[00:00:00] 

Intro

Amy Wonkka: [00:00:00] Welcome to SLP Nerd Cast. I'm Kate. And I'm Amy. And we appreciate you tuning in. In our podcast, we will review and provide commentary on resources, literature, and discussed issues related to the field of speech language pathology. You can use 

Kate Grandbois: this podcast for ASHA Professional Development. For more information about us and certification maintenance hours, go to our website, www.slpnerdcast.com.

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Visit our website, www.lpnerdcast.com to submit a call for [00:01:00] papers to come on the show and present with us. Contact us anytime on Facebook, Instagram, or at [email protected]. We love hearing from our listeners and we can't wait to learn what you have 

Amy Wonkka: to teach 

Kate Grandbois: us. 

Amy Wonkka: Just a quick disclaimer, the contents of this episode are not meant to replace clinical advice.

SLP Nerd Cast. Its hosts and its guests do not represent or endorse specific products or procedures mentioned during our episodes, unless otherwise stated, we are not PhDs, but we do research our material. We do our best to provide a thorough review and fair representation of each topic that we tackle.

That being said, it is always likely that there is an article we've missed or another perspective that isn't shared. If you have something to add to the conversation, please email us. We would love to hear from you. Before we get 

Kate Grandbois: started in today's episodes, financial and Non-Financial disclosures, um, I am the owner and founder of Grand Wa Therapy and Consulting, LLC and co-founder of SLP Nerd Cast.

Amy Wonka is an employee of a public school system and co-founder of [00:02:00] SLP Nerd Cast. Uh, we're both members of SIG 12 and both serve on the a a c advisory group from Massachusetts Advocates for Children. I am a member of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy, mass a BA, the Association for Behavior Analysis International and the corresponding Speech Language Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis special interest group.

Hooray. I think I always say hooray when we're done with our, with the intro. Exciting to be done with that part of it, I think. I guess, yeah, just like the reading, the reading of the script. So what are we talking about today? 

Amy Wonkka: Uh, we are talking about behavior management part one. 

Kate Grandbois: It's part one. It's part one.

So when we were going through all of this content, we realized that managing behavior. Our field is, um, is dense. There's a lot out there. There's a lot of resources out there. There's a lot of information out there, and we just, we couldn't possibly squeeze it into one one hour episode. 

Amy Wonkka: No. Even [00:03:00] though we, we had the lens of behavior management basics, yes.

We still couldn't squish it all down. We did, we wanted to 

Kate Grandbois: do just like a little skim the tub. 

Amy Wonkka: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Grandbois: Couldn't 

Amy Wonkka: do it, but couldn't do it. I mean, couldn't it mean we could, but not just in one episode? 

Kate Grandbois: But not in one episode? And I think that we came to that decision because over the years, with our combined too many years of experience, we, that managing behavior is a lot of times a cornerstone to a successful therapy therapeutic experience.

Because I always felt like I, I can't teach you how to communicate if I can't get you out from under the table. That was my whole, that was my whole spiel to my husband when I was trying to convince him to let me go back to BCP school was, you know, with my particular set of clients, I, I was ineffective, um, as a speech pathologist because I spent so much of my time trying to better manage, manage [00:04:00] behavior 

Amy Wonkka: well, and I think even, even not thinking population specific when I, you know, when I did my CFYI was in a big community clinic and I had a pretty diverse caseload.

Uh, but there are always things that having this framework, this behavioral framework, there are always things that you can do, even if you're not, you know, trying to get somebody out from under a table, but just trying to get the most meaningful and effective session in that you can. Can get in. Uh, there, there are little tweaks that you can make to just make sure that you are really maximizing that person's experience with you.

Kate Grandbois: I think that that makes, I think that's such a good point. And, and so to sort of piggyback on that, using some of these tweaks to make your, make it fun, to make it a valuable experience, to provide a lot of reinforcement, um, and make it engaging. I think looking at things through a behavioral lens can really enhance a lot of those things.

So, [00:05:00] so sort of using that into our next segue, knowing that this is gonna be a two-parter. Um, so you can use this episode for one Asha, CMH and the other episode for another Ashes CMH. And obviously that's one plus one is two. So the whole behavior management package will be two ashes cmhs. But sort of thinking about why we chose this topic, we feel like while it has been a personal, um, it has really enhanced our practices.

Um, as professionals using behavior management has enhanced our practice as professionals. There is a really, there's a high comorbidity between communication disorders, um, and behavioral disorders that is documented in the literature. Um, one article in particular, by, I'm gonna pronounce their last name terribly wrong, dur, durden, et all from 2012 reference on our website.

Um, approximately 50% of children with autism spectrum disorders have behavioral [00:06:00] problems. Um, and it's not just toddlers either, right? We always think of, oh, you know, you're an ei, or. You're working with, you know, individuals on the autism spectrum who have a high comorbidity of behavioral issues. But, um, it's not just toddlers, it's not just young children and it's not just complex communicators.

There was another article we read by, um, Courtney Kazinski, I hope I said that properly reference on our website. Um, and this was a really interesting read titled Behavior Problems and Social Functioning in Adolescents with Language Impairments. Um, it was published in Perspectives and it's all about the importance of teaching adolescents pro-social behaviors to specifically replace unwanted behaviors because adolescents with language impairments gets so often labeled as naughty or, you know, they may have run-ins with the law or they, you know, get labeled as these quote bad kids with poor behavior.

And it's really an underlying language [00:07:00] impairment, um, that is a contributing factor to that behavior. 

Amy Wonkka: And I think connected with that too. When we think about behavior problems, a lot of times what comes to mind first are sort of those externalized behaviors, like hitting or hiding under the table or swearing or things like that.

Uh, but, you know, you may wanna work on more subtle behaviors too. Like maybe the person just isn't very engaged, um, maybe they're avoiding some tasks, not necessarily in, you know, some horrible outlandish way, but just subtly are there things that using a behavioral framework might make you change your practice a little bit to increase that engagement?

So there's, there's a lot there. And 

Kate Grandbois: I think that's also such a good point that sometimes it's not something that's overt. Sometimes it's covert, so maybe it's just not, it's mostly avoidance. So they're not just not participating and you want them to participate more because of some sort of, and they're, it's really.

It's the absence of the behavior. It's the absence [00:08:00] of, right, the participation that you really wanna improve. Um, I also would be willing to bet that because of this comorbidity, most SLPs, particularly in pediatrics, are gonna run into behavioral challenges and therapy at least once. And Asha agrees with us, believe it or not.

So on the ASHA website, um, and this is a quote, SLPs may find application of a BA techniques within natural training context to be effective compliments to their own communication interventions. So its real, it really well, yeah, it's real, right? Yeah. I mean, managing behavior is a very legitimate part of, of what we are expected to do.

