.1.1. Communication skills (for example, but not specifically, paraphrasing, appropriate use of open and closed questioning, verbal tracking, mirroring, summarizing, empathizing, nonverbal prompting / minimal encouragers) that promote effective exchange of relevant and on-topic goal-directed information.
1.1.2. Working cooperatively with clients to determine realistic and quantifiable goals/objectives, finding scientifically supported minimally intrusive effective solutions that may include behavior change procedures (i.e., training), including appropriate antecedent control procedures (aka. management of the environment that sets the occasion for the behavior) that will help meet the behavioral objectives, and flexibly instructing clients through the training process.
1.2. Organizational skills, including maintaining appropriate records of, policies and procedures (e.g., scheduling, service contracting, liability waivers, confidentiality waivers, billing, informed consent forms), communicating these matters effectively to clients, and doing so securely with regards to confidentiality.
1.3. Liability issues, including liability exposures of the client and of the professional, as well as means by which they are limited and understood by each party, including through liability clauses in service contracts and informed consent discussions.
1.4. Working with veterinarians, including the referral relationship, appreciating medical issues and the role of the trainer/behavior consultant and the veterinarian in this cooperative allied professional relationship.
2. Principles of Learning and Behavior
2.1. Constructional versus eliminative strategy, including the preference to increase the learner's repertoire of behaviors rather than merely reducing it.
2.2. Operant conditioning
2.2.1. Law of Effect and the 3-Term contingency (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence) and relationship between the environment (A and C) and behavior (B)
2.2.2. Four quadrants: Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment
2.2.3. Operant extinction and relevant effects such as the extinction burst and spontaneous recovery
2.2.4. Conditioned and unconditioned reinforcers, including the benefits and limitations of each
2.2.5. Antecedents including setting events, motivating (or establishing) operations and discriminative stimuli
2.2.6. Variables influencing the effectiveness of reinforcement, including: Contingency; Contiguity; Reinforcer magnitude; Naturalness/preparedness of behavior-reinforcer relationship; Motivating operations; Previous learning history
2.2.7. Variables influencing the effectiveness of punishment, including: Contingency; Contiguity; Punisher intensity; Introductory intensity of punisher; Managing reinforcement; Motivating operations
2.2.8. Simple schedules of reinforcement, their effects on behavior and how to choose among them in different circumstances, including: Continuous reinforcement; Variable and fixed ratio; Variable and fixed interval; Variable and fixed duration; Limited hold; Differential reinforcement of high rates of responding; Differential reinforcement of low rates of responding
2.3. Respondent conditioning
2.3.1. Respondent conditioning procedures and their influence on behavior, including: Trace conditioning; Delayed conditioning; Simultaneous conditioning; Backward conditioning
2.3.2. Variables influencing respondent conditioning, including: CS-US contingency; CS-US contiguity; Stimulus features; Prior experience with CS and US; Number of CS-US pairings; Inter-trial interval
2.3.3. Conditioned emotional responses and their role as motivating operations for operants
2.4. Problematic effects of aversive stimulation, including: Problematic respondent associations; apathy/general behavioral suppression; countercontrol; aggression; learned helplessness; degradation of the human animal relationship; stress-induced compulsions and other potential ramifications for using aversive stimulation and that these side effects are possible / likely even if all requirements are met for effective punishment
3. Training Technology
3.1. Training with prompts (e.g., physical / tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory) and why and how to fade prompts and transfer stimulus control to discriminative stimuli, versus training by capturing behaviors rather than prompting.
3.2. Shaping (i.e., differential reinforcement of successive approximations of target behaviors) with and without prompts, determine / plan approximations, criteria for moving to the next approximation, how to handle declining progress and/or frustration (including how to choose when to prompt and not to prompt), and how to transfer stimulus control to a discriminative stimulus and train toward maintenance.
3.3. Training complex behaviors via backward chaining, forward chaining and total task chaining, including how to choose among the chaining procedures, how to carry out a task analysis, how to train individual behaviors (e.g., with and without prompts), how to connect individual component behaviors and train toward maintenance. How to distinguish between chaining as conventionally defined and chaining-like processes such as sequencing, which involves interjected cues to form a series of behaviors or series of chains.
