Positive Reinforcement
What is Positive Reinforcement?
We have provided three definitions of positive reinforcement from three different applied behavior analysis textbooks.
In order to make the use of positive reinforcement a little more clear please click on the video below:
Although, this video is very funny, it does a pretty good job of unpacking positive reinforcement a little bit. This clip does have some flaws in the way they have portrayed positive reinforcement but we hope that you will take away that positive reinforcement involves immediately providing a preferred item (reinforcer) for the emission of the desired behavior.
We have provided three definitions of positive reinforcement from three different applied behavior analysis textbooks.
- Occurs when a behavior is followed immediately by the presentation of a stimulus that increases the future frequency of the behavior in similar conditions (Cooper, Heron, and Heward, 2007).
- Positive reinforcement is a contingency that involves the presentation of an event or stimulus following an operant that increases the rate of responding. (Pierce and Chaney, 2008).
- A class of procedures involving the occurrence of stimulus immediately following responding that results in an increase in some aspect of the response class over baseline levels (Johnston and Pennypacker, 2009).
In order to make the use of positive reinforcement a little more clear please click on the video below:
Although, this video is very funny, it does a pretty good job of unpacking positive reinforcement a little bit. This clip does have some flaws in the way they have portrayed positive reinforcement but we hope that you will take away that positive reinforcement involves immediately providing a preferred item (reinforcer) for the emission of the desired behavior.
Reinforcement Effectiveness:
Common question is how to make positive reinforcement effective. It may seem like there are massive amounts of things to take into consideration when making positive reinforcement effective. The following acronym will help ensure that each variable is taken into consideration during implementation of a positive reinforcement procedure.
DISC:
Deprivation: a wide variety of reinforcers are used to avoid satiation to one or a group of reinforcer.
Immediacy: the reinforcer is delivered immediately following a desired response. However, a bridging stimulus can be used to allow for a longer delay before delivery of a reinforcer by marking what behavior is being reinforced. An example of a bridging stimulus would be
Size: High - quality or highly preferred reinforcers are used especially for behaviors that require more effort from the child.
Contingency: The reinforcers are delivered if and only if the target behavior occurs. This is extremely important because we do not want to accidentally reinforcer behaviors other than the target behavior by providing the child with access to reinforcer regardless of whether the target behavior occurred or not.
Here are some more things to keep in mind when thinking about reinforcement effectiveness:
Common Types of Reinforcers:
Here is a list of some of the common types of reinforcers that are used:
It is important to remember that this list includes only some types of reinforcers that are used with children with autism. There are infinite amounts of items that can serve as reinforcers and each child will have different items that be reinforcing for them.
Preference Assessments:
At this point you all are probably wondering how to determine what serves as a reinforcer for a child. In order to figure out what functions as a reinforcer for a child, a preference assessment must be carried out. Before we get into how to perform a preference assessment we will discuss some points about preference in general. The first point is that just because a stimulus is preferred does not mean it is reinforcing for the child. This may seem counter intuitive, but this could be because the child has been satiated with the item or that other items prove to have larger reinforcing effects. Second, preference changes overtime for everyone not just children with autism. Preference assessments should be performed regularly to determine if the child's preference has changed. Lastly, stimuli may not serve as reinforcers for all learners. Stimuli such as candy, stickers, and toys may not serve as reinforcers for some children. Other things such as field trips, praise, hugs, and/or attention can serve as the most reinforcing items for certain children.
Preference assessment procedures determine the stimuli a person prefers and a relative preference value (i.e., high preference items versus low preference items).
We will now go into talking about three different ways to perform a preference assessment.
The same stimulus is presented several times and the reaction is noted each time.
Paired Stimuli "Forced Choice": Two stimuli are presented simultaneously (at the same time) and the
individual chooses one of the two stimuli. This procedure is repeated several times, putting a given
stimulus into a pairing, and recording the frequency with which an individual chooses the given stimuli.
