Literature review
Over the years a lot of research has been conducted on the identification modification and evaluation of variables that affect changes in human behaviour. As it were there is a great history associated to the quest for a solution to this all too common problem that cuts across the cultural regional, societal and social divide.
However, little progress has been made in the management and control of incidences of behavioral changes among young people. Few if any of behavioral scientists have engaged their energies in the search for an ideal behavioral management scheme for the young people. This has exposed the needy society of a host of speculative untested measures which often lead to negative or no results.
It is rather ironical that there is little information on behavioral change in young people at a time when behavioral sciences are increasingly broadening and expanding to provide answers to societal questions such as delinquency. A lot of the little interest in the subject, many has been on delinquency its causes and effects. The rest has been left to humanitarians seeking to assist children in marginalized areas or disadvantaged situations.
School conditions have been said to contribute to the motivated change in young people. These conditions highly influence the productivity of a student and their tendency to engage in social or antisocial behaviour. For instance, lack of clarity of school rules, ineffective instruction as well as in relaxed enforcement of rules provides an opportunity for the student to engage in reproachable behavior as a way of expressing dissatisfaction.
The challenge becomes even greater with students studying English for speakers of other languages due to their diverse cultural backgrounds and conceptions of life. They come with different talents and experiences leaving the responsibility to their supervisors to create a harmonious and conducive reading and learning environment.
Arguments
Behavioral research indicates that the most appropriate way to manage behavioral problems is by employment of positive reinforcement. Behavioral scientists have narrowed down the concept by defining a positive reinforcer as any circumstance or event that heightens with a measurable amount, the subsequent recurrence of certain behaviour. The most common of these reinforces include the following
- Material reinforcers
- Social reinforcers
- Activity reinforcers
- Token reinforcers
Material reinforcers are the material objects and items presented to the individual once they engage in a positive act or behaviour. They are the tangible benefits that accrue to the individual after they undertake appropriate behaviour. Such reinforcers include food, water (soda, juice) or even skill. These can be categorized into primary and contingent reinforcers. Primary reinforces necessarily include those that are basic biological needs. Contingent material reinforcers include pencils toys and awards
Social reinforcers on the other hand are a representation of the mental fulfillment derived from the undertaking of appropriate behaviour. The potency of this toll of reinforcement has been voucher for effectiveness especially in the teacher student relationship in the influencing of a broad variety of behaviors. They take the form of verbal praise, approval (a smile, a hug) or being noticed.
Activity reinforces are the choices available to a youngster in the undertaking of an activity. The freedom to choose is granted to the teenager once they engage in appropriate behaviour.
The individual cloud be allowed for instance to choose between doing their assignments or homework or playing video games for a certain period. Even though the latter is a compulsory activity the individual is allowed to choose when to undertake the activity. The behaviour manager however limits the length of time that the individual undertakes each activity.
Token reinforces on the other hand are employed as a last resort of social activity and material reinforcers. They take the form of symbolic items such as stars points or chips that are earned each time the individual engages in appropriate behaviour. These fall in the place of the above three tools and can be used to reinforce a wide range of activities at once.
Of these tools the social reinforcers are the easiest to use and implement. They require little costs and can be repeated more than once without causing monotony. It however is less effective as a beginning strategy in the behaviour influence process. The use of material reinforcers proves more effective at the preliminary stages when the behaviour is aggressive and disruptive
Token reinforcement also proves fruitful at the initial stage since the child is able to make a record of their progress of desirable behaviour. It also provides a basis for justification to the child and by the behavioral manager of the benefit and need to adopt desirable behaviour.
Kaplan and Carter (1995) suggest that before the behaviour manager can choose tokens as a reinforcement tool they should consider among other things the following.
- The criteria to be followed in evaluating a child for the award of a token. There should be a set list of the specific behaviors that if successfully undertaken will equal to a certain number of points.
- The type of tokens should also be ascertained. The behavioral manager should indicate to the child, what the token will be. For instance the token should be relevant to the age of the child. They should not be easy to forge or implicate.
- The manager should also set the number of tokens to be awarded for certain behaviors. The amount should be achievable and not too easy to ensure that the child recognizes the challenge.
Proponents of the token economy suggest that the teenager may simply be asked what it is that they wish to be awarded as a token. It is arguable that this limits the choices available to the child since they are not going to choose from what they donāt know. They suggest a solution to this problem by providing three guidelines to assisting the child make a choice (Carr, 1981).
The teacher evaluates the effectiveness of an event as a reinforcer. This is done by documenting the effects of the event in question on the child. This is achieved by requiring that the event be repeated over and over during which times thee reactions and reflections of the youngster in so far as happiness or sadness at the beginning and end of the event is concerned (Kendall, 1993).
The freedom of choice gives a teenager a sense of control and reduces the chances of rejection of the reinforcement approach as a way to influence the youngsterās behavior. It is important that he be allowed access to the available options even those that are not viable. The behavior manager then explains the reasons that make these choices not viable.
Evaluation of behavior is difficult especially in measurable terms. The behavior manager can therefore go round this problem by issuing small questioners (Tharp and Wetzel 1969)which in substance comprise of incomplete sentences which the teenager responds to in accordance with their view of the reinforces availed to them.
