Positive Reinforcement And Token Economy System Analysis

Positive reinforcement is rewarding a behavior with a consequence that is pleasant to the recipient in order to encourage the behavior. An example of this in The Breakfast Club

These rules are displayed throughout the school and are referred to continuously by staff and children equally. We also have class rules that have been developed by the children themselves and are a positive device for encouraging good behaviour. The children can then monitor their own behaviour as well as the behaviour of other children in the class.

In special education classroom, positive reinforcement is applicable when students transit from activities through following instructions as provided and avoiding any form of distraction as well as maintaining a reasonable level of noise in whichever circumstance. Observation all these guarantee students a ticket. A minimum of 30 tickets a week guarantees them candy from their teacher. This is seen a motivation to the students hence they strive to receive the ticket.

A token economy is a system whereby participants earn generalized conditioned reiforcers (e.g., tokens, chips, points) as an immediate consequences for specific behaviors (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007). Gabriel is 7 year old boy that is an autism self-contained classroom. He has a difficult time transitioning from the different activities in the classroom. Gabriel has difficulty preparing for class, one-one work with the teacher, and special area’s (P.E., Music, & Art). Gabriel tantrums are defined as throwing work on floor, throwing him-self on the grown, and also kicking and screaming.

Reinforcement that occurs directly because of the students actions. No one else is needed to get the reinforcement.

Reinforcement is an essential part in identifying and encouraging a certain behavior. In the most classic definition, positive reinforcement is a method of identifying to children which behaviors are acceptable and appropriate and which are not (Sigler, E. & Aamidor, S, 2005). Reinforcement is often given as praise for doing a certain task. As educators, saying “great job” or a simple word like “fantastic” are expressed towards students as praise. However, when a student is struggling and praise is given such as “you are doing so well”, the negative aspects of praise present themselves. The child is aware of the empty praise

The phenomena being tested is the implementation of a token economy in an impatient psychiatric facility.

Mr. Higginbotham uses the idea of operant conditioning and continuous reinforcement throughout his classroom. Operant conditioning is the behavior in which voluntary behavior are strengthened or weakened by consequences, while continuous reinforcement deals with giving a reinforcer after every response. These reinforcers can be either positive or negative, strengthening or weakening the behavior that occurred. Positive reinforcements are there to increase the opportunity of a specific behavior reoccurring and negative reinforcement is strengthening behavior that results in a negative action. (Woolfolk, 2014, pgs. 277-278). An example in Mr. Higginbotham’s class of positive reinforcement would be during the point in time when he decides to announce that his progress checks can each be earned towards bonus points on their project and once ten complete progress checks have occurred the children can also receive a homework pass. Another positive reinforcement is the three highest scoring students will receive twenty-five dollars to their class trip fund for their senior year. A negative reinforcement is demonstrated in Mr. Higginbotham’s class when Susan shows disrespectful behavior and earns four detentions. These four detentions equal a day of indoor, in-school suspension. So even when students do not want to do their homework the progress report check will help the students work towards that one homework pass. Both positive and negative reinforcement as continuous

The mainstream classroom is a classroom that contains general education students. Currently, special education students are being placed into the general education classroom for part of the day. The important idea is to incorporate the lesson plan effectively and efficiently to properly teach both special education and regular education students. It is equally important to note that all students learn differently and have varying learning styles. My research question entails using the token economy system to decrease or eliminate problematic behavior of inclusion students in the general education classroom. Research has shown that by placing special education students with the general education students, the behaviors of those with special needs significantly improve as the general education students serve as excellent role models for the children to follow.

Content area F, Behavior-Change Systems, includes the task list item F-02: Use token economies and other conditioned reinforcement systems (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2014). My submission for this content area is the token economy assignment from SPE 565, which demonstrates the implementation of a token economy system. A token economy system uses items which are placed or attached to a board to positively reinforce desired behaviors. While the items used may have little to no value, they can be saved and used to gain access to a more desired item or activity. The intervention works by conducting a preference assessment to identify the items with the strongest reinforcement value. These items can be used as the rewards, or back-up

Birnbrauer, Wolf, Kidder, and Tague (1965) performed an experiment using the token economy on a special education classroom with seventeen individuals. Each individual was given assignments to complete, but the assignments varied for each student. Some of the assignments were sight vocabulary, phonics, reading comprehension, cursive writing, addition, and time-telling. There were two ways that the students could earn tokens. If the student studied on their own and raised their hand when they had completed their work, the teacher would provide them with a token. If the teacher was required to be present for the work, a token reinforcer and a social reinforcer were rewarded when the task was completely correctly. If the students completed their work for the day, they were rewarded with a backup reinforcer. The researchers found that during the experiment, students paid more attention to their work and to the teacher and had less errors on their

According to Snowman & McCown, token economies are used to strengthen behavior. It is another type of behavior modification strategy that can be used with students to effectively promote good behavior within the classroom. Token economies are based upon a monetary system in which tokens are used to acquire desired reinforcers. A token is something that has little or no inherent value but that can be used to “purchase” items that do have inherent value (Snowman & McCown, 2012). Teachers will create a reinforcement menu which includes the items that can be “purchased” by tokens. Students will receive these tokens accordingly when they use the target behaviors appropriately. When students acquire a certain number of tokens for displaying good behavior, these can be exchanged for certain objects or activities in order to reinforce the

A token economy system works for a parent trying to manage their children if they are conscious about using it to reinforce good behaviors (e.g. manners, cleaning up after themselves, etc.). The implementation of the system must be strict - the target behavior must be reinforced with the reward, and the two must be exclusive, meaning that the reward cannot be given for any other time. Otherwise, this would interfere with the child’s association between the two things, which would not make the behavior so reinforced (Naik, 2001).

A teacher should teach, demonstrate, establish, and enforce classroom procedures and routines at the start of the year to manage the classroom behaviors. Rules and procedures support teaching and learning and provide students with clear expectations and well-defined norms. Teachers can create a respectful, supportive learning environment when they have an understanding of the diverse learning in the

One of the simplest and most commonly-used methods of conceptualizing learning is that of reinforcement theory (Noe 2010: 142). Every time a parent promises a child a toy for being good during a grocery store trip or threatens a teen with being grounded for bad grades, he or she is using reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theory is based upon the assumption that people want to experience as much pleasure as possible and avoid pain. Thus, businesses offer workers bonuses for good work, and issue reprimands (such as docking pay or denying a promotion) for poor behavior.