We have provided a video of Paired Stimuli "Forced Choice" below in order to make this preference
assessment procedure more clear. http://vimeo.com/15024987 (Please right click and select 'play URL' in
order to view the video).
Multiple Stimuli: Three or more stimuli are presented simultaneously (at the same time) and the individual
chooses an item. The frequency with which the individual chooses a given stimulus is recorded and the
procedure is repeated again. In this case the stimuli can be placed into novel groups or the same stimuli
groups are presented.
Control Procedures for Positive Reinforcers:
These procedures are used to determine if the contingency that has been put into place is in fact a positive reinforcement contingency.
schedule independent of the subject's behavior. In other words, the client comes into contact with the
reinforcing stimulus regardless of whether or not the target behavior occurs.
Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO): This procedure is often used to decrease the
occurrence of problem behavior. In this procedure, reinforcement is contingent (dependent) on the
absence of problem behavior during or at specific times, for example, momentary DRO's.
Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DRA): This procedure, like the DRO procedure, is used
to decrease problem behavior. A DRA procedure is different from the DRO procedure in that reinforcement
is delivered for a behavior that serves as a desired alternative (or replacement) to the behavior targeted
for reduction and reinforcement is withheld following instances of the problem behavior. For example,
reinforcing a child for completely a worksheet when the behavior targeted for reduction is talking out while
working.
***Here we have highlighted only a few of the differential reinforcement procedures. For more information, please click on the following link for a review of reinforcement control procedures:
http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/articles/2005/jaba-38-02-0257.pdf
Final Note:
Positive reinforcement is not only a component of the principle of reinforcement but it is also used as a technique to produce positive behavior changes in individuals with or without developmental delays.
Common question is how to make positive reinforcement effective. It may seem like there are massive amounts of things to take into consideration when making positive reinforcement effective. The following acronym will help ensure that each variable is taken into consideration during implementation of a positive reinforcement procedure.
DISC:
Deprivation: a wide variety of reinforcers are used to avoid satiation to one or a group of reinforcer.
Immediacy: the reinforcer is delivered immediately following a desired response. However, a bridging stimulus can be used to allow for a longer delay before delivery of a reinforcer by marking what behavior is being reinforced. An example of a bridging stimulus would be
Size: High - quality or highly preferred reinforcers are used especially for behaviors that require more effort from the child.
Contingency: The reinforcers are delivered if and only if the target behavior occurs. This is extremely important because we do not want to accidentally reinforcer behaviors other than the target behavior by providing the child with access to reinforcer regardless of whether the target behavior occurred or not.
Here are some more things to keep in mind when thinking about reinforcement effectiveness:
- When appropriate, increase the delay between the occurrence of the behavior and delivery of the reinforcer. A couple of common tricks are to reinforce each instance of the target behavior during acquisition of the behavior of interest. Once the behavior of interest has been learned, switch to a schedule of intermittent reinforcement in which each and every instance of the target response is NOT reinforced.
- Shift to naturally occurring reinforcers as the target response is being learned. So, when the target response is first being learned reinforcers such as tokens or candy may be used to reinforce the occurrence of the target behavior and once the target behavior has been learned switch to naturally occurring reinforcers, like praise, to maintain acquisition of the target behavior.
Common Types of Reinforcers:
Here is a list of some of the common types of reinforcers that are used:
- Edibles: Candy, chips, soda, etc.
- Sensory: Tactile stimulation (i.e., tickles), lights, music, etc.
- Tangible: Stickers, trading cards, etc.
- Activity: Board games, field trips, walks, playing various sports, etc
- Social: Praise, hugs, attention, etc.
It is important to remember that this list includes only some types of reinforcers that are used with children with autism. There are infinite amounts of items that can serve as reinforcers and each child will have different items that be reinforcing for them.