Um, and to sort of take that one step further, I, I know I was gonna say this to you. You know how I made fun of you a couple episodes back about how I hate reading articles, Uhhuh. I never read an article and then read another article. I read an article and it made me wanna read another article [00:09:00] and another article.

And before I knew it, I was, I was deep in a hole, like all, like a totally different topic. So I found it reinforcing the article, the, the article reading just continued to increase. Um, so to sort of, just to piggyback on that idea about how, you know, Asha acknowledges that managing behavior is an important piece of what we do as effective therapists.

It is also, I don't wanna say part of the law, but if you work in the schools, there is evidence that considering a positive behavioral supports could be part of your job. So an article by, um. Keller Bell and Short in 2019, referenced on our website, um, there's an article called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports in Schools, A Tutorial.

Uh, it was published in Language, speech and Hearing Services in Schools. So it was in one of our journals. [00:10:00] And it essentially says that IEP teams are required under IDEA to consider positive behavioral supports. Um, and this is a direct quote from that article. It's imperative that SLPs in schools be familiar with and be able to implement federal recommendations such as PO positive behavioral interventions and supports in order to better support their students more effectively.

So it is evidence-based practice. It is not necessarily in our scope of competence to go walking around and saying, oh, I can write you a behavior plan. I'm an expert in behavior, but it is part of our jobs to make sure we're considering these supports and implementing these supports to maximize treatment for our clients.

Amy Wonkka: And I think, you know, that obviously makes sense. Similarly with the school framework, we expect classroom teachers to have, you know, some degree of grasp on classroom behavior management because it acknowledges the, the [00:11:00] reality that if you aren't available for learning, then you're not doing your best learning.

Kate Grandbois: Right. That's ab that's a very good point. I mean, and I think that can be said as a, not necessarily as a condition of, of human nature, but um, I mean, not a condition of having a communication disorder, but a condition of human nature. I can remember one time in particular in graduate school part, I may or may not have stayed out late.

I may or may not have had too much coffee. I may or may not have felt like trash. I was not available for learning that day and I did not do very well on the exam when that content was covered because I was not available for learning on account of my fatigue. So I think that, you know, it's a really good.

It's a really good lens to look at when you're trying to figure out a way to improve your practice at large. Um, and I think just as like a final note, every clinician has their bag of tricks. I never in a million years could have been a pediatric therapist doing direct service without my star chart. I [00:12:00] use that star chart every single session.

I used my visual schedule every single session, and sometimes it was awesome and sometimes it was garbage and I couldn't get the kid from out, from under the table, or one kid smacked me right across the face one time. I had all my supports. So I feel like every, every speech pathologist has their bag of tricks, but knowing the science behind behavior management, I think can really improve those bag of tricks.

And so to use the word that you used, you know, put in those tweaks to, to make it better. 

Amy Wonkka: Well, and I think you make such a good point, right? And we'll talk more about this as the article as, as we go through these different articles and go through the podcast, but. It's not, it's not you that your star chart was magic.

It's that those times when it was magic, it was magic because of X, Y, Z. So as a speech therapist who's trying to manage behaviors or maximize the efficacy of your session with your [00:13:00] client, having a bit of a better understanding about all those variables and how they interact with one another can help you maybe better pull from your bag of tricks.

Um, but I think yeah, that's a, that's a great point. Sometimes those things are so effective and you're, you're so excited about how well your session went and then sometimes we like 

Kate Grandbois: Totally. Um, so we have two quick disclaimers before we really jump into the meet. So the first is a lot of the content that's pulled from, um, for this episode is pulled from a entry level textbook on a BA, um, by Cooper Howard and Heward, Heward and Howard.

Reference on the website. I obviously didn't write that one down. Um, but, so just to use that as a backdrop, a lot of the, we're not gonna say from Cooper, from the Cooper book, from the Cooper book, from the Cooper book throughout the episode, vast majority of this content is pulled from that, from that book.

The second disclaimer, um, is that this [00:14:00] episode was hard to write because we could go deep, we could go deep on any one of these topics, and we are not gonna do that. We're gonna, we could go deep, but we're gonna stay shallow. 'cause we feel like it's important to give everybody a good lay of the land on how behavior management works.

So if there's anyone out there who wants to learn more about any one of these specific topic topics in detail, send us a note, send us a message, um, we would be happy to, we would be happy to do that. Okay, so onto our learning objectives. Are we ready for learning objectives? I 

Amy Wonkka: think. Yeah. I think the only other disclaimer is that we are not, we're providing general information that you can use to make some clinical choices, but we're not providing specific information to, to treat a specific behavior problem that you may be seeing.

Right. And we would encourage you to contact us or connect with A, B, C, B, A if you're fortunate enough to work with one. Um, a 

Kate Grandbois: nice one if you're fortunate enough to work with a, [00:15:00] with a, and if you're working open-minded and collaborative. Nice one. 

Amy Wonkka: And if, if you have challenges, check out our podcast on collaborative collaborating with 

Kate Grandbois: BCBAs.

Yes, exactly. 

Amy Wonkka: Um, um, they have a lot of great information. Yeah. 

Kate Grandbois: We're gonna go through a lot of examples and you're right, these are just examples. We are not giving, we're getting very general information about, um, behavior management practices. Okay. So learning objectives, we are gonna go through two learning objectives today and two learning objectives in the next podcast.

I am going in the next episode, I'm gonna read all four. Number one, learn the difference between reinforcement and punishment. Seems pretty basic. It's actually pretty confusing. I screw it up all the time. Well, not really, but learning objective number two, learn about the different types of reinforcement, how to choose reinforcers and different schedules of reinforcement.

That's what we're gonna go through today. Next episode, learning objective number three, understand how both [00:16:00] antecedent based interventions and consequence based interventions can help improve client behavior. Number four, review commonly used behavior management strategies and the science behind them.

So, sounds like a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff. Sounds, sounds like it'd be hard to squish into, but it's gonna be super fun. 

Amy Wonkka: Fun. Super fun. Okay. 

Kate Grandbois: Just randomly saying throughout the episode today. It's cool. Okay, so learning objective number one, learn the difference between reinforcement and punishment.

So there's a very quick history lesson that I'm gonna try and sum up in less than five sentences. Let's see if we can do this contest. Boom. It's a, it's a contest. Five sentences. Five sentences or less. Oh my god. Now you're gonna count, aren't you? Because you're so competitive. 

Announcer: Yes. 

Kate Grandbois: Okay. So psychology was full of fluffy things back at the turn of the century.

I'm not off to a good start. 

Announcer: No, that's, so 

Kate Grandbois: I, okay, let's, [00:17:00] 1912, a guy named Watson came up with the idea that there is a relationship between your environment and your responses to that environment. He came up with something called respondent conditioning. Okay. This is like Pavlov's dogs. Am I doing okay so far?

Announcer: You got four. Got one left. 

