Download SP ED 5022/6022-001 | Applied Behavior Analysis Powerpoint

SP ED 5022/6022-001 | Applied Behavior Analysis Powerpoint Transcript
This presentation is going to give you some information about some of the history of different behavioral theories,
as well as more information about the terminology that is used in Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA. And some of
the terminology that we're going to be using over the course of the semester to refer to the things we do with
behavior.
[SLIDE]
There are a number of theories that are used to address human behavior and the reasons why individuals behave
the way that they do. We're not going to cover all of them, there are numerous different theories. But I wanted to
bring up a few, because hopefully you can start to see how different theories are more or less applicable to what
you as a classroom teacher is actually going to be expected to do, and how you can address problem behavior in
your classroom. So there's some biophysical explanations, or things biochemical, looking at things within the body.
They're developmental explanations, looking at those developmental processes that individuals go through. There
are cognitive explanations of things going on within how students perceive what's going on around them, as well
as behavioral. Behavioral Is the one we're going to focus on a lot, because of the applicability of applied behavior
analysis and some of the theories behind Applied Behavior Analysis and how they work in the classroom.
SLIDE.
The biophysical and biochemical explanations. I think what's really important about some of these different
explanations is that you not only look at how this theory or how this approach decided to explain behavior, but also
start to look really critically at what are the limitations of this kind of approach when it comes to addressing
behavior and how useful this kind of approach is for use as a classroom teacher. Because ultimately that's what's
most important is the utility that you're going to have in the classroom. So these biophysical and biochemical
explanations. If you've heard of this idea of nature versus nurture, this is the nature part of it. This is saying that
the reason individuals behave the way they do is because of genetics. It's because of heredity. It's because of
what's going on within their biochemistry.
So once upon a time, we would believe that individuals' behaviors or whether they got sick or things like that were
based on humors. So there were different humors. There was blood and bile, and there were a couple other
there, I think there were four humors. But an imbalance in any of one of those humors, it was thought that that
was what was causing the problem. Which is where you've got things like blood letting and things like that was
because it was thought that if I can just bring those humors back into balance, then all be well and whatever
problem behavior we're seeing will go away.
Other individuals who sort of felt that this was an appropriate explanation for human behavior would then say that
because an individual has a certain genetic makeup, so say for example a child with Down syndrome, they would
say that because of that child's DNA, we know how that kid is going to behave. And I think that that's pretty difficult
for any of us to swallow, because we all know individuals who have different diagnoses, maybe two children who
have been diagnosed as having autism. Or two children who have been diagnosed as having Down syndrome.
And just because they share a similar diagnosis, does not mean that they're going to behave exactly the same
way.
So this theory would say that we could determine student behavior because of these things going on within their
biochemistry. A problem, several problems with this actually. One it fails to be inclusive, in that it does not include
the range of individuals you would see who have a similar diagnosis or a similar biochemistry. It's not very
predictive. So if someone tells you, oh you're going to have a child with this diagnosis in your classroom, that
doesn't necessarily tell you what their behavior's going to look like in the classroom.
The other thing that this theory fails to be is parsimonious. So parsimony is this idea that the simplest explanation
is usually the correct one. This is a pretty convoluted explanation, and so it's not very parsimonious and so it's not
really that useful for us as classroom teachers to apply to, OK if I have a child acting out in my classroom, now
what do I do? Biochemical explanations don't really help you all that much, because you as a teacher can't
necessarily change a child's genetics or their biochemistry. So this has sort of limited utility for us as teachers.
[SLIDE]
Another other approach to talking about behavior is this developmental explanation. So looking at different phases
of development, and there are a number of individuals who had theories about the different phases of
development. Sigmund Freud being one of them that I think most people are at least relatively familiar with who
he was.
But his belief was that individuals go through these different phases, and what I have listed here are just some of
the phases. He actually had a couple more phases, but the oral phase, the anal phase, and the phallic phase.
Well his theory was that if you, if an individual got stuck in any one of these phases, or if they had problems in
those phases, that would then lead to problems as an adult. So for example, I think we use this a lot, if you've got
somebody who is really organized and really likes things the way that they like them, oftentimes they're referred to
as anal, or anal compulsive. OK. That goes back to Freud's theory that that individual must have gotten stuck or
had something going on within the anal phase that has now led to them engaging in these kinds of behaviors.
As classroom teachers that's not terribly useful, telling me that this individual had a problem when they were a
baby doesn't help me when I'm working with a 17-year-old child who's engaging in problem behaviors in my
classroom. So this doesn't have a lot of predictive utility, and it's not really all that parsimonious in that it's a pretty
convoluted explanation for individuals behavior.
