Reinforcers, motivating your child’s learning.
To make it easier, reinforcers are those things ( tangibles, edibles or actions) that will keep up our child’s motivation during the learning process. Reinforcers are the most valuable tool that therapists, teachers and parents have when teaching our children. Chocolate, ice cream, tickles, money, playing with the dog, getting high fives… the list is just, as rich as individuals preferences and interests are.
Which of the items mentioned above would be reinforcing to you?
It would probably depend on what I asked you to do, the time of day, if you were hungry, sleepy, tired, sad, etc. You probably wouldn’t wash my car if I offered to give you $1. But you might wash my car if I offered to give you $100 (…or maybe not, if you really hate washing cars).
ABA therapists use reinforcers to get the learner to comply, to sit, to attend, to transition, and many more various behaviors. It took me a while to learn that just because child A will work for something that doesn’t mean child B will. It seems like such an obvious thing to know, but as therapists we do tend to make sweeping generalizations about the kiddos we work with. Such as:“All kids will work for candy… All kids will work to avoid a reprimand…..All kids like attention… All kids know who Dora or Spongebob is… All kids like tickles” Every one of those statements is wrong, because they assume all kids are the same.
Choosing, selecting, and testing reinforcers takes skill and patience but the payoff is huge. Instead of being in a session with a child who is bored or defiant, you now are approaching the child with the knowledge of what they like and what they will work for…..because there is a difference.
I really like chocolate cupcakes, but I will not paint your house to get paid in chocolate cupcakes. There is a difference between your client liking something, and your client working for something. If you have been working with a client on a skill or set of skills for a long time without seeing progress, try changing your reinforcement. The child may have gotten bored with the reinforcement. Or maybe they like the item but not enough to do a difficult skill for it. They could have become satiated on the reinforcement (this happens very often with edible reinforcers).
A big issue I see happen frequently is someone else in the child’s life is giving them a similar reinforcer and the therapist doesn’t know. For example, the teacher at school keeps a candy dish full of Skittles in the room that the children have free access to. Its highly unlikely that you will be able to get your client to do challenging tasks to earn a Skittle, if they spent all day freely munching on Skittles. In behavior analytic terms this is called Bootleg Reinforcement. This can happen pretty often, so its important to make sure the reinforcement you are using is unique and the child doesn’t have free access to it. If you had just finished a big seafood platter and I offered you a hamburger, the hamburger probably wouldn’t seem too appetizing. Even if you love hamburgers I have to offer it to you at the right moment. To understand effective reinforcement, you have to understand how to manipulate Motivating Operations.Once you can do that you are on your way to help your child!
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