Reinforcers (and some reminders from Rhonda)

[Guest guest]

At what point are edible reinforcers

> discontinued? Can edible reinforcers be used with those children who are

> highly motivated even if they are preadolescents? Does anyone have any

> suggestions on the types of reinforcers that work for their children? If

so,

> would you please share and also give the age of your child. Thank you.

and others,

You can only decrease or eliminate food reinforcers when other things become

more reinforcing. The ultimate goal is that people become reinforcing to

the child. (thus resulting in socialization) This is the reason therapists,

parents, and other professionals need to " become " reinforcing by " pairing "

themselves with those other things that are reinforcing to the child (which

also refers to the things that a child stims on. This is where Dr. Carbone

comes in and recommends using video tapes.)

Zachary has been at Jericho for 2 weeks now. They have spent most of that

time trying to become reinforcing for Zach. We have worked strictly on

manding/tacting. Basically we are trying to keep Zach engaged in language

through using his favorite reinforcers (pez, popcorn, sprite, coke, beanbag,

tickles, steam train books, sesame street books, words, etc.). It is our

goal that we can decrease many of Zach's self stims before we move onto more

progressive programs.

Anyway, I did not mean to get off track... I wanted to say that it is

important that the people working with your child are paired with

reinforcement. A child should not run the other direction when your

therapists walk in the door (This is a definite sign that your therapist

is not paired with reinforcement, so you may want to back up and just make

therapy fun for a couple of weeks.... so the child enjoys doing therapy.)

I need to review my notes from the solutions workshop I attended to provide

you with other suggestions for pairing. ... in the meantime...maybe we can

start a thread on " pairing " considering we have so many new people on the

list.

Hope this helps some...

Rhonda

PS I am sorry I do not have as much time right now to monitor this list... I

do want to make a special request that listers please remember to...

1. do not send personal messages to the list, please send it to the person

directly.

2. stay on topic (success stories are on topic. we all need to see the

progress our children are making... it helps keep us focused and also helps

give that extra push we may need on certain days.)

3. No flaming please. Love thy cyberspace neighbor (pretend the person

can see your face when you post to this list.)

REMEMBER: is not a new methodology... it is ABA with the support of

skinners theory on language (which is the element most ABA programs seem to

be missing.). Basically the name for this list came from Chapter 13 of the

Teaching Language book from Sundberg/Partington. Please understand it is

not one (DTT) without the other (NET). Discrete trial teaching is just good

teaching that occurs in the natural environment. Skinners breakdown of

language gives that extra edge many programs seem to be missing. (It has

definitely showed me how difficult language can be for our kids to learn....

and has also given me a different view on language too.)

Good luck to everyone and may these teaching techniques provide your

children with the skills they need to live in our world.

Rhonda

bbird098@...