Kate Grandbois: Okay. So Pavlov's dog. So you, you're the, the dogs see the food and they salivate, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So there is a relationship between your environment, the stimuli and your environment, and your response to that stimuli. Another example of respondent conditioning would be a bright light shines in your pupil, dilate Respondent conditioning is very much a reflex.

Fast forward to, um, 1950s or so, okay? BF Skinner, we've all heard of BF Skinner. He comes along and he basically for the first time [00:18:00] says that there are stimuli in the environment that elicit a response, right? So there's the bright light that makes your eye, your pupils dilate, but. Behavior is more, is more significantly changed by the consequence that comes after the response than the, than the stimuli that comes before the response.

And this is the invention of the three, what we call the three term contingency, or a, B, C, which we are gonna walk you through. 

Amy Wonkka: And he kind of sorted that out, is different from a biological response, right? So the physiological response of the bright light, like no matter how many cookies you get, that's still just what your eyes do.

Yes, 

Kate Grandbois: we do love cookies. 

Amy Wonkka: I I love cookies. You're out of 

Kate Grandbois: wine in your house. Maybe we should use wine as the, 

Amy Wonkka: I now go to the grocery store. 

Kate Grandbois: Course 

Amy Wonkka: wine is not enough to make me go to the grocery store. It is not 

Kate Grandbois: enough. No, but yes. So he separates the, the reflex component from the, from all other [00:19:00] behavior in this three term con cont contingency.

So he basically says that there are three components to every response. The acronym is A, B, C. There is the antecedent or what comes before the response, the behavior. A. A 

Amy Wonkka: antecedent, 

Kate Grandbois: A antecedent. Then there's B, the behavior B, and then there's C, the consequence C. And Skinner says that the consequence has a very important role in shaping behavior.

So an example of this, this is called the three term contingency or opera and conditioning, if anybody's feeling nerdy, but you have your A, your B, and your C, antecedent behavior and consequence. So an example, the phone rings ring, ring your A, there's your A, the phone rings, what's the B? You pick it up, you pick up the phone and you say, Hey, say What's up?

What's up? What's the C? 

Amy Wonkka: [00:20:00] The social exchange. Social exchange. 

Kate Grandbois: Somebody has something, has something to tell you exactly. Um. The social exchange in Skinner's view, the social exchange is the consequence that has shaped the behavior or made it more likely that in the future when the phone rings, ring, ring, ring, you will pick up the phone.

And I'm just thinking of another example for later. Oh good. I'm gonna write it down. Um, so here's your three term contingent. That's your three term contingency, A, B, and C. 

Amy Wonkka: So if you are thinking clinically right, I'm an, I'm an SLP, I have this session. Is it just important for me to think about that consequence?

Kate Grandbois: Both play a role. 

Amy Wonkka: Okay. 

Kate Grandbois: But they're, and they're related to each other. 

Amy Wonkka: Okay. So it's like a, a complex interaction between all. It's a con, 

Kate Grandbois: the antecedent, what comes before the behavior and what comes after the behavior. There is an interaction there, but I think it makes the most sense to talk about the different kinds of [00:21:00] consequences, which are reinforcement and punishment.

Does that make sense? Right. 

Amy Wonkka: So yeah, it feels a little backwards because as we talked about, there's this a antecedent B behavior, C consequence interaction. But once we get through this part, I think the listeners will understand why it makes sense to start here first. 

Kate Grandbois: Definitely. So I think it also makes sense to talk about how these are scientific terms.

So we hear about, I have this argument with my husband all the time about, about, you know, using these words with my kids. So we think about reinforcement as being something happy, something that is, you know, has feel good vibes around it or something that's a reward. But that's not at all what it is in the context of behavior, the science of behavior management, the word reinforcement has a scientific definition, which is.[00:22:00] 

Reinforcement is a res when a response is followed immediately by a stimulus change that results in similar responses occurring more often. That's a direct quote from the Cooper Howard and her book, 

Amy Wonkka: and that's different from our colloquial understanding of that word. And I think one area where people can kind of run into trouble, because if you think it just means good, fun things, you might mistakenly think that you're reinforcing something.

But according to that definition you just read, it's really only reinforcement if it means that behavior happens more often in the future in 

Kate Grandbois: Correct. So, um, I think as a parent, I get into this all the time where, you know, my husband, you know, my son will do something, sorry, my poor son, I'm like, he's too young to defend for himself.

And I'm like throwing him under the vest. But he will do something. Unwanted. He'll throw a toy or do something [00:23:00] and my husband will yell at him or speak firmly to him or do something, and he's like, well, he needs to be punished. But that behavior increases. So, you know, my weasel of a little boy who has all the joy in my heart, what my husband doesn't understand, and I'm really throwing him under the bus here too, is that that is, or what he understands now, but didn't before we had so many discussions, is that yelling was a reinforcer because it made the behavior increase.

So response, uh, just to hammer that definition, home again, reinforcement is when a response or behavior is followed by a stimulus change or followed by something that makes the behavior increase or occur more often. 

Amy Wonkka: Kate, I think that that's such a good example. The yelling is such a good example because for, for me to look at that with my lay person eyes, like that obviously seems like punishment.

We want it to 

Kate Grandbois: be punishment. I yelled at you. I'm mad. [00:24:00] 

Announcer: Mm-hmm. I just 

Kate Grandbois: told you to stop biting me on the feet or whatever weird thing you were doing in your weird 4-year-old, 3-year-old mind. Yes. But if me yelling at you makes you do it more often than it is a reinforcer by definition. And I think it's really important for the lay person or the speech pathologist or whoever to understand that these words, reinforcement and punishment, have scientific definitions.

So a re that's re that's what reinforcement is. And a reinforcer is the actual, it's the noun, it's the stimulus change that increases the future frequency of a behavior. And I think as speech pathologists, uh, this has happened to me multiple times. You know, I have some sticker chart or I have some quote reward that I'm offering at the end of a particular behavior.

I'm looking for like an accurate production of s sound or the accurate, accurate use of a syntactic structure or eye gaze shifts or, you know, whatever my target behavior is. [00:25:00] And it's not working, the response isn't going up. The, you know, the, the behavior is not being affected by the sticker chart or by the star chart.

And that's because based on this definition, those items are not reinforcing. 

Amy Wonkka: Right. So when you think to yourself, but I'm reinforcing it. What's going wrong? The token is the reinforcer. The star is the reinforcer. Why isn't it working? It's not, 

Kate Grandbois: it's because it's not a reinforcer. Right, exactly. Exactly. Um, and I think those casual interpretations of reinforcement applied a punishment too.