Factors that influence the success of positive reinforcers
As opposed to negative reinforcement, positive reinforcements object is to motivate the repetition of certain behaviors in a child. They increase the chances that the behavior will be repeated by the teenager. There are several factors that influence the success of the execution of this cause (Harris, 1988).
Contingency- straight forward as it is this rule escapes the actual importance that should be awarded to it. The youngster should have an explicit view of the connection between the desirable behavior that the reinforcement seeks to encourage and the reward that accrues to that obedience. There should be an indefinite connection between the overall concept of good behavior and the contingency management efforts.
Immediacy- the ability of a child to connect the reinforcement and the good behavior runs on a short span of concentration that depends on the length of time between the behavior and the reinforcement. The shorter the time, the higher the chances that the child will connect the relationship between these two events.
Immediacy reduces the ambiguity as to which specific behavior preceding the reinforcement is actually being condoned. Lack of immediacy could send the wrong impression especially if the good behavior is immediately followed by reproachable behavior.
Consistency– the prescription of positive reinforcement delivers results gradually and with little dramatic showdown. It is therefore important that the reinforcement be done regularly and consistently. Consistency goes to the ends of ensuring that the reinforcement remains objective to a specific positive behavior.
Frequency- The teenagerās behavioral repertoire will only be ascertained at the preliminary stage of reinforcement by ensuring that there is a high frequency in the contingency management efforts by the behavioral manager. During this phase there is no specific objectified behavior that the teacher will be addressing the complement to. However after the establishment of the repeated good behavior he will focus on the encouragement of this behavior in future.
Amount- the distinction and association between learning and performance by the child lies in the amount o reinforcement they are issued with. However the influence of this rule tends to bend more on the performance rather than the learning aspect.
As it were the chances that the teenager learns a new behavior with the promise of a high reward are virtually equal to chances that they will learn the behavior with a promise of a lower reward. On the contrary they are less likely to perform such behavior with the promise of a lesser reward than if they were promised a greater on e.
Variety- Like all other contingency management measures, positive reinforcement is prone to monotony. Monotony extinguishes the challenge and makes the teenager less interested in the reinforcement mechanism. It is therefore important that the teacher maintains a reasonable selection of reinforcement options to encourage and stimulate interest in the teenager.
It also ensures that the effect of the reinforcement and the subsequent responsiveness are maintained at progressive levels. This means varying the content of the reinforcement comments. They could even be adjusted to gain the context of the specific event for instance, āyou actually listenedā
Withdrawal of positive reinforcement
The ultimate goal of the contingency management efforts embodied in positive reinforcenet goes to the instruction and control of the childās behavior. They are an attempt at adjusting the youngstersā behavior to meet the social moral societal and legal standards and prescriptions of good and acceptable behavior.
Reinforcements seek to rearrange and re-evaluate the teenagers behavioral repertoire to reduce if not eliminate the occurrences of antisocial and undesirable behaviors that appear in the form of aggression negative and disruptive character. The above mentioned procedures amount to a prescriptive process that drives the teenager towards this course. Upon achievement of this goal raises the need to withdraw the support offered by reinforcement to give war for maturity and adoption of the new behavioral repertoire.
Research indicates that the most effective way to withdraw positive reinforcement is through extinction. It embodies the withdrawal of reinforcement of certain behaviors that would in normal circumstances, be reinforced.
The question as to when withdrawal or extinction will occur is purely a matter of the teacherās management philosophy and his stretch of tolerance to deviance. Depending on the extent of the variables such as the age, sex and status of the child the teacher decides the leeway which the child will be allowed in as far as deviance is concerned (Barry& Singer, 2001).
Behavioral scientists have recommended a two tail precautionary measures that are to be observed by the teacher in the extinction process. Commenting on the actual ignorance of the minimal aggression accounts defeats the actual purpose of the extinction process. It is therefore important that the use of such indications is minimized to leave room for the extinction process.
The teacher should also not give physical indication to the child of disapproval such as looking away lest they get the impression that they are actually being noticed but being ignored. This method however only applies to behavior that is not harmful to other children.
References
Barry, L. M., & Singer, G.H.S. (2001). A family in crisis: Replacing the aggressive behavior of a child with autism toward an infant sibling. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 3, 28ā38.
Carr, E. & Dores, P. (1981). Speech vs. sign comprehension in autistic children; analysis and prediction. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 37, 587-597.
Harris, K. R. (1988). Cognitiveābehavior modification; Application with exceptional students. In E. L. Meyen, G. A. Vergason, & R. J. Whelan (Eds.), Effective instructional strategies for exceptional children (pp. 253ā268). Denver, CO: Love Publishing Company.
Kaplan, J. S., & Carter, J. (1995). Beyond behavior modification; A cognitiveābehavioral
approach to behavior management in the school (3rd ed.). Austin, TX: ProāEd.
Kendall, P. C. (1993). Cognitiveābehavioral therapies with youth: Guiding theory, current status, and emerging developments. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61, 235ā247.
Tharp, R. G & Wetzel, R. J. (1969). Behavior modification in the natural environment. New York: Academic Press. 236 p.