Summary: Chaining is how you teach a skill that has more than one step, like washing hands, getting dressed, or making a snack. You write out the steps (a task analysis), then teach them with forward chaining, backward chaining, or total task. The exam wants you to know which one starts where and why you'd pick each.
Most of the meaningful skills you'll teach are not single responses. Washing hands, tying shoes, packing a backpack, microwaving lunch. They're sequences. A learner who can do every single step in isolation can still fail the whole task because they don't chain the steps together in order. That's the problem chaining solves.
Here's the idea behind it. In a behavior chain, finishing one step is the cue to start the next, and the reinforcement at the very end holds the whole sequence together. You don't praise every step on every trial. You teach the links to connect so that turning off the water naturally cues reaching for the towel. That connection is the actual target.
You'll use chaining for daily living skills, vocational tasks, leisure activities, and plenty of academic routines. Before you can run any of the three procedures, though, you need a task analysis.
Task analysis: the foundation of chaining
A task analysis is the skill broken into its individual steps, written in the order you'd perform them. Nothing fancy. It's a list. But the quality of that list decides whether your teaching works, so it's worth getting right.
That's the free preview of Chaining Procedures. The complete guide, plus all 851 practice questions and 3 full exams, is in the study pack and the book.