![]() ![]() To learn more about reinforcement vs punishment, call Verbal Beginnings today at 855.866.9893.īy Verbal Beginnings’ Michelle Hausman, RBT. If you have questions about the terminology used in the treatment plan, ask to have it explained in a way that makes sense to you. Your BCBA’s job is to explain what the goals are and how they plan to achieve the goals. It is important to understand the goals in your child’s treatment plan. Only then are we ethically permitted to consider punishment procedures, which demands special requirements (increased supervision, training, and oversight) will be a part of the program. Punishment procedures may become necessary when reinforcement options are exhausted. The BACB’s Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts ( click here for link), which is used by ABA professionals, states that reinforcement procedures should always be utilized first. We can try to increase her attending, or “on task” behavior, through reinforcement, or decrease her off-task behavior through punishment. In the following example, a student’s “target behavior” is not paying attention to her teacher, or off-task behavior. Negative punishment decreases the target behavior by taking away something preferred. Negative reinforcement increases the target behavior by taking away something aversive. ![]() 1 As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that it was not really necessary to look at internal thoughts and motivations in order to explain behavior. Skinner, which is why you may occasionally hear it referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. Positive punishment decreases the target behavior by adding something aversive (bad). Operant conditioning was first described by behaviorist B.F. Positive reinforcement increases the target behavior by adding something preferred (good). In the ABA world, positive means adding something and negative means taking away something. To confuse things even more, there is the addition of the terms positive and negative when referring to reinforcement and punishment. The goal of punishment procedures is to decrease behavior. The goal of reinforcement procedures is to increase behavior. Simply stated, behavior can be shaped by finding meaningful consequences. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning ( more information here). In clinical usage, reinforcement and punishment have slightly different and more specific meanings. A child cleans her room when asked and gets to watch her favorite show on TV. Reinforcement, on the other hand, is a reward or a prize for doing something right. The desired effect of the punishment is that the child will not disobey again. A child disobeys his parent, and the child gets punished by losing access to electronics. In common usage, punishment is something bad, a penalty for acting in an unwanted way. So what is the difference between reinforcement vs punishment? Two of the most frequently used words that might cause some confusion are “punishment” and “reinforcement”. Your ABA professional may use words in a different way than you do. I suppose this means that the writers of The Big Bang Theory are not quite as conversant in all sciences as the character of Sheldon Cooper is portrayed to be, which is a surprise because they usually appear to be quite knowledgeable about science in general.Navigating the complex world of special needs vocabulary can be challenging and sometimes frustrating, especially when words mean one thing in common usage, and a different thing in therapeutic situations. He is generally depicted as having encyclopedic knowledge of all sciences. In the show, Cooper is depicted as a real genius with an IQ of 187, a former child prodigy who graduated from college at the age of 11 and earned the first of his two Ph.D.s at the age of 16. But I was reminded of the enormity and pervasiveness of the problem when I watched a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, in which the character of Sheldon Cooper makes the same mistake. I have always known that many people think that “negative reinforcement” means punishment. Another one of my pet peeves is the fact that many people – civilians and scientists alike – use the phrase “negative reinforcement” to mean “ punishment.” The two are not at all the same in fact, they are polar opposites. ![]()
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