3.4. Criteria for deciding when shaping or chaining are most appropriate to the training objectives.
3.5. Schedules of reinforcement and appropriate choice for acquisition and into maintenance, including continuous reinforcement and the intermittent schedules of fixed and variable ratio, interval, duration, and differential reinforcement of high rate of responding and low rate of responding, and limited hold, and how to thin schedules flexibly as appropriate.
3.6. Programming for generalization, including natural versus contrived reinforcer use, reinforcing instances of generalization and training in various environments.
3.7. Discrimination training, including establishing stimulus control to a specific discriminative stimulus by providing S- and SD trials in various environments, and including error-allowed and errorless discrimination training.
3.8. Common Tools / Equipment (species specific)
3.8.1. Tools and their proper and improper use (e.g., clickers, head halters, harnesses, collars, leashes for dog training) including the principles of learning by which they operate, and alternative conditioned reinforcer options.
3.8.1. Aversive stimulation based tools (e.g., choke chains, prong collars, shock collars) including the principles of learning by which they operate and the detrimental effects associated with utilizing them (not including actual use if these tools in accordance with the AABP professional Practice Guidelines).
4. Functional Assessment
4.1. 3-Term Contingency and relationship between environment and behavior: Antecedents, behavior, consequences
4.2. Function assessment, including: Interviewing; Direct observation and objective measurement; Functional analysis (experimental testing of contingency statement)
4.3. Preparing a contingency statement, meaning: Description of specific problem behavior and its controlling antecedents and maintaining consequences in a simple statement (not a generalized label or “diagnosis” but specific concise statement of the hypothesized behavior-environment relationship)
4.4. Testing hypothesized contingency statement with the behavior change program and adjusting where necessary, including: Measuring and tracking level of trend of behavior; Confirming accuracy of contingency statement and proceeding or refuting it and adjusting the statement and behavior change program
5. Behavior Change Procedures and Programming
5.1. Constructional versus eliminative strategy
5.2. Constructing behavior change program based on contingency statement, which addresses specific antecedents controlling behavior and consequences maintaining behavior (i.e., changing environment to change behavior, changing A and C to change B)
5.4. Systematic desensitization of conditioned emotional responses, including: Relaxation; Hierarchy of intensity; Graded exposure.
5.5. Differential positive reinforcement procedures, including: Differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors; Differential reinforcement of other behaviors; Differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors, and in all cases, minimizing extinction trials with errorless methods
5.6. Combining operant and respondent procedures to change emotionally motivated operants
5.7. Mechanisms and principles underlying more intrusive procedures such as flooding, negative reinforcement and positive punishment
5.8. Antecedent control strategies, including environmental management to make problem behavior less likely either by avoiding discriminative stimuli, changing motivating operations (including emotional responses) or setting events
5.9. Strategy to make problem behavior irrelevant, ineffective and inefficient and make an alternative behavior more relevant, effective and efficient
6. Professional Ethics
6.1. The role of professional associations and certifying bodies and relevant codes of ethics or professional practice guidelines addressing topics such as: Professionalism; Competence; Confidentiality and its exceptions; Boundary issues with allied professions; Informed consent; Marketing and advertising.
6.2. Ethical decision making / Working through moral dilemmas.
6.3. Principle of least intrusive effective intervention, including: Foundational ethical principle of respect for the liberty of sentient beings and our obligation to use the least intrusive method possible; Process of working through a sequential hierarchy of intrusiveness and the criteria to be met at each level before moving to a more intrusive level; Levels of intrusiveness in terms of corresponding procedures and strategies.
7. Biological Context for Behavior (aka Species Typical Behavior)
7.1. Life cycle, development and sensitive periods.
7.2. Interpreting vocal and postural behaviors (e.g., social distance increasing versus decreasing).
7.3. Common problem behaviors including their common topologies, antecedent conditions and maintaining consequences.
7.3.1. Dog: Aggressive behaviors; Separation distress behaviors; Barking; Compulsions
7.3.2. Parrot: Feather destructive or other self-injurious behaviors; Undesirable vocalization; Aggressive behaviors
7.3.3. Cat: Undesirable elimination/marking behaviors; Aggressive behaviors; Undesirable scratching behavior
Professional Animal Behavior Consultant (PABC) Core Areas of Competency
1. Coaching / Instructing and Professional Relationship / Case Management
1.1. Interpersonal communication skills
1.1.1. Communication skills (for example, but not specifically, paraphrasing, appropriate use of open and closed questioning, verbal tracking, mirroring, summarizing, empathizing, nonverbal prompting / minimal encouragers) that promote effective exchange of relevant and on-topic goal-directed information.