Piaget also had some theories about why individuals engage in certain behaviors, and he had some
developmental explanations as well. His stages were not like Freud's stages. He had sensorimotor,
preoperational, concrete operations, formal operations. And so he said that individuals go through these different
sequences, and that we can start looking at behavior within the context of these different stages that individuals
go through. Again, that's not terribly useful for us as classroom teachers, because if I'm looking at a student who
is engaging in talk outs in my classroom, thinking back about where they might have gotten hung up in a
developmental stage isn't going to help me create appropriate behavioral interventions to help them tomorrow. So
it's not very predictive and it's not very parsimonious.
[SLIDE]
Another explanation that sometimes comes up when we start talking about behavior is this idea of Gestalt. Gestalt
being that the whole of something is different than the sum of its parts. It's this idea of seeing the forest for the
trees. So that individuals tend to look at the entire thing instead of the bits and pieces. And again, this idea of
thought patterns and things like that isn't necessarily all that helpful to us in our day to day functions in the
classroom. But I think it's important to understand these different theories, so we can see where we've come from
and how we're building upon these theories to then inform our practice as teachers, so that we can create the
most appropriate behavioral interventions for students that we possibly can.
[SLIDE]
Lastly, and one of the one's we're going to touch on the most, is this idea of behavioral explanations for why
individuals engage in their behavior. So if you think about this idea of nature versus nurture, the behavioral
explanations do look a little more at the sort of nurture component. That isn't to say that the nature component is
completely discounted. I think it would be naive to say that, that it's all nature or all nurture, but the behavioral
explanations do look a little bit more at the things that are going on around the individual, and that learning and
engaging in different behaviors is a consequence of, or results from, the consequences of the behavior. So people
are learning why they're doing this.
Now it does have some limited inclusiveness. This doesn't account for every different kind of behavior. And I think
that's really important for us to recognize, that behavior is an incredibly complex thing. The things that we're going
talk about over the course of this semester will boil down behavior a little, but I want you to recognize that
behavior is not black and white. It's not always one or always the other. And to think that would be, I think, naive,
as I said. I think that would be problematic.
[SLIDE]
What I want you to think about right now is this idea of OK, given these different perspectives, how would an
individual who believes that, how would they approach this? Because I think that that's what we as teachers need
to think about, is if I had a situation like this. So I have a student who has Autism, he's having trouble sitting
through a lesson during circle time, so we are talking about a younger student in this instance. After a while he
gets up, he starts to scream and points to the box of toys. If you're thinking about the individuals who would say,
OK well there has got to be some sort of biochemical explanation for it, there would be discussions of the
imbalances in his systems and all these and what's going on within his DNA.
As a classroom teacher, how does that help you? I think it is really important for us think about when we start
talking about the developmental explanations. Well maybe there was some point at which during his development
that something didn't happen. Again, as a classroom teacher, how does that help you address that rather
disruptive behavior in your classroom? We can also look at it from a behavioral perspective. OK, what has this
child learned? What are the consequences of his actions that is reinforcing or making it more likely that he's going
to engage in that behavior again? And I think, in a lot of ways, that is more useful for us as teachers, because
then we have variables that we can manipulate. I can't manipulate a kid's DNA. I can't manipulate how they went
through their developmental stages. I can't change that, but I can change some of the consequences that go on in
relation to a student's individual behavior, and that may impact their behavior in the classroom.
[SLIDE]
I think it's important to see how this came about. And so, in 1913, John Watson, so sort of the granddaddy of ABA,
stated that all behavior is controlled by environmental events. So he was very much in the camp that it is nurture
all the way. Nature has nothing to do with it. Again, I don't advocate for that because I think that both of them
interact with one another, but he did lay out this idea of stimulus response psychology and it became what is
known as Behaviorism.
Then we had other individuals who continued on with the work that was started by Watson. And B.F. Skinner was
one of those individuals who built on this, and really started bringing into play some of the different terminology
that we're going to talk about in the remainder of this lecture.
[SLIDE]
In 1968, the authors of this paper, so Baer, Wolf, and Risley, wrote a paper that really defined what the
characteristics are of ABA and how it differs from previous theories of behavior. So things like developmental
theories and biochemical theories. One of them being that it's applied. So it actually focuses on areas that are
significant to us. It's not necessarily theoretical, it's more applied. That it is focusing on behavior. That it is
analytical, so that we are using experimental research. We've got specific designs. We're collecting data. All of
these other things.