So that same example with my son, you know, we, it's, if we think of it as punishment. It's only punishment if the behavior goes down. So looking at the different kinds of pun, looking at punishment that's outside out there. So punishment is the sort of the opposite of reinforcement. It's a stimulus change after a behavior that makes the behavior decrease.[00:26:00] 

So something is only a punisher if the behavior has a decreases in the future. So same example, it's not a beha, it's, you know, child does something naughty. Parent gives lots of attention in the form of yelling or a lecture, or this is why we don't do these things. And the behavior goes up. You think of it as a punisher, but it's not a punisher.

Now if the behavior goes down after you've yelled or after you've made a fuss, then it was an effective punisher because by the definition of punishment, it's a stimulus change. After a behavior, the consequence, A, B, C, B, C consequence. If the behavior goes down, then it is a punisher. 

Amy Wonkka: And I think just a couple of things, um, to note are timing is important too, right?

So it needs to happen. The punishment or reinforcement needs to happen pretty immediately after the behavior for it to be effective. 

Kate Grandbois: Yes. 

Amy Wonkka: In most cases. Again, we could go deeper in this, but broadly, you kind of wanna deliver that within two seconds of that behavior. 

Kate Grandbois: And [00:27:00] maybe we can touch base on this again when we talk about different kinds of reinforcement, um, just to sort of loop it all home.

But in order for reinforcers to be effective, they should be delivered bear as, as close to the response as possible, as close to the behavior as possible. 

Amy Wonkka: And just one more thing, when you talk about the, that behavior goes down, that behavior goes down in the future, right? Not necessarily in that moment.

So the next time he doesn't get the lollipop and you yelled at him last time, he's, he's less likely to. Try and bite your toe or whatever was 

Kate Grandbois: my children don't bite my feet. It was a weird example, but I think every, I think everyone sort of gets the point. So now that we have these basic understandings, this basic understanding of what re by in the science scientific de definition, these basic, the basic understanding of reinforcement and punishment, there are two different kinds of reinforcement and there are two different kinds of punishment.

And this is where it gets kind of confusing. This is the, just to [00:28:00] make it more confusing. Yeah. So there is positive reinforcement and there is negative reinforcement. There is positive punishment and there is negative punishment. Now we have a graphic organizer that we are going to put up on the website a little, uh uh, it's a little chart that can help explain some of these differences 

Amy Wonkka: because, 'cause just listening.

Negative reinforcement sounds like an oxymoron to me, right? Negative, negative reinforcement. Well, when you have 

Kate Grandbois: that definition of like, oh, reinforcement is happy and it's negative, well then it must be a bad thing. That's a 

Amy Wonkka: positive. Yeah, it must 

Kate Grandbois: be a terrible thing. Tell us more. So positive reinforcement is when something is added after a behavior that increases the future fre frequency of that behavior.

So let's go straight to an example, a different example that's specifically related to speech therapy. So you're running articulation drills. You hold up a flashcard and say [00:29:00] banana, they imitate you. They say banana. Wonderful. They do not back the, and they, they do exactly what you wanted them to do. They said a clear bus sound.

They said banana the exact same way that you want them to say it. You say, great job. And you put a sticker on their sticker chart. The next time you show the flashcard and say banana, they, and they, if they are more likely to say banana than the sticker was a re, that was positive reinforcement. You added the sticker, you added something to the situation.

You added something to the A, B, C. The C had something added, the behavior went up. That is positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is when something is removed after a behavior that increases the future frequency of that behavior. So let's talk about the same scenario. You present the flashcard, you say a banana.

Not. You present a flash card, you say you [00:30:00] try and provide as many prompts as you can to get your client or student to say banana, but they hit you instead smack you right in the face. You decide that therapy is over, you can't handle it. You move all the materials because you cannot work with under these horrible circumstances and session.

The session ends for the day. The next time you show the flashcard and say banana, if they hit you again, then they successfully escaped work and that behavior was re, was negatively reinforced because you removed the demands after they hit you. So negative reinforcement is where something is removed after a behavior that increases the future frequency of the behavior.

Okay, so let's do another example. That was a very speechy example. So another example we had used in a different, in an earlier podcast outside of the speech room that was very concrete was you bring your child into the grocery store, you put [00:31:00] the child in the grocery store cart, and the child starts tantruming and you decide everybody's judging you.

You got, this is a horrible experience. Everybody's looking at you, you're causing a scene, you're exhausted. You don't have time for this. So you take the child out of the cart, you leave the store, and you go home. The next time you put the child in the grocery, start the grocery cart. If they keep tantruming, if the tantruming goes up, then you have just negatively reinforced that behavior because you've removed the unpleasant stimulus of the grocery score, grocery store cart, and the behavior.

I. Yeah, that makes sense. It's very confusing. It's confusing. I have a really hard time with these sometimes all the time. It's 

Amy Wonkka: confusing. But I think it's helpful to think about, you know, from a lot of perspectives when you're in the speech session because a lot of times what we wanna do is increase, uh, behavior and that is reinforcement.

And I think that being aware that the things that we are doing that we think are reinforcing, might not be [00:32:00] reinforcing, um, or, you know, the things that we're doing may be reinforcing, but we may be reinforcing something that we don't wanna reinforce. I think just having that awareness can really help when you are either anticipating or trying to work through some behavioral challenges.

Kate Grandbois: Yes, definitely. So that's reinforcement, positive and negative reinforcement. All of reinforcement is making a behavior increase. The only difference is that positive reinforcement is adding something after the behavior. Negative reinforcement is removing something after the behavior. 

Amy Wonkka: And something that helped me when we were learning about this was to just think of it to visualize the, the mathematical symbols, right?

So positive means pluss, it doesn't mean good, positive plus negative, adding 

Announcer: minus, right? 

Amy Wonkka: Mm-hmm. Adding and 

Kate Grandbois: subtracting. So let's talk about punishment. So all, both different kinds of punishment mean that the behavior goes down. Positive punishment is similar to [00:33:00] positive reinforcement in that you're adding something after the behavior that makes the behavior decrease.

So, as an example, you present the flashcard same, same scenario with the kid in the, in the therapy room. You present a flashcard, you say a banana, and your client. Smacks you in the face. That happened to me one time. It wasn't around the word banana, but I, I have been, I've been hit many times and you weren't expecting it.

And you scream, you scream really loud because you have no control over yourself. And you're maybe not, maybe not being a great therapist, I don't know, but the child gets very scared from your screaming. And in the future, the, the hitting is less likely to happen. In that situation, you added a component, the scream that made the behavior of hitting less likely to happen.

Amy Wonkka: Yes, and I think for us to recognize that really we are [00:34:00] focusing on reinforcement in our clinical, we don't, we don't scream at our clients, but sometimes people do. No, we don't scream at our clients. We might scream at our family members, but which 

Kate Grandbois: we shouldn't. 

Amy Wonkka: We shouldn't, but we do. We shouldn't. But sometimes things happen.

Um, I never yell at my kids. What are you talking about? Never. Never, never, never. Not one time. Ever. Never so glad No one can see in 

Kate Grandbois: my house. There's no cameras. 