1.1.2. Working cooperatively with clients to determine realistic and quantifiable goals/objectives, finding scientifically supported minimally intrusive effective solutions that may include behavior change procedures (i.e., training), including appropriate antecedent control procedures (aka. management of the environment that sets the occasion for the behavior) that will help meet the behavioral objectives, and flexibly instructing clients through the training process.
1.2. Organizational skills, including maintaining appropriate records of, policies and procedures (e.g., scheduling, service contracting, liability waivers, confidentiality waivers, billing, informed consent forms), communicating these matters effectively to clients, and doing so securely with regards to confidentiality.
1.3. Liability issues, including liability exposures of the client and of the professional, as well as means by which they are limited and understood by each party, including through liability clauses in service contracts and informed consent discussions.
1.4. Working with veterinarians, including the referral relationship, appreciating medical issues and the role of the trainer/behavior consultant and the veterinarian in this cooperative allied professional relationship.
2. Principles of Learning and Behavior
2.1. Constructional versus eliminative strategy, including the preference to increase the learner's repertoire of behaviors rather than merely reducing it.
2.2. Operant conditioning
2.2.1. Law of Effect and the 3-Term contingency (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence) and relationship between the environment (A and C) and behavior (B)
2.2.2. Four quadrants: Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment
2.2.3. Operant extinction and relevant effects such as the extinction burst and spontaneous recovery
2.2.4. Conditioned and unconditioned reinforcers, including the benefits and limitations of each
2.2.5. Antecedents including setting events, motivating (or establishing) operations and discriminative stimuli
2.2.6. Variables influencing the effectiveness of reinforcement, including: Contingency; Contiguity; Reinforcer magnitude; Naturalness/preparedness of behavior-reinforcer relationship; Motivating operations; Previous learning history
2.2.7. Variables influencing the effectiveness of punishment, including: Contingency; Contiguity; Punisher intensity; Introductory intensity of punisher; Managing reinforcement; Motivating operations
2.2.8. Simple schedules of reinforcement, their effects on behavior and how to choose among them in different circumstances, including: Continuous reinforcement; Variable and fixed ratio; Variable and fixed interval; Variable and fixed duration; Limited hold; Differential reinforcement of high rates of responding; Differential reinforcement of low rates of responding
2.3. Respondent conditioning
2.3.1. Respondent conditioning procedures and their influence on behavior, including: Trace conditioning; Delayed conditioning; Simultaneous conditioning; Backward conditioning
2.3.2. Variables influencing respondent conditioning, including: CS-US contingency; CS-US contiguity; Stimulus features; Prior experience with CS and US; Number of CS-US pairings; Inter-trial interval
2.3.3. Conditioned emotional responses and their role as motivating operations for operants
2.4. Problematic effects of aversive stimulation, including: Problematic respondent associations; apathy/general behavioral suppression; countercontrol; aggression; learned helplessness; degradation of the human animal relationship; stress-induced compulsions and other potential ramifications for using aversive stimulation and that these side effects are possible / likely even if all requirements are met for effective punishment
3. Training Technology
3.1. Training with prompts (e.g., physical / tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory) and why and how to fade prompts and transfer stimulus control to discriminative stimuli, versus training by capturing behaviors rather than prompting.
3.2. Shaping (i.e., differential reinforcement of successive approximations of target behaviors) with and without prompts, determine / plan approximations, criteria for moving to the next approximation, how to handle declining progress and/or frustration (including how to choose when to prompt and not to prompt), and how to transfer stimulus control to a discriminative stimulus and train toward maintenance.