It's technological, in that we describe our methods so that someone can replicate it. And that's what's really
important. It's not very useful to me as a teacher if you're giving me a strategy that only ever worked with one
student one time ever. I need something that I can replicate within my own classroom. It has to be systematic,
conceptually systematic. So it's got to be tied to this framework. It has to be effective. And I think for us as
teachers that really is where the rubber meets the road. If it's not effective, I'm not going to use it. It's not worth my
time. I need to find something that's going to work.
The other thing that I think is a characteristic of ABA, and that these authors also agree, is that it has to be
generalizable. We really need to be able to effect lasting change over time and across different environments, if
this is going to be a useful strategy for us. And is really going to affect behavior change for our students.
[SLIDE]
I like this cartoon, just because I think that we have to recognize that we can look at behavior as if it was a coin.
And we can see both sides of the coin. And so Pavlov, so if you know about Pavlov and one of your videos talks
about Pavlov, he started out looking at something else, but ultimately he did start looking at this idea of classical
conditioning. Where he rang the little bell, or made some little noise, and then the dog started to drool. Well now
think about it from the dog's point of view. Now as soon as I start to drool, he smiles and writes in his little book.
And so I think you can sort of see that behavior influences both the person being observed and the observer, him
or herself.
[SLIDE]
So Pavlovian conditioning, or classical conditioning as it is often referred to, has different kinds of terms. I think it's
important to understand these terms. I'm never going to actually test you on these terms, but I think it's important
to understand them because we need to understand, sort of, the basis of how we got to where we are. And so
when you talk about condition, that means that it's learned. We had to learn something about that. So you have
conditioned stimulus and a conditioned response. So a learned stimulus and a learned response. And in
subsequent slides we'll talk about this. But then you also have unconditioned stimuli and unconditioned responses.
And so we'll sort of walk through each of these so that we can, sort of, tell the difference between what these are
when it comes to classical conditioning. This is going to be different from operant conditioning, which we'll talk
about later on in the lecture.
[SLIDE]
So an unconditioned reflex. So it's something that was not learned. I did not need to learn to do this, it is
something that's automatic. OK, so I have an unconditioned stimulus, so I didn't have to learn about it. And I have
an unconditioned response. So an example of this would be you go into the doctor, the doctor comes at you with
that tiny little hammer and he smacks your knee and you have a reflex. Your leg jerks up. Now, you didn't have to
learn that when the doctor comes at my knee, I need to make sure that I kick him. You don't have to learn that.
That would be an unconditioned response. OK?
[SLIDE]
Now when we start talking about conditioned reflexes, these are the things that are learned. So an unconditioned
stimulus in this case, when we're talking specifically about what Pavlov was doing with the dogs, it is food. So
that's the unconditioned stimulus. And the unconditioned response, in the case of the dogs, is salivation. They
didn't have to learn that. It's just a natural reflex that in the presence of food, they start to salivate. OK? So then
you have a neutral stimulus, so something that doesn't elicit much of a response. OK? So I ring the little bell, the
dog may look at me, but he doesn't do anything else. He doesn't salivate, which is what we're really interested in.
So an unconditioned stimulus automatically produces the unconditioned response, but a neutral stimulus doesn't
give us anything at all.
[SLIDE]
So then what Pavlov did is he started to pair things. So he's got his little bowl of food and he rings his little bell or
he uses his metronome, or whatever it is. And so every time he presents that food, that unconditioned stimulus,
he pairs it with the neutral stimulus to get that unconditioned response. What he found, ultimately, was really
interesting about what the dogs were doing.
[SLIDE]
He found that soon that little bell, that neutral stimulus, that thing that before didn't do anything when we ring it, it
has now become a conditioned stimulus. We have learned something about it, and it has resulted in a conditioned
response. Namely, you ring the little bell, the dog starts to salivate. OK? And you know what, I've seen this with my
own dogs. If I get out the bag of treats, automatically my dog will start to salivate. Even though the physical bag
should be a neutral stimulus, he'll start to salivate anyway. So it is pretty interesting that this is something that's
replicable.
Now keep in mind, this isn't-- we're looking at classical conditioning, we're not, I'm not saying that, and this is what
you're going to do in your classroom with your students. I'm not saying that all, but I'm saying that we do need to
recognize that the consequences and the learned responses are things that we as teachers can start to
manipulate in order to address behavior in the classroom.