Amy Wonkka: But you know, when, when we, I think it's helpful to be very aware of this because there are other things that we could do that we could be adding to the situation that are not as clear cut as screaming, uh, and seem totally appropriate and still reduce the likelihood of something happening in the future.

Right. Okay. Last one. The minus negative 

Kate Grandbois: punishment. So. We have this. Now that we've gone through our pluses and minus negative, positive, and reinforcement, I think it's hopefully people can extrapolate that negative punishment is when something is removed after a behavior that decreases the future frequency of that behavior.[00:35:00] 

So just moving on with our same scenarios here. You're running articulation drills and you give them a sticker. This, you know, the student or the client earns stickers in your office and you hold up the flashcard and you see a banana, but you get smacked instead of the child repeating the word banana and you don't scream at them.

'cause you've got, you've collected yourself, you got enough sleep, you had enough coffee, but you do take a sticker away. The hitting the removal of the sticker was the removal of the consequence. It is a punishment if the behavior, the hitting goes down in the future, if it is less likely to happen. In the future.

Now, we were talking about this before we started recording, about how once upon a time when I was a, when I was a youth, we would lose recess minutes. 

Amy Wonkka: Yeah. I totally lost recess. We had to sit on the wall. You'd sit on the wall, 

Kate Grandbois: you 

Amy Wonkka: just 

Kate Grandbois: sit like a dance cap, but, and had to sit the watch 

Amy Wonkka: all the other kids play.

It was, it was [00:36:00] brutal. Oh, that is brutal. Yeah. But we don't 

Kate Grandbois: really do that anymore. 

Amy Wonkka: I don't think so, 

Kate Grandbois: no. So, and I think this is a nice segue now that we understand the different kinds of positive and negative punishment. I think it's a good thing to acknowledge that you should not use punishment. So as a clinician, and that this is another whole body of research that we're not gonna get in, gonna get into, but using punishment has a whole host of side effects associated with it.

There are a whole host of ethical reasons why you should not. Use punishment. I think it's important to understand what it is and recognize it when you see it in case things are being accidentally punished. Um, which I, which I think happens a lot. Um, I have one little story in particular about myself. So I was a new clinician.

I had just gotten a job at a fancy hospital. I was feeling real good about myself and I had this cute little kid. I was like, I'm gonna, [00:37:00] I'm gonna make this kid love me. This is gonna be so great. And the first time he got an answer right on an assessment. I cheered really loud. I threw my hands up in the air.

Yay. That child coward, he was horrified by me. He was very socially anxious. He was com and I couldn't, I couldn't get him back. I couldn't get him to continue responding throughout the course of my testing because I had punished his responding by. Screaming really loud. I had the best of intentions. I was trying to be so happy.

So I think it's important to recognize it and understand what it is, but it's not something that we plan for. 

Amy Wonkka: And I, I think that that's such a great example because most of us know that there are different personalities, whether you're somebody with communication needs or not, we all have different things that we enjoy versus don't enjoy.

I mean, you know, some people like skydiving and roller coasters and for, for those people, skydiving and roller coasters might serve as a reinforcement for [00:38:00] skydiving and roller coastering. You know, for me, no, thank you. Um, and being aware of exactly that, I mean, I don't know who is a pediatric SLP at least, who hasn't had a very similar experience to that.

Like, oh no, I celebrated a little bit too big and now. My client doesn't wanna, doesn't wanna answer me because they were afraid I'm gonna celebrate and scare them. 

Kate Grandbois: I mean, this poor child, all he wanted was to be left alone and to be like, he, I don't know if he had, it was a sensory thing and I was too loud, or if it was an attention thing and he was feeling anxious.

But, um, I think it's just, it's very important to acknowledge, to just understand what punishment is, but don't plan. Don't plan on to use it. 

Amy Wonkka: Right. Don't plan on it, but be aware of it so that if you are doing it inadvertently, you can stop yourself. Right. 

Kate Grandbois: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Um, I think when you get into, I mean, just sort of on the, the piggybacking onto that reinforcement is where it's at.

We always want to [00:39:00] use reinforcement when trying to shape behavior. I think. If you are ever in a situation where you have a complex learner or a student where you know you've taken this information about positive, you know, the different kinds of reinforcement and punishment and tweaked some things, and you're already existing bag of tricks and it's not working, and you are having a hard time figuring out how to get a particular, like a, uh, unwanted behavior removed, talk to your BCBA talk to whoever is in your established organization who is writing the behavior plans, get more brains involved.

Um, I think we don't wanna go using components of punishment willy-nilly to try and get behaviors, you know, unwanted behaviors reduced in a speech therapy session without some sort of guidance. 

Amy Wonkka: But if you are working with somebody who, let's say in that example, you know, you've got your articulation example and your student.[00:40:00] 

Or your client hits you and that's unexpected and you're outpatient and you don't have access to A B, C, BA. I do think that being aware of not reinforcing something is important, right? So in that example, when the student hits me, instead of saying banana, there's really two things I wanna need great 

Kate Grandbois: banana, 

Amy Wonkka: right?

I wanna increase the, the likelihood that they're going to say banana. So I wanna take a look at reinforcement. I bet that the things that I think are reinforcing aren't right. Um, but also with that, don't want to, don't wanna reinforce the hitting either, 

Kate Grandbois: right? Right, right, right. And I think that there's just a, there's you just, you just wanna be careful when you're saying, okay, I want to actively try and put some procedure in place to get the hitting to go down that is based in punishment.

That is just not something. That you wanna do, you always wanna use reinforcement, I think is like the biggest takeaway to knowing that, [00:41:00] oh, there's this scientific thing that can make unwanted behavior go down. Mm-hmm. Yes, there is. But there's a whole host of reasons why you don't wanna root any management, behavior, management plan, and punishment.

Amy Wonkka: So is there, is there anything else a person can do? What about extinction? 

Kate Grandbois: Yes. This is a, this is an excellent segue into, into extinction, which is a good, bad, I feel like this happens a lot without understanding what it is. And we have a couple of examples. Okay. So going back to our little chart, we have positive, we have positive and negative reinforcement and punishment.

There is this one extra thing that's not really reinforcement and it's not really a punishment either. And it's called extinction. And tell us more 

Announcer: about it. 

Kate Grandbois: Yeah. Maybe a word that people are familiar with. So I. Not dinosaurs. No, no. It's not dinosaurs. It's not, it's, it's not, it's not dinosaurs. Um, so extinction is [00:42:00] when extinction is, when a previously applied reinforcer is remove or discontinued in order to decrease or eliminate a behavior.

Ah, okay. So you have a behavior that had an A, B, C. Right? So it had a C and it was reinforced for a long time. And when you remove the reinforcer, the behavior will go down, which is different than punishment. It's different than punishment because you're not adding the consequence or removing the consequence.