3.3. Training complex behaviors via backward chaining, forward chaining and total task chaining, including how to choose among the chaining procedures, how to carry out a task analysis, how to train individual behaviors (e.g., with and without prompts), how to connect individual component behaviors and train toward maintenance. How to distinguish between chaining as conventionally defined and chaining-like processes such as sequencing, which involves interjected cues to form a series of behaviors or series of chains.
3.4. Criteria for deciding when shaping or chaining are most appropriate to the training objectives.
3.5. Schedules of reinforcement and appropriate choice for acquisition and into maintenance, including continuous reinforcement and the intermittent schedules of fixed and variable ratio, interval, duration, and differential reinforcement of high rate of responding and low rate of responding, and limited hold, and how to thin schedules flexibly as appropriate.
3.6. Programming for generalization, including natural versus contrived reinforcer use, reinforcing instances of generalization and training in various environments.
3.7. Discrimination training, including establishing stimulus control to a specific discriminative stimulus by providing S- and SD trials in various environments, and including error-allowed and errorless discrimination training.
3.8. Common Tools / Equipment (species specific)
3.8.1. Tools and their proper and improper use (e.g., clickers, head halters, harnesses, collars, leashes for dog training) including the principles of learning by which they operate, and alternative conditioned reinforcer options.
3.8.1. Aversive stimulation based tools (e.g., choke chains, prong collars, shock collars) including the principles of learning by which they operate and the detrimental effects associated with utilizing them (not including actual use if these tools in accordance with the AABP professional Practice Guidelines).
4. Functional Assessment
4.1. 3-Term Contingency and relationship between environment and behavior: Antecedents, behavior, consequences
4.2. Function assessment, including: Interviewing; Direct observation and objective measurement; Functional analysis (experimental testing of contingency statement)
4.3. Preparing a contingency statement, meaning: Description of specific problem behavior and its controlling antecedents and maintaining consequences in a simple statement (not a generalized label or “diagnosis” but specific concise statement of the hypothesized behavior-environment relationship)
4.4. Testing hypothesized contingency statement with the behavior change program and adjusting where necessary, including: Measuring and tracking level of trend of behavior; Confirming accuracy of contingency statement and proceeding or refuting it and adjusting the statement and behavior change program
5. Behavior Change Procedures and Programming
5.1. Constructional versus eliminative strategy
5.2. Constructing behavior change program based on contingency statement, which addresses specific antecedents controlling behavior and consequences maintaining behavior (i.e., changing environment to change behavior, changing A and C to change B)
5.4. Systematic desensitization of conditioned emotional responses, including: Relaxation; Hierarchy of intensity; Graded exposure.
5.5. Differential positive reinforcement procedures, including: Differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors; Differential reinforcement of other behaviors; Differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors, and in all cases, minimizing extinction trials with errorless methods
5.6. Combining operant and respondent procedures to change emotionally motivated operants
5.7. Mechanisms and principles underlying more intrusive procedures such as flooding, negative reinforcement and positive punishment
5.8. Antecedent control strategies, including environmental management to make problem behavior less likely either by avoiding discriminative stimuli, changing motivating operations (including emotional responses) or setting events
5.9. Strategy to make problem behavior irrelevant, ineffective and inefficient and make an alternative behavior more relevant, effective and efficient
6. Professional Ethics
6.1. The role of professional associations and certifying bodies and relevant codes of ethics or professional practice guidelines addressing topics such as: Professionalism; Competence; Confidentiality and its exceptions; Boundary issues with allied professions; Informed consent; Marketing and advertising.
6.2. Ethical decision making / Working through moral dilemmas.
6.3. Principle of least intrusive effective intervention, including: Foundational ethical principle of respect for the liberty of sentient beings and our obligation to use the least intrusive method possible; Process of working through a sequential hierarchy of intrusiveness and the criteria to be met at each level before moving to a more intrusive level; Levels of intrusiveness in terms of corresponding procedures and strategies.
7. Biological Context for Behavior (aka Species Typical Behavior)
7.1. Species-typical biological context, modal actions patterns, general behavior traits for nonhuman animal species for which the technologist plans to work including life-cycle development, sensitive periods, common problem behaviors including understanding of their common topologies, antecedent conditions and maintaining consequences, indications of stress/distress, interpreting vocal and postural behaviors (e.g., social distance increasing versus decreasing).