[SLIDE]
Another way to look at this would be, say you go to the eye doctor. And so anybody who's ever been to the eye
doctor, when they blow that little puff of air, and I don't even know if it's for the glaucoma test or what they're
actually testing for, I'm sure they're testing for something. I would hope so, otherwise they're puffing in your face
for no reason. But so if they puff in your face, you're automatic unconditioned response is to blink and jerk away.
And that's what your body does, it's a safety kind of thing. So if we had the doctor, every time he puffed that air in
your face, he paired it with saying OK. OK would be that neutral stimulus. OK would not necessarily elicit any sort
of response, but if we are constantly pairing that with the air puff, what we ultimately find-[SLIDE]
Is that we start to jerk. OK? Then we take away the air puff and determine whether that neutral stimulus has now
become a conditioned stimulus.
[SLIDE] And indeed it does. It becomes a conditioned stimulus, that now when the doctor says OK, you
automatically start to blink and jerk away. Because you've been conditioned to know, you've learned, that when he
says that, this happens to me and I have that response.
[SLIDE]
So Skinner, B.F. Skinner, there's a lovely little picture of B.F. Skinner with his awesome hairdo in the bottom
corner. But B.F. Skinner took this idea of conditioning, this idea of learned responses, a little bit differently and
created this idea of operant conditioning. Or it's also referred to as Skinnerian. But what he said was that behavior
can be changed through the use of reinforcement. So he created these things called Skinner boxes. And so
there's actually a schematic of the Skinner box here on the slide.
And so you see that we've got our little mouse, and frequently he actually used pigeons, lots of times he used
pigeons. But so we've got these little levers, and the animal, pigeon, mouse, whatever, would push the lever and
they would get a food pellet. And so then they learned that if I keep pushing the food pellet then I will-- or keep
pushing the lever, then I keep getting the food pellets. But then he started to manipulate that kind of
reinforcement. And so one of the videos that you're going to watch for this module will discuss how Skinner used
this and how he started to apply some of these theories to this idea of behaviorism.
[SLIDE]
So when we've got classical conditioning talks about stimulus and response, the relationship between stimulus
and response. In operant conditioning we talk about this idea of consequences of behavior. So a behavior
happens, then what happens immediately after that as a consequence. And we start to look at those
consequences to determine are we increasing or decreasing the likelihood that that behavior is going to occur
again? And for us as teachers, that's something I can manipulate. If I can change what the consequences are,
what happens immediately after the behavior, or in fact immediately before the behavior, then I can start to affect
behavior change. That's something I can do in my classroom.
[SLIDE]
So when we talk about an example, and again I am not in any way likening any of your students to dogs, but I
think this is one that may be readily accessible for people, if you've ever trained dogs or played with dogs,
whenever. So you teach your dog to shake. So if I'm using this conditioning, this operant conditioning, this idea of
reinforcing the dog, reinforcing the behavior that I want, I say shake to the dog. And then I wait until the dog
moves one of his little paws. And then I give him a treat. And then I demand ever increasing approximations of the
behavior until ultimately the dog is shaking. OK?
So I have used that to shape the behavior. That is something that Skinner talked about with regard to this idea of
operant conditioning. And while our students are certainly not dogs, we can start to think about this idea of
reinforcement, or the consequences of actions, in order to start addressing what are we going to do in our
classroom for students. Especially when it comes to behavior.
[SLIDE]
I think it's really important for you to understand what the different terminology, or what the different terms mean,
within ABA. And I think the reason why it's important is too frequently these are used incorrectly in popular culture.
I know that there was an episode of a show I never watch, but Big Bang Theory, where they were talking. One of
the characters was talking about these different types of reinforcement and punishment and was actually using
the terminology incorrectly. And so I think that it's important to understand it, and yes you're going to have some
sort of formative assessments so that I can gauge how much you understand about it and determine whether I
need to do any reteaching. But I would never ask you, well do you think that was positive reinforcement or
negative reinforcement?
But I think we need to look at it so that we can start to think about, OK, what's going on with this student? What's
going on immediately after the behavior occurs? So you can start to determine OK, what do I need to do in order
to affect change with that behavior? So some of the terms that we see are positive reinforcement, negative
reinforcement. We see a term called extinction, which is different. And then positive and negative punishment,
which I know sounds really weird. Why in the world would I ever discuss positive punishment? Is there ever a time
that punishment is positive? But when we talk about each one of these individually, you'll recognize, hopefully, that
positive and negative actually don't refer to the value or whether we think it's a good or bad thing. Positive and
negative have very specific implications within ABA.