For the first time there were, there was an established reinforcer in place already. Mm-hmm. And you're removing that established reinforcer. So. There is a, there is something associated with extinction called an extinction burst, but I think it's best illustrated in an example. Okay, so let's say you have a little, a little guy, a little client, [00:43:00] Johnny and every teacher, every therapist, any every adult that's ever worked with Johnny has made a huge fuss every time he hits people.

So every time he hits someone, somebody, you know, one of his friends, one of his little peers in his classroom makes a big fuss, or a teacher comes over and gives him a big, long lecture about why he shouldn't be hitting people. Um, you know, all he gets out of work, you know, he doesn't have to do his spelling, he doesn't have to do his worksheets.

Um, he gets a whole lot of attention. And the, this, generally speaking, it's negatively, negatively reinforced with the removal of different work tasks, but it's also positively reinforced with additional attention from people. 

Amy Wonkka: So there can be multiple pieces at play. Right, right. So, so you know, it, it could also be the grocery store example.

You know, mom leaves the grocery store, but also gives you a lecture on the way out to the car. Right, right, right. So that's plus lecture, minus grocery store. Right, right, right. 

Kate Grandbois: So Johnny is [00:44:00] hitting and getting a, B, c, he's hitting and he's getting all of these consequences. Boom, boom. He's getting lots of reinforcement for the hitting in the form of removal from work demands and lots of attention from his peers and every other adult.

So Johnny comes into your session and you heard ahead of time, oh, you know, he hits and you decide that you're going to not give him any attention for the hitting and you are going to keep presenting the demands. No matter how many times this happens, that is removing his reinforcers. So what is going to happen?

You do those things, you ignore the behavior, you keep the, you keep the, the work materials present. Johnny is going to keep hitting you. Johnny's rate 

Amy Wonkka: of hitting, we just said the reinforcers made it happen more often. What's happening here? 

Kate Grandbois: So when you remove the reinforcers, the rates of the behavior will go up and, and it's called an extinction burst, but it's [00:45:00] temporary.

So they go up before they eventually are reduced or eliminated. 

Amy Wonkka: So can you give another example? 

Kate Grandbois: My favorite example that I always give to families is the Coke machine or like the snack, the snack vending machine. So since I was old enough to put a quarter in a slot, I have put my money in a Coke machine or a bag of chips machine and I press my buttons and I get my chips.

Amy Wonkka: Okay, so your A, B, C there is like. You, you see a Coke machine? You're, you're thirsty. I'm hungry. Behavior. You put your quarter in the Coke machine. I wish it cost a quarter. You put a quarter in the Coke machine, we're dating ourselves. And then consequence, positive reinforcement plus plus a Coke. You get a, 

Kate Grandbois: I get my, I get my soda or my bag of my delicious bag of Cheetos with Cheetos.

Amy Wonkka: Very hungry. Okay. Cheetos. 

Kate Grandbois: Oh, I love Cheetos. So what happens if my Cheeto bag gets stuck in the machine? Ooh, how annoying is that? The worst. There's my re, my [00:46:00] reinforcement just got stuck in that machine. My reinforcer was removed. What happens? Do I just go? Nope, that's too bad. Walk away. Not likely All the things, right?

You try all the things. Maybe you try putting more money in. Maybe you, I, I get more money. I go complain to somebody who's working at the whatever ice rink or wherever I am, where the vending machine is. I'm gonna kick the Coke machine or the bag of chips. I might do that sad, pathetic little Tyra asosa arm where you stick your hand, like up the machine.

Mm-hmm. Sort of wave it around. Trying to reach it. You tilt it, your response effort, your, your responses, your rate of responding goes up trying to get access to the chips. So your reinforcer was removed and your rate of responding increases until eventually I give up and I walk away. 

Amy Wonkka: But before you did that, you tried all these other first, maybe you tried just putting more money in, or maybe you tried, like pressing that little button, getting your money back, putting that back in, and then you tried other things that maybe weren't even the same [00:47:00] behavior, right?

So you tried jostling and kicking and all these things. So does that mean. In our example with our little guy who's hitting, like, maybe he might even do other things. He might rip up your flashlight. He might up 

Kate Grandbois: the ante. 

Amy Wonkka: Mm, okay. He, if, 

Kate Grandbois: if, if the, you know, reinforcer he was after, was attention, and this has happened to me, you know, it started with a little like, I'm just gonna pinch your hand.

You're not gonna, you're not gonna pay attention. But now I'm in like, full attack mode, you know, I'm gonna be trying to pull your hair, you know, do all these things. And I should also say we're using a, an, an example that is rooted in aggressive behavior. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that when you use extinction, there is going to be an extinction burst.

That rate of responding is going to go up. And you have to be very careful. You don't wanna, you don't wanna use extinction with a behavior that if it [00:48:00] goes up, somebody could get hurt. So if you have a kid whose behavior of choice is headbanging or hitting you and they're 10, you know, and or, or larger, or they're hurting themselves or they're hurting someone in the classroom, or they have the potential to hurt, you know, some, any of these things could become dangerous and, and unsafe.

That's something to consider before deciding cold Turkey that you're just going to ignore it. 

Amy Wonkka: Right. And I think back to, you know, those are times that you should really consider trying to reach out to outside resources. Uh, you know, in, in my example in my head, our, our little client who's working on saying banana, you know, is a little guy.

He's, 

Kate Grandbois: yeah, exactly right. And another example, this is another student that I used to work with. I've had a handful of students who have, uh, burped on purpose, um, or cursed. On purpose. And those are things that, well, you know, I, I, I can listen to Johnny Burp for 10 minutes. I, it's not gonna kill, you know, [00:49:00] that's not something that's gonna be dangerous.

Um, if his, you know, response, if is, if his, the form of his response changes, you know, I need to be aware if it's, you know, there's a risk for it to become aggressive or self-injurious. 

Amy Wonkka: And I mean, there could be even, even less noticeable examples. Like, I'm just choosing not to respond or saying, no thanks, or, you know, I mean, there, there's a whole continuum of much, much safer ways that, that you may, you know, see these.

These challenging behaviors, right? They're not all, 

Kate Grandbois: they're not all. And one other word about extinction, just if you're, if you're choosing to, I, I think in my personal experience, a lot of it has been attention maintained. So it becomes a matter of ignoring the behavior. If it's safe, you feel, you know, comfortable ignoring it, you know, little Johnny is burping or, you know, being silly or you know, something that is totally safe with maintaining.

If you have decided [00:50:00] to ignore it, you have to commit to ignoring it. So let's say little Johnny is doing his best work at getting under your skin and he's calling you names, or he is, you know, making a, dragging his nails down a chalkboard and you're just like, ugh. If you are deciding that you are gonna ignore that behavior, or you're deciding that you're gonna remove whatever, reinforce whatever the reinforcer is, you have to commit to it.

