In Class Activity

April 26, 2001

How would you use behavioral conditioning to solve these problems? Diagram the model, and identify all aspects of your plan (reinforcement schedule, discrimination, chaining, counter-conditioning etc.).

1. A nine-year old girl with autism refuses to walk outside during fire drills. If you can’t get her to walk outside own her own power, she won’t be able to stay in at the residential treatment center. You’ve identified that a mickey mouse doll is a great reinforcer for her. What do you do?

Conditioning that utilizes the mickey mouse doll and shaping is most likely to be effective. Playing with the mickey mouse doll would be dependent upon her behavior (positve reinforcement). First, that behavior might be “standing up” when someone says ‘”fire” or the alarm rings. After this has been learned, then she moves on to walking to the door, then opening the door, then going down the steps, etc.

Punishment is unlikely to be successful because your are trying to increase behavior, not decrease it. Negative reinforcement is unlikely to be successful because of the potential problems it could cause (for example, if she were shocked until she ran outside the building, she might keep on running) and because it could be interpreted by the girl as punishment for some other behavior.

2. A seven-year old boy is having constant behavior problems during class. Periodically, he gets out of his chair, grabs things from other students’ desks, or merely wanders around the room. When his teacher tries to correct his behavior, he refuses to follow her requests and throws such a temper tantrum that he must be removed from the room. During your assessment, you realized that his favorite activity is playing on the class computer. You also notice that he engages in this behavior when the class is given seat work, and before getting out of his chair he stares at his work for a long period of time. The teacher wants to have him removed from her class. What do you do?

Conditioning that uses token reinforcement with the computer game as a reinforcer is most likely to be effective. There are many ways to implement this, but one example would be to give him a minute of computer time every time he is able to stay in his seat for 10 consecutive minutes. As a side not, the material he is working on may be too difficult for him. The teacher could also try talking to him whenever she notices him staring at his paper for an extended period of time.

Many teachers would initially respond to this problem with punishment (if you get up, I’ll write your name on the board or send you to the principal). As these haven’t worked, they are not useful punishers for this child. Negative reinforcement is also probably not appropriate, since you aren’t sure what he would consider an aversive stimulus (and smacking him would not be ethical).