[SLIDE]
When we are talking about positive reinforcement, and this has the sort of nomenclature that's put here, so the
response is followed by a valued stimulus. So a positive stimulus. So that's where you see the SR+. Again I'm not
going to ask you to memorize these. But I think that what's important about this is that a student's individual
behavior, if it's being positively reinforced, it means that it's increasing the likelihood that that behavior is going to
occur because we've presented something of value. Something that the student wants.
[SLIDE]
This is different from negative reinforcement, in that reinforcement means that we are still expecting the behavior
to increase, but in negative reinforcement it's because we've removed something aversive, a negative, or a
negative or aversive consequence. So that's why that nomenclature looks like that, but the response is followed by
the removal of a negative stimulus
[SLIDE]
I think it's really helpful to see examples of this, especially because you're also going to be doing this for your ABA
quiz. But so an example of positive reinforcement would be if I have a student who's helping another student,
we're going to expect that behavior to continue to occur, so increase the likelihood that that behavior occurs,
because it provides him or her with various forms of appreciation. OK? So they are being presented with a valued
consequence, so we expect that behavior to increase.
Whereas with negative reinforcement, an example of that would be a student repeatedly hands her money over to
a bully. So the bully comes over to the little kid and says, give me your lunch money, and the student does it. Now
you may look at this and say, wait wait. Having kids getting bullied, how could that possibly be reinforcement? Now
remember, what we're looking at is just one of the consequences. So for this student who is being bullied, the
bully says give me your money. And this student knows, if I give the money then the bully goes away. So I am
removing something aversive, namely the bully. So the student is going to be more likely to give the bully the
money the next time, because they know this makes that aversive thing go away. OK?
So that's how both of these can be considered reinforcement. Positive would be presenting something of value.
So teacher appreciation, pat on the back, gold star, whatever. Negative reinforcement would be removing
something that is aversive. The bottom line is that reinforcement increases the likelihood that the behavior is going
to occur.
[SLIDE]
OK so this is obviously different from extinction. Extinction refers to the discontinuation of any consequences. So
this isn't I'm presenting something or I'm necessarily removing something. There is just no response whatsoever.
OK? And the goal of this would be, if there's no response then I expect the behavior to go away. I'm going to
extinguish that behavior.
[SLIDE]
One of the things that is sometimes, although not all that frequently seen, is this idea of an extinction burst. And so
the graph that is included here shows the frequency of the behavior, and then there is a vertical line that indicates
a phase change, and we'll talk more about what those different graphs look like later on in the semester. But that
indicates a phase change. So we have started to use extinction as a way to address this problem behavior. And if
you'll notice with the graph, it actually increases. We get kind of a bump that is referred to as an extinction burst.
So that's saying that-- say for example I've got a little kid in the grocery store. And the little kid is pestering,
pestering, pestering, pestering mom or dad to buy candy. And so the parents decide to remove all consequences
and just ignore the behavior completely. They're trying to extinguish the behavior, planned ignoring of the
behavior. Well I think all of us have seen this happen in the grocery store, where the kid then decides well you're
not listening to me, so I'm going to amp up my behavior. And so that's where we start to see that increase. They
start to ratchet up their behavior ever more until it gets to a point, and this is the hope, that it gets to a point where
they decide this isn't worth it anymore, and they give up. And then we watch the behavior decrease, and then the
behavior is extinguished.
Now that being said, extinction can be really difficult in practice. I mean, think about your typical classroom. If I
have a student, for example, who is talking out, I can try to ignore it in the hope that I am extinguishing the
behavior. But it's really difficult for everybody else to ignore it as well. And so if at any point that student starts
getting that reinforcement, they're going to engage in that behavior. And so extinction, theoretically and in certain
practices, can be really useful. But I think as classroom teachers, it can be very difficult for us to employ in a
practical way.
[SLIDE]
OK, so an example of extinction would be that Brett has decided to ignore his wife's attempts at gossip. So his wife
comes to him and says, oh you'll never believe what I heard at work today or what I heard that the neighbors did.
And after he just doesn't respond, he just ignores it all together. Well now she is not getting reinforced, she's not
getting what she wants and so ultimately she just gives up and doesn't gossip in front of him. Brett is my husband,
so I'm not saying that all women are gossips. I use him as an example just because it's, frankly, a name I can
remember.