Because if you let little Johnny do it for 10 minutes. And then you decide I can't take it anymore, and you give him the attention. If that's the reinforcer or you remove the work materials, which is what you know, he's trying to get out of it. Then basically what you just said was, all right, well you got, you have to do it for a whole 10 minutes and then you'll get what you want.

So you actually reinforce higher rates of the behavior that you're trying to extinguish. So this is something that is, I think, really important to keep in mind that if [00:51:00] you choose to use extinction, you have to be prepared for the extinction burst to really ride it all the way through. Also, just piggybacking onto that, you should be using other positive reinforcement, other reinforcement systems to replace the behavior.

So you're not just using extinction in a vacuum. You're not just like, I'm gonna ignore you and you know, keep these work demands. Consider having a star chart or another system in reinforcement to. Reinforce compliance. So not only are you ignoring the burping, but every time you get a compliant answer or every time you sit in your chair, you're also earning all of these stickers.

So you never really use extinction by itself. You always use it in conjunction, and we probably should have said that first. You always use it in conjunction with a reinforcement system. 

Amy Wonkka: I think that's such an important point that you made right there. So just to say it one more time, you're never using extinction on its own.

You're [00:52:00] always also trying to teach whatever it is that you would like the person to do instead. And we'll talk a lot more in the second part of this podcast, but just as a teaser, you also may find that you're using some antecedent strategies. So in that A, b, C relationship, we're talking in this episode about all of the C pieces, all of the consequence pieces, but there are also things that you could do in the antecedent before to try and reduce that behavior even before it starts.

Yes. So it's, it's part of a package, 

Kate Grandbois: right. Um. I, I, I feel like we can't even, I can't drive that point home enough, you know? Mm-hmm. May, and if you're working in a school, if your institution uses positive behavioral support systems, you are always going to have an emphasis on using, you always should. Even if you're institution or maybe you're in private practice, you should always have an emphasis on teaching [00:53:00] replacement behaviors that are pro-social, that improve quality of life, that are cusp, you know, you know, behaviors that open doors to other, more lifelong beneficial experiences.

All of those kinds of things. 

Amy Wonkka: And I think, you know, we've talked a lot about BCBAs and part of that is just because of the population that we, that we work with. Um, but there are, you know, for people who are in a school, know, know your resources. You might have a behavior specialist or a classroom teacher who does a really nice job with classroom behavior management.

You know, reach out to people who, you know, in your work environment who do a great job. If you're outpatient, maybe there's another clinician there who, you know, does a really nice job with, with clients who may have a harder time behaviorally, just connect with the resources that you do have. 

Kate Grandbois: Definitely, I think this is maybe a good time to go quickly through learning objective number two.

Mm-hmm. Uh, so now that we know what reinforcement is, what are the different kinds of reinforcement and how, how can you choose [00:54:00] reinforcers and what are the different schedules of reinforcement? I think we know what reinforcers are. We know what punishers are. And I think it's, we've already reviewed that a reinforcer is only a reinforcer if it in, if it increases the future probability of that behavior, if it's presented after a behavior and it increases the future probability.

Just because we think something is reinforcing doesn't mean that it actually is. We've gone through a couple of examples. There are a couple of different kinds of reinforcers, um, that you can consider using. But I think what might be most helpful for our listeners is to talk about, um, how you can identify a re what something that might be reinforcing and also how often you should give a reinforcer.

So in terms of identifying when you give a, in terms of identifying what might be a reinforcer, there are a couple of different ways that you can go about doing [00:55:00] that. 

Amy Wonkka: And I guess a, a point that I think is helpful to think about is that reinforcers aren't static. So. For our clients and for ourselves and for everybody.

It's a dynamic process that changes over time. So something that you identify as, you know, a reinforcer, you guys can't see my air quotes, but a reinforcer, you know, on Tuesday the 15th of November is not necessarily going to be a reinforcer even later in that same session, nevermind, you know, three months later.

Kate Grandbois: Right. 

Amy Wonkka: So it's, it's a process you wanna be continually engaging in kind of assessing whether things are actually functioning as true reinforcers or not. Right? And I mean, I would, 

Kate Grandbois: I know we, we've sort of joked about this earlier in the episode. I, I would work for wine today and tomorrow and the next day, but at some point I'm gonna get really dehydrated and really tired.

So reinforcers [00:56:00] do change. Um, you know, I've had a coworker say to me once, you know, you can only pay me a chocolate cake for a day. Because after that she's gonna be satiated on chocolate cake and no longer want chocolate cake. Um, and I think that's why it's a really good thing to consider when you're working with clients who have varied interests that they might want to work for.

One, you know, something that's reinforcing on one day might be a different, might be completely different from the next day. 

Amy Wonkka: And we'll, we'll get much more in depth on this in the second part of this podcast where we also talk about things like motivating operations, which are something that kind of overlays on top of this whole A b, C relationship that changes, you know, basically 

Kate Grandbois: motivation, what you're motivated for, 

Amy Wonkka: right, right.

What you're motivated for in that moment and kind of how reinforcing different things are. But, alright, so, so I am, you know, I'm in a session. I have somebody who, you know, I want them to try something that's really hard for them and I wanna make sure that there's really something that's equally. Strong that they're going to be reinforced [00:57:00] by.

How do I figure that out? 

Kate Grandbois: Well, I think there's a couple of different, this is again, a whole science, different reinforcer assessments, preference assessments. If you have access to A-B-C-B-A, um, you could get some information from them about how to conduct a reinforcer assessment or a preference assessment.

They're not too terribly time, time consuming. Um, there is, there is some value in having your client choose their own reinforcer. So if they are able to select from an array of icons or select a toy or select something, that might be something to consider. If it's something that's chosen by them, it's more likely to be reinforcing, um, asking the parents so parents know their kids.

Um. If, if they, oh, you know, so if the parent says, oh, Johnny will do pretty much anything for Power Rangers, maybe that's something that you could incorporate. But to your point, if you're asking someone to do something [00:58:00] that's incredibly challenging, they need to be fairly compensated for their work. So you wanna make sure that the reinforcer that you're using is fairly paired with the level of work that they're putting in.

Amy Wonkka: And I feel like you, you used two different terms back there that we should just talk about a little bit. The difference between, and there is a difference between a preference, which is something that you like and would pick and a reinforcer, which is something that increases the future frequency of a target behavior.

So for me, I don't know about for you, but for me, a lot of times what I do, 'cause there are structured, if you go on Google, you can look for structured preference assessments and there's a lot of different ways that you can do that. I do a lot of informal just choice making, like holding up two things or like you said, a picture of two things.

Or you know, for people who are literate, you know, giving somebody a list and asking them to rank, you know, the in order of their preference, all of these different activities or items. Um, sometimes things that are [00:59:00] preferences are reinforcers and sometimes they aren't. And that gets into. How complicated or challenging the task is, um, and all of these other variables about, you know, who that person is in that moment, in that time.

