Why is Fidelity Important?

[MUSIC PLAYING] If we don't implement a procedure to fidelity, we don't really know if it's responsible for behavior change. So some of your folks today expressed frustration how, they'll go out to a classroom, and then sometimes the teacher won't have data on what they've done before. And if they don't have fidelity data on what they have before, that can be just as challenging. So a teacher may say, well, I implemented a DRA procedure, which is differential reinforcement, alternate behaviors. And so, if you don't know that they did a fidelity, maybe they didn't. Maybe they kind of did a DRA procedure. And there's a big difference between 50% and 100%. So without those fidelity data or without having an individual implement something to fidelity, we have no place to go. We don't know-- or we don't know where we've been. And so that's really important. The other issue is that there are lots of really interesting studies that have looked at-- Peter Sturmey did a study-- looked at levels of problem behaviors, where things fall off. So for instance, discrete trial training. He-- I think it was Dib and Sturmey actually did a study where they looked at stereotypy And so he engaged in stereotypy at higher levels when fidelity was off in discrete trial training. They tightened fidelity back up to where it needed to be, stereotypy Went down.