ABA 101 Part 3

Have you ever come across a situation where a child doesn’t listen to you, no matter what type of punishment or negative consequences you place on them? Or have you ever seen a child start losing interests in earning some of their most favorite activities, toys, or foods? Today we’re going to talk about reinforcements versus punishments and what type of strategy may be the most helpful for your child. Please note that I’m not a child psychologist nor a family therapist. I’m a board certified behavior analyst that is here to talk to you about behaviors and how we can shape and develop desirable behaviors in our children. If you enjoy our podcast, please make sure to follow our podcast channel and follow us on our Facebook page and Instagram @whattheautism. 

In today’s episode, there will be some technical language and vocabulary that is specific to ABA, but be patient with me, as I’ll be breaking down what each of these terms mean and present to you some everyday examples that may be helpful in you understanding a little more about ABA. 

Now let’s start with “what is reinforcement?”

Reinforcement occurs when a behavior INCREASES because of a consequence of either adding or removing something from the environment.  By definition, a reinforcer INCREASES behavior. Remember that consequences is not a negative association like a punishment. We talked about consequences in episode 6 where we described consequences as anything that occurs after a behavior takes place. So for example, let’s say that Jenny is instructed by the teacher to go to her desk to complete her worksheet. Jenny starts crying, whining, and throwing her toys around the classroom. Because the teacher is busy working with the other kids, she puts Jenny on a time-out until the teacher is ready to work with her. Now, based on all the things we talked about in previous episodes, what do you think will happen in the future when the teacher tells Jenny to complete worksheets? Jenny will continue to engage in tantrums and inappropriate behaviors in order to get out of completing her worksheets. So during the next couple days, she continues to exhibit these inappropriate behaviors. This “time out” now functions as a reinforcer in this situation. Why? Because these inappropriate tantrums and whining behaviors have increased.  If you need a couple seconds to digest this concept, I suggest you take a pause here before moving on.

Now digging a little further into reinforcements. There are 2 types of reinforcements: Positive and negative. Don’t let the word negative get you to think that it comes with a bad connotation. It’s simply referring to whether a stimulus has been presented or removed. 

1) Positive Reinforcement: A behavior occurs. A stimulus such as a person, an object, etc is presented immediately following the behavior. The probability of that behavior occurring again in the future increases. 

Examples: 

• Bob finishes his math homework and afterwards he gets a piece of gum. A piece of gum is the stimulus that is presented. And because Bob is motivated by gum, the probability of him completing his math homework to get more gum increases.
• George sits appropriately in circle time and exhibits listening skills by answering questions about the story. This earns him 10 minutes of his favorite activity: blowing bubbles. The activity of blowing bubbles is a stimulus that is presented and because George is motivated by this activity, the probability of him engaging in circle time in the future increases. 

2) Negative Reinforcement: A behavior occurs. A stimulus is removed immediately following the behavior. The probability of that behavior occurring again in the future increases. Let me remind you, that just because the word “negative” is present, it does not mean anything bad. So just like our example with Jenny throwing a tantrum in the classroom, the removal of the worksheet is the stimulus that has been removed and the probability that these inappropriate behaviors will occur again in the future increases. 

Examples:  

• When Hannah first started working on her spelling word test, there were too many words to complete. After every 5 words she completed, the teacher erased 1 spelling word from her test. 
• When Daisy’s teacher tells her it is time for circle time, she tantrums on the floor. Her teacher removes demands and Daisy does not participate in circle time.

It is important to note that reinforcement only occurs when the behavior actually increases. Just because we intend or mean for a behavior to increase, doesn't mean that reinforcement has occurred. It only occurs when the rate of behavior actually goes up.

We must also keep in mind that what we think is going to work for a student as a reinforcer, may not work. It is not what we think should work, it is what actually works. An object, activity, or any other stimulus that served as a reinforcer today may not serve the same function tomorrow. If you need a refresher on the topic of functions, please listen to episode 7 where we talk about the functions of behavior and how we identify why people engage in the behaviors they engage in. 

Now, let’s talk about punishment. Everything you know about punishment, such as time outs and any reprimands...I want you to take a second to erase that from your dictionary because in ABA, punishment refers to a consequence that is applied to a behavior that has the effect of reducing the future occurrence of that behavior. So it’s just the opposite of reinforcement. Punishment decreases a behavior while reinforcement increases the behavior. 

So like reinforcement, punishment also comes with 2 types: positive and negative.

