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Springfield Residential Services

Satiation

Posted in Community, Education.

Satiation occurs when a person has experienced a particular reinforcer to such an extent that it is temporarily no longer reinforcing. Despite the fact that this effect is temporary, it can actually last for an extended period of time. To avoid this undesired effect of satiation it is ideal to vary the reinforcers that are offered to an individual. Variation in reinforcers can be as easy as using different looking stickers or stamps on a tracking sheet, choosing different edibles such as M&M’s, a cookie, a few chips, or cheese sticks. Another good way of creating choice of reinforcers is to create a treasure chest of items the person can earn. Generally, these things should not exceed $5.00 and can be food or other items such as eye make-up, toy cars, batteries for their IPod, cool socks, dollar store toys, colouring books etc. This treasure chest is a great way to get the person involved in their own reinforcement program as they can suggest what they want in the treasure box. Remember, if the item is being offered as a reinforcer it should not be available at other times or until it is earned. This makes the item more desirable and therefore the person is going to work harder to get it.

The Impact of Consequences

Posted in Community, Stories.

Most people consider consequences to be negative things that happen in response to a maladaptive behaviour. In reality, a consequence is anything that follows behaviour. Consequences can be undesirable as is the case when not earning a sticker, losing your wallet, being hungry, loss of a privilege etc.  However, these consequences can also be desired as is the case with reinforcers such as stickers, verbal praise, removing a shirt that has an itchy tag, getting someone’s attention etc. Consequences are determined to be reinforcing if the preceding behaviour increases and punishing if the preceding behaviour decreases, and nothing can ever be considered as a universal punishment or reinforcer.

Time out is considered by most people to be a punishment however; this is not always the case. Let’s look at the case of Cynthia as an example:

Cynthia engages in aggression towards her peers and her educational assistant during math class. In response to this aggression the educational assistant places her in a time out. The next day Cynthia hits her peers during science class and during gym class. Both times she is placed in a time out. The third day Cynthia hits her educational assistant during lunch time and again the educational assistant places her in a time out. In the case of Cynthia, it looks like aggression has increased since the time out procedure was implemented. This means, time out is reinforcing to Cynthia. How does this make sense? Well, it is possible that Cynthia does not want to be in the environment that she is in, or does not want the demands that are placed on her and she is aware that by aggressing towards someone she will have the demands removed. Without realizing this, you are running the risk of reinforcing behaviours that you actually want to decrease.