Preference Assessments:
At this point you all are probably wondering how to determine what serves as a reinforcer for a child. In order to figure out what functions as a reinforcer for a child, a preference assessment must be carried out. Before we get into how to perform a preference assessment we will discuss some points about preference in general. The first point is that just because a stimulus is preferred does not mean it is reinforcing for the child. This may seem counter intuitive, but this could be because the child has been satiated with the item or that other items prove to have larger reinforcing effects. Second, preference changes overtime for everyone not just children with autism. Preference assessments should be performed regularly to determine if the child's preference has changed. Lastly, stimuli may not serve as reinforcers for all learners. Stimuli such as candy, stickers, and toys may not serve as reinforcers for some children. Other things such as field trips, praise, hugs, and/or attention can serve as the most reinforcing items for certain children.
Preference assessment procedures determine the stimuli a person prefers and a relative preference value (i.e., high preference items versus low preference items).
We will now go into talking about three different ways to perform a preference assessment.
- The first of the three methods is to simply ask the child, their parents/caregivers, and/or offer a pre-task choice. Ask open ended questions that offer choice and allow the individual to rank various items. A pre-task choice would be to ask the child what they would like to work for before beginning a task.
- Free Operant Observation: Contrived free operant observations determine whether, when, how, and the extent in which a person engages in predetermined activities and materials. Naturalistic free operant observations are conducted in the learner's everyday environment and the observer takes notes without intruding in the individual's natural routine.
- Trial Based: There are three different ways in which to conduct a trial-based preference assessment:
The same stimulus is presented several times and the reaction is noted each time.
Paired Stimuli "Forced Choice": Two stimuli are presented simultaneously (at the same time) and the
individual chooses one of the two stimuli. This procedure is repeated several times, putting a given
stimulus into a pairing, and recording the frequency with which an individual chooses the given stimuli.
We have provided a video of Paired Stimuli "Forced Choice" below in order to make this preference
assessment procedure more clear. http://vimeo.com/15024987 (Please right click and select 'play URL' in
order to view the video).
Multiple Stimuli: Three or more stimuli are presented simultaneously (at the same time) and the individual
chooses an item. The frequency with which the individual chooses a given stimulus is recorded and the
procedure is repeated again. In this case the stimuli can be placed into novel groups or the same stimuli
groups are presented.
Control Procedures for Positive Reinforcers:
These procedures are used to determine if the contingency that has been put into place is in fact a positive reinforcement contingency.
- Reversal Designs: This procedure implements an intervention following a baseline measurement. After a predetermined amount of time the intervention is removed to see if behavior levels return to the levels that were observed during baseline. There are some ethical issues with the use of reversal designs with human subjects. One of these concerns is the observation of extinction of the desired behavior during the reversal portion of the intervention. It is not in the best interest of the client to produce a desired behavior change and then remove the contingencies that were put into place to bring about the desired change.
- Various Schedules of Reinforcement:
schedule independent of the subject's behavior. In other words, the client comes into contact with the
reinforcing stimulus regardless of whether or not the target behavior occurs.
Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO): This procedure is often used to decrease the
occurrence of problem behavior. In this procedure, reinforcement is contingent (dependent) on the
absence of problem behavior during or at specific times, for example, momentary DRO's.
Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DRA): This procedure, like the DRO procedure, is used
to decrease problem behavior. A DRA procedure is different from the DRO procedure in that reinforcement
is delivered for a behavior that serves as a desired alternative (or replacement) to the behavior targeted
for reduction and reinforcement is withheld following instances of the problem behavior. For example,
reinforcing a child for completely a worksheet when the behavior targeted for reduction is talking out while
working.
***Here we have highlighted only a few of the differential reinforcement procedures. For more information, please click on the following link for a review of reinforcement control procedures:
http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/articles/2005/jaba-38-02-0257.pdf
Final Note:
Positive reinforcement is not only a component of the principle of reinforcement but it is also used as a technique to produce positive behavior changes in individuals with or without developmental delays.