[SLIDE]
Another thing that we need to be mindful of is this idea of punishment. So we've got reinforcement. Reinforcement
increases the likelihood that a behavior is going to occur. Now punishment decreases the likelihood that a
behavior is going to occur. So a behavior happens and then the individual is presented with something aversive.
So what you need to be mindful of is reinforcement always means the behavior is going to increase. Punishment
always means the behavior is going to decrease. Positive always means that we're presenting something.
Negative always means that we're taking something away.
[SLIDE]
So with negative punishment the behavior is followed by the removal of something of value. OK?
[SLIDE]
Because of the terminology, and it sounds weird to say positive punishment versus negative punishment,
sometimes you'll see this referred to as type one and type two punishment. So type one would be positive
punishment, where we are presenting something aversive. Type two would be negative punishment where we are
removing something of value.
[SLIDE]
I think, again, it's very informative to have examples. So an example of positive punishment, and this is actually a
true example of positive punishment, is Maggie is caught speeding on the freeway. The very disgruntled, and he
was a very disgruntled officer, gave me a speeding ticket and a hefty fine. I no longer speed on the freeway. Sort
of. But the reason that this is positive punishment is that we expect the speeding behavior to decrease, thus being
punishment, because we've presented something aversive, namely the nasty ticket. OK? So that's how that's
positive punishment. Which differs from negative punishment.
So the example here is whenever Zeke jumped up and down on the couch while he's watching TV, his dad turned
the TV off for a minute. And after it was turned off several times, he stopped. So it's a punishment. It's decreasing
the likelihood that the behavior is going to occur, and it's negative because we are removing something of value.
Namely the TV. So that's the difference between negative punishment and positive punishment.
[SLIDE]
I think it's really useful, I think visuals can be really helpful, and so this visual, sort of, has in this grid the
differences between positive and negative punishment and reinforcement. So if you see the behavior increasing,
we know that's got to be in the reinforcement column. If the behavior is decreasing, it needs to be in the
punishment column. If we are presenting something, whether it's something positive, something of value, that
would be positive reinforcement. If we're presenting something that is aversive, that would be positive punishment.
But both of the mean we're presenting something. Whereas if it's in the removal row, that means we're taking
something away. Negative reinforcement is we're taking away something aversive. Negative punishment means
we're taking away something of value. And with extinction, that just means we don't have any consequences, this
idea of ignoring.
[SLIDE]
So I think that we need to be mindful of this idea of unconditioned reinforcers and punishers. So things that we
don't have to learn are either valued or are aversive. So these are sometimes referred to as primary reinforcers,
or primary punishers. So our primary reinforcer would be food. We didn't have to learn that food is good, that we
want food. Or warmth, we didn't have to learn that that's something that is beneficial. We just know that it is. So an
example of a negative, or a primary punisher, excuse me a primary punisher, would be things like really, really
loud noises or excessively bright lights. We don't have to learn that those things are aversive. That's just a natural,
sort of unconditioned, kind of behavior for us.
[SLIDE]
So then we have this idea of conditioned reinforcers and punishers. Things that we have to learn are either of
value or are aversive. So these are referred to as secondary reinforcers or secondary punishers. So an example
of a secondary reinforcer would be money. In and of itself, money doesn't do anything. You can't eat it. It won't
really keep you warm, unless you've got stacks of it that you can burn in order to keep you warm. So money in
and of itself isn't necessarily of value. We have to learn that it has value so that it becomes conditioned. So it has
to be a secondary reinforcer.
A secondary punisher, think about bad grades. An F, or an E depending on where you are, in and of itself, we
have to learn that that is aversive. so that would be considered a secondary punisher.
[SLIDE]
Bottom line is we need to think about what impact this is going to have in the classroom, because ultimately that's
really where your concern as a classroom teacher lies. So why is it important for us understand it? And it's not
because I'm going to look really critically at my classroom and start naming, well it's positive reinforcement, or it's
negative punishment, or things like that. It's because I want to start looking really critically at what happens after
the behavior. What is it that is influencing the behavior? What are the things that I can control? What are the
things that I can manipulate in order to address that problem behavior in the classroom? Or alternatively, not
necessarily problem behavior, but what are the things that I can do to increase the likelihood that those pro-social
behaviours that I want are going to continue to occur? How can I manipulate those different variables to impact
the behavior I see in my classroom?
So I want you think about that after watching this, after viewing the videos, after reading the information that was
assigned. I want you to start thinking about, OK how does this apply in my classroom? How can I start to think
really critically about what happens after behaviors occur, what are those external influences that may be
increasing or decreasing the likelihood that a behavior is going to occur?