Behaviorism

We talked about behaviorism in class. We talked a lot about positive and negative reinforcement and punishment. I have learned about it before but I always got it mixed up. Now I will remember that both positive and negative reinforcements are used to increase the behavior while punishment is the only one that decreases the behavior. Positive reinforcement is when you are adding a reward while negative reinforcement is when you take away something that they do not like. We also talked about the differences between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. I have learned this before but I always find it very interesting.

This is very useful information to know. This is information you can use to shape children. I am a trainer for an ABA program for a three year old boy with autism. I use operant conditioning and reinforcements everyday. I do programs with this boy where I give a prompt, he responds to my prompt either right or wrong and I reinforce him for right responses. This boy did not speak or interact with people before we started this program in August. He really thrives with this program. He now can say around 100 words and he talks, gives high fives, and hug people. It is great. I use operant conditioning more literally in this program than most people use but we use it all the time. I find myself asking my niece questions about a story i read to her or anything else (give the prompt) and she answers (response) and I say good job! (reinforcement) It is interesting to see the reasoning behind it all. It is really beneficial to learn about reinforcements. We can learn to have students do what we want them to do by either adding something or taking it away.

We talked about in class that we are trying to get students to be able to reinforce themselves. That is the main thing that I am going to take away from it. We start by using tangible reinforcements and when we are able to, we move up to activity reinforcements, then social reinforcements. I think it is very important for students to be able to reinforce themselves. When I was in middle school and high school I was motivated by grades, not because my parents wanted me to get good grades (though they did) but because I wanted to do good in school and get good grades. When I did good on a test or project, knowing that I did good was all the reinforcement I needed. My brother and sister, though were told that if they get good grades, they could get money. Though my brother and sister got things for their grades I still was the child that got the best grades. I think that students do better when they are intrinsically motivated and when they can reinforce themselves. I will always be working with my students towards that. I think that at my job with the boy with autism, I will be working with him to achieve a social reinforcement and then an intrinsic reinforcement. Also, I really am going to try to make sure that I do not reinforce students for what they already love to do because I do not want to ruin that love.