The recent discussions in the press and the US Congress about seclusion and restraint prompted me to draft these preliminary notes about alternatives that are available to school personnel. Generally, one does not need to resort to putting students in isolation or holding them to the ground.
Schools that employ evidence-based practices have a wealth of alternatives to physical seclusion or restraint. These methods range from plain, old good teaching to systematic analysis of the functions that misbehaviors serve. In the next few paragraphs, I present laconic descriptions of these.
Continue reading ‘Notes about reducing misbehavior’
If it isn’t the most misunderstood concept in the analysis of behavior, “negative reinforcement” has got to be among the top two or three. (Suggest competitors in the comments!) People often misuse this term, employing it as a synonym for “punishment.”
For grins, I located a couple of examples illustrating this problem. They follow:
- In an article for the Daily Pennsylvania under the headline “Negative reinforcement aggravates excessive behavior in dogs, studies find,” Greg Rollman published these paragraphs:
An owner’s instinctual response to a dog’s aggressive behavior might be to act aggressively toward the dog, but a new study shows that this could actually exacerbate that behavior.
Meghan Herron, lead author and resident at the behavior clinic at the School of Veterinary Medicine’s Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital, surveyed 140 dog owners who sought treatment for their dogs at the clinic. She analyzed the owners’ disciplinary methods using different types of reinforcement – the owner’s positive, negative or neutral reaction to a dog’s behavior.
Negative reinforcement, such as growling, yelling or hitting, tended to cause aggression in a high percentage of dogs. Positive reinforcement or neutral techniques, on the other hand, caused a negligible increase in dogs’ aggressive behavior.
Mr. Rollman’s treatment is available here.
- In Men’s Fitness under the headline “Could you be insulted and belittled into getting fit? One outrageous Denver gym owner has built a thriving enterprise saying, ‘Yes, you can, chubby,’” Megan Michelson reported about the techniques employed by a fitness trainer:
“It’s not my job to kiss your [hindquarters],” says Anti-Gym owner Michael Karolchyk. “If you want positive reinforcement, go to Richard Simmons or Oprah. Both of them are fat and make millions of dollars by making fat people feel good about themselves.”
Karolchyk’s style of extreme negative reinforcement–complete with degrading insults, embarrassing nicknames and throwing toy fish at clients–has garnered both praise and criticism.
Ms. Michelson’s report is available here. Be sure to read what the “experts say.”
For the record: Negative reinforcement occurs when a behavior results in the removal of a feature of the environment and that behavior increases (usually in frequency). There are lots of sources on the Internet that present it correctly.
Sometime back, I posted an entry about songs that I used to make some basic rules of behavior modification memorable for students in my classes. This post reprises that post and updates it.
Please note that the songs associated with each “rule” are not meant to convey exactly the same sentiment as the rule; the songs’ messages are often more about individual relationships, so the lyrics do not conform precisely to the concepts behind the rules.
I’ve re-ordered some items and modified some of them. This is the version for this (the spring) semester of 2009.
Continue reading ‘Songs revised’
Saul Axelrod, who has conducted lots of research about implementing and refining procedures for managing behavior in classrooms, presented a workshop on “Classroom Management Problems and Procedures for Solving Them” at the National Autism Conference in 2007. It’s available as free video.
This is good fundamental presentation. Download it. Watch it. Recommend it to others. Flash of the electrons to Regina at the PT site for reminding me of this. http://wpsu.org/ondemand/streams/Session_7108022.html
Over on CNN Linda Saether is a story about Rick Schroeder of Autism Partnership applying behavior analytic teaching principles to help Marissa Bilson and her family manage behavior problems. Marissa—an early adolescent who has Autism—screams while jumping up and down, bites herself, takes things that do not belong to her, and behaves ritualistically.
Although Ms. Saether does not report on the research basis for it and actually undercuts it’s effectiveness (ABA is “one kind of approach,” “there are a variety of programs out there,” etc.), the story illustrates the value of the clear rules that are consistently implemented. I’ll be using this one in class.
Here’s the link. Learn more about Autism Partnership. Note that Harold Doherty of Facing Autism in New Brunswick has covered this story, too.
Over on Precision Teaching Rick Kubina has added another podcast to his published collection: It’s an interview with Hank Pennypacker (from 31 January 2009). Professor Pennypacker has been teaching about the appropriate analysis of behavior for many years, influencing many folks in positive ways. When you take the opportunity to jump over to Precision Teaching and look at the list of interviews, you may want to snag others, too.
