Central Reach Institute 40 Hour RBT Training Practice Test

Shaping is about reinforcing successive approximations toward a target behavior. In the two-hour practice example, shortening the device means the learner must perform with less support each time. When the learner meets the increasingly stringent criteria with less assistance, you reinforce that success. Over time, these reinforced steps accumulate into the final, independent behavior. That step-by-step reinforcement of closer and closer versions of the skill is what defines shaping. Generalization would mean the skill appearing in different settings or with different people, maintenance would be about the behavior continuing after reinforcement stops, and modeling would involve showing the behavior for imitation.