Positive punishment: when something is added after the behavior occurs, and the behavior decreases. For example, if you are driving over the speed limit (behavior), and a police officer issues you a speeding ticket (consequence: something added), you are less likely to speed in the future. The behavior of driving over the speed limit has decreased after the ticket was given to you, and therefore the ticket serves as positive punishment. 

Negative Punishment: occurs when something is removed as a consequence, and the behavior decreases.  For example, the other day I was throwing a play ball to my dog and I accidentally knocked over my favorite mug that ended up getting shattered.  Throwing a ball is the behavior, the shattering of my mug led to a consequence where my access to my favorite mug was removed. After that, I was careful not play fetch inside the house, which ultimately decreased my behavior. 

Now that we went over reinforcement and punishment. Which one do we use? 

Yes, punishment is VERY effective, but what happens to children that are constantly exposed to continuous punishment is a child that becomes numb to punishment in the future. punishment on its own does not teach anything. Yes, you may reduce or eliminate challenging behavior but you need to also teach what to do instead of the inappropriate behavior. A common phrase that we use in ABA is “Catch them being good.”

The idea behind this phrase is that for most children providing them with positive attention and feedback can function as a strong reinforcer.  So when you reinforce your child’s good behavior by providing them with praise and attention, you are teaching your child what you want them to do and increasing the likelihood that they will continue to engage in the good behavior again.  When you “catch your child being good” and respond by telling them exactly what they are doing that is good, you are teaching your child how you want them to behave.   Instead of just saying “good job!” tell your child exactly what you liked about what they did, “I loved the way you shared your toy cars!”  Be specific with your praises.

With this being said, we want to definitely talk about punishments in how it can be effective. Although I DO NOT recommend an intervention that contains only punishment, I am a strong believer that INCLUDING punishment procedures with reinforcements can be the MOST effective form of intervention for any child. 

For example:

Let’s say that we want to focus on working on Bob being aggressive with his baby sister. Let’s say that Bob is constantly pulling his baby sister’s hair and pushing her around because he doesn’t like the extra attention that the baby gets from his parents. The parents are extremely worried for the baby’s safety and wants to focus on decreasing Bob’s aggression.

Let’s break this down. Reinforcement wise, I want to start looking for things/activities/stimulus that are going to motivate Bob to engage in more appropriate behaviors with his sister. How do we do this? Every time, Bob engages in appropriate play and sibling interactions with the sister, we want to provide Bob with some positive attention, such as “Bob, I love the way you’re playing with your sister!” Or “You’re doing amazing being gentle with your hands.” This positive feedback and specific praise from the parents is focusing on “catching Bob being good.” Now, what happens when something slips and Bob ends up hitting the baby sister again? This is where we need a punishment procedure in effect. Remember, punishment is simply the act of a consequence decreasing the specific behavior. If Bob is motivated by the attention of the parents, we don’t want to provide any verbal reprimands. Rather, you would want to pick up the baby sister to ensure that she is safely removed from the situation, and you want to make sure you’re not providing Bob’s behavior with any attention. A common mistake that many parents make when they implement “planned ignoring” is that they begin to ignore the child. Don’t ignore the child, you’re simply just ignoring the behavior. If you’re ignoring Bob, it may result in situations where his inappropriate behaviors magnifies into behaviors such as property destruction, more intense levels of aggression and when that breaks the parents and they start to provide Bob with attention, you have now just reinforced a higher and more intense level of inappropriate behaviors. Rather, you want to act as if the behavior did not occur. I know this is A LOT to take in. It takes months and sometimes an entire year for some of our behavior therapists to get this down, so I don’t expect any one to understand this over a quick 20 minute episode. Rather, I simply want to expose you to the concepts and terminologies of reinforcement versus punishment so that you can make simple changes in your everyday decisions to ensure that your child is receiving the correct intervention for their behavior. 

So in today’s episode, we covered the difference between reinforcement and punishment and reviewed some examples of what they each look like. We talked about the differences between positive and negative reinforcement versus positive and negative punishment. I will include a fun little visual guide that I made onto our facebook page so make sure to check out our Facebook page @whattheautism. 

But this concludes another episode here at What the Autism. Next week on episode 9, we’ll be talking about reinforcers and what to do when you’re stuck with no ideas. We upload a new episode on your favorite podcast platform every Wednesday. If you have any questions on today’s episode and/or you have any recommendations for future topics and discussion, please email us at whattheautismpodcast@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @whattheautism for any helpful resources and updates in regards to our discussion topics. Please note that this podcast has been created to discuss my personal experiences and opinions and is not a means of medical or psychological recommendations. 

But If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to follow and subscribe to our podcast channel and I’ll see you in episode 9.