Re: Do you reinforce your child w/primaries during AVB even if it's a prompted resp.

[Guest guest]

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>I believe our consultant says to give the primary reinforcer whether its

>prompted or not just to keep things going & the child happy at learning.

>I'm kind of torn on this matter. If you don't do your job right a couple of

>times you get fired right? If you don't win a medal ( & all the money that

>usually follows) during the Olympics people might get social praise for

>having been there but, it's " try again during the " next Olympics " . Then if

>you get it right you win the medal ( & all the money that usually follows).

>

>Well, if anyone can enlighten me I'd appreciate it.

>Thanks again for your responses on the other question matter. I'll write a

>memo to the list summarizing the responses.

>

>Sincerely,

>Larry - 8yr old 's, 1/2 century old dad

Dear Larry,

I thought long and hard about answering this. I'm so worn out. I feel

distressed enough that I have to defend primary reinforcers to the

education world, and I find myself explaining everything and feeling as if

they hear nothing. But your question is of a different nature.

The question is valid and interesting to me. I hope I can do it justice.

First, I personally never compare an atypical learner with typical

learners. Remember, we are comparing kids who find acquisition itself very

challenging. The people in the Olympics are experts at what they do.

They've gone beyond acquisition to being fluent, to being considered the

cream of the crop, the best of the bunch, etc.

Not only do they do the tasks they do, those skill sets the coaches trained

them in and that they have practiced hours and hours and years for, but

they have a great satisfaction in the tasks themselves. The reward is being

better than they were, and better than their peers and wanting

recognization on a national level and later they dream of recognition on an

international scale. It's a very different sort of thing when you talk

about a kid with autism who does not care about recognition or who is still

struggling with integrating the task or skills, or steps into their daily

lives. They don't dream it, they dread it.

Especially if they don't see the relevance or have any real desire to be

good at it. Clearly the person training for the Olympics who is not totally

and passionately commited to the idea of being a gold medal winner won't be

able to do it. There is too much self sacrifice involved, pain, sweat and

tears. You have to want it with every fiber.

For most things we teach kids who are autistic or have related disorders,

you'd be hard pressed to find a skill that they want to learn with every

fiber of their being. That we want for them. In fact you'd be hard pressed

to find a skill we introduce that they don't resist with a great deal of

their being.

To answer your question here is my personal view on reinforcement.

Obviously DRO is important. If you prompt and you've been at the task a

while, you're not likely to go on and on with praise and feeling, and

write out a big check. ;-)

But in my son's case, lets say we are working on tacts, and this is so

hard for him, and we require echoic training and intraverbals, and

reversals to get those tacts out. Lets say I am teaching him to say CAT

when he sees photos of cats. And I have to prompt. It's instructional, and

that is where we are at. I am going to praise big time, pats on the back,

grins and nods, and offer a sip of Coke or a bite of bagel or whatever he

loves, or usually what we are working on for mands. But, he's going to be

reinforced in a large way. And yes, he was prompted and he was helped. Now

lets pretend he says CAT with just a mouth prompt, I mouth it and out comes

CAT loud and clear. PARADE TIME. GREAT GLEE AND JOY.

And certainly the degree of reinforcement has gone up. Now lets pretend, I

put out a few pictures and I am laying one down and Isaac glances over to

the left and sees a pretty kitty picture and says happily, " CAT!'

Oh God, he is gonna get half the can of Coke, big kisses, and tickles and

there will be no doubt in his mind and probably my neighbors that he did

something very wonderful indeed.

So, we praise and reinforce for prompted trials, but as you suggest, some

times it is low key, and sometimes its a nod, a smile, a pat on the

shoulder, a small piece of cracker, versus a moderate or large piece, or in

the rare circumstances, a whole damn box of crackers. OK, we never have

done a whole box. The kid starts tacting freely for two or three items in a

row unprompted, and he gets the whole box of animal crackers I swear right

now. ;-)

I think that if you are working on pure acquisition, new stuff or hard

stuff, or its new staff that you can reinforce for looking, attending,

joint attention when needing help, because looking to you for assistance,

as long as it is not a cop out, is a first sign of asking for help and the

child is saying, I'm willing to perservere, but I need some guidance now,

okay. Then the kid can get primaries coming fairly often indeed, especially

if you're also doing manding training in there. And you can expand your

mands all the time. You might think well he can ask for a donut. Well, then

start having him ask for the round donut or the donut stick, or the donut

hole or the pink donut or the chocolate donut. You get the idea. But you

can reinforce a LOT for legit stuff there, and feel good about doing it.

Because you are working on one task or skill or subskill, but

simultaneously you are working on language. You just save certain things

for the big deal unprompted stuff or really cool responses. I hope that

makes some semblence of sense.

Jennie