Summary: Antecedent interventions are the moves you make before a behavior happens to make the challenging behavior less likely and the right behavior easier. They work by changing the environment, the task, the motivation, or the instructions. Get good at these and you'll spend a lot less time reacting to meltdowns and a lot more time teaching.
Most of the behavior reduction work that actually sticks happens before anything goes wrong. That's the whole idea here. Instead of waiting for the kid to throw the worksheet and then figuring out how to respond, you set things up so the throwing never becomes the path of least resistance.
Think of it this way. Every behavior sits in the middle of a three-term contingency: antecedent, behavior, consequence. Consequence strategies (like extinction or differential reinforcement) work on the back end, after the behavior. Antecedent interventions work on the front end. You're not the cleanup crew. You're the one who moves the trip hazard out of the hallway before anyone walks through.
As an RBT you won't design these plans, but you'll run them every single day, and the exam expects you to know what each one is and when it fits.
What an antecedent actually is
An antecedent is anything that happens right before a behavior and changes how likely that behavior is. The instruction your supervisor wrote on the program sheet. The fire drill alarm. The fact that the kid skipped breakfast. All antecedents, even though they look nothing alike.
That's the free preview of Antecedent Interventions. The complete guide, plus all 851 practice questions and 3 full exams, is in the study pack and the book.