Um, but I feel like starting with preferences is a good place and then you can kind of use your clinical data to make choices about whether that's actually working as a reinforcer or not. I was 

Kate Grandbois: just about to say, I mean, you can always use your data. So by definition, a reinforcer is something that makes a behavior increase in the future.

So if you use a preference assessment or you've talked to mom and you've gotten some ideas, um, um, some things that might actually be reinforcing it, it, you will know from your data if it is working or if it is not working. 

Amy Wonkka: So you talked about schedules of reinforcement. So let's, so let's say I did a preference assessment, or I talked to mom, I found out Power Rangers are where it's at.

We are gonna do our articulation [01:00:00] cards and then we're gonna play Power Rangers. And that's awesome. And we're, you know, we're making progress and we're moving through all of these sounds. We're doing more complex word shapes and we're playing Power Rangers. And we're playing Power Rangers at, at some point you can't always just play Power Rangers, right?

So how do you figure that out? Like, do I go from, do you, like how often do you play Power Rangers? How often do I play Power Rangers? Like when 

Kate Grandbois: do I bring out the Power Ranger? So I think there's a couple of different ways to look at that. Um, I definitely think you consistently reevaluate what reinforcement you're using.

So just because Johnny loved Power Rangers on Tuesday doesn't mean he is gonna love him on Friday. So continually. We do this a lot in, in the PEX trials. So let's say, you know, Johnny loves goldfish. Um, I have one student who will pretty much do anything for beets. So everybody is different, but you know, you can't eat beets all day long, right?

You have to have varied reinforcement. So constantly doing a reinforcer assessment or a preference assessment [01:01:00] throughout different sessions is really important. Picking something that is paired with how much work someone is doing so that they are, you know, you really wanna make sure that the reinforcement is, is potent, is the word that we would use.

So maybe isolate if it's something that's incredibly challenging and you've identified that Power Rangers is the coolest thing in the whole world. Maybe tell mom. Alright, well maybe if you could. Not let him watch a Power Ranger video for two days before you come to my session. I know we're getting into like the an, the A, which we're gonna get into more during our next episode, but making sure that that reinforcer is potent.

It's, and it's powerful, um, for something that's particularly challenging. But in terms of the question of how often to deliver reinforcement, we've already reviewed that you should deliver reinforcement as close to the response as possible. So if that kid produces the best R sound you've ever heard in your entire [01:02:00] life, they, they should be getting that token right away, or they should be getting that high five right away, or they should be getting that tiny piece of cookie or whatever it is right away.

So you wanna deliver reinforcement very close after the response when you are teaching a new skill or when you are teaching a skill, I think that is particularly challenging. You wanna use a, uh, maybe even, uh. A, a dense schedule of reinforcement. So they're getting a lot of reinforcement, but also after every single instance of that behavior.

So maybe for the R sound, which is particularly challenging, every time they produce it correctly, you are giving a token every single time. Every single time they are sitting in their seat for 15 seconds. If they, you know, little Johnny comes in and he cannot sit in his seat, you wanna give them reinforcement as much as possible at every single instance.

It does [01:03:00] depend on the behavior that you're trying to reinforce. I just gave two examples. So one is related to a ratio. So every time you lift your tongue to produce an L sound, that's one instance, you would provide reinforcement for every instance of that, that behavior. The other example I gave of Johnny sitting in his seat.

That's time. That's an interval based, you know, that's a time related behavior. This is particularly kids for a lot of, particularly true for a lot of my students where they're up and about and running around and not really available for learning because they're looking out the window and all these other kinds of things.

If you see that Johnny can sit in his seat for 30 seconds before he's up, that's his baseline. Maybe give him the token or the edible or whatever it is at 20 seconds, right? So you wanna provide the reinforcement at the level where they are immediately after they do what is, what is reasonable to [01:04:00] them.

Does that make sense? 

Amy Wonkka: That makes so much sense. So basically you want the client to have a lot of opportunities to get that reinforcement. You're, you're getting it all the time. At first, this is new, this is hard, and we want. Our expectations sort of to be within your zone of proximal development. Right, right.

Where you're talking about, you know, with the sitting in the seat, we don't wanna, if you sit in your seat for 30 seconds, we 60 seconds is not a realistic Right. Starting point. And it's going, you know, your, your client isn't gonna have a lot of opportunity to get closer to that goal and, and be reinforced.

Kate Grandbois: Right. So let's, let's, let's learn from one of my mistakes here. So I had, just as an example, I had a little kid who, um, let's just go with the Power Rangers example. It was a different video, different cartoon, but loved Power Rangers pretty much was obsessed with them, wore their clothes all day long. And I brought him into my session and I was like, this kid's gonna love me.

I'm gonna give him Power Rangers, it's gonna be great. And I had a star chart [01:05:00] out, it was my first session and I had five stars. He had to earn five stars. Before he got his video of Power Rangers and I got him in the seat and he did something great and I gave him a star, and the rest of the session was a complete disaster.

And I was like, but, but I have, but I have so many Power Rangers look at all of these great things. What I was missing was that, that I should have given him the Power Ranger, the Power Ranger video, the first time he did what I asked because the star itself was not reinforcing, it was an unconditioned reinforcer that Star had no value.

I had to teach him that the star had value by pairing the star with the video of the, with the video of the Power Rangers. So you wanna make sure that, again, you're delivering the actual reinforcer closer to. The behavior that you want to increase [01:06:00] over time. I could have, you know, oh, Johnny, you sat in the chair.

You, you know, you said this great th sound. Here's your star and the video. That's so great. Maybe the next session or later on the section, here's your star. Let's do one more. Oh, here's your second star. Now you get the video. So we're increasing slowly the amount that he can tolerate before he gets the reinforcer.

You have to make sure that you teach, if you're using unconditioned reinforcers or tokens or stickers or something, you have to teach. Sometimes you have to teach the student, or the client that those items are reinforcers or, or you have to teach them that they're, that they're conditioned to reinforce.

You have to pair them with the item that you want to be reinforcing for them to have power. 

Amy Wonkka: Because I think nerdy, nerdy terminology, segue, I think an unconditioned, reinforcer is stuff that is just always reinforcing to people like food and drinks and things like that. Yes, 

Kate Grandbois: [01:07:00] it's, it's so, stars have no meaning unless you teach me.

Stickers have no meaning unless you teach me. Unless I inherently love stickers or inherently love stars. They have no meaning unless they are paired with something that has reinforcing power. 

Amy Wonkka: Well, and that's true. I mean money, right? Yes, that's true for money. A bunch of dollars doesn't actually do anything for, you can't eat dollars.

You can't. I mean, or if someone 

Kate Grandbois: gave me a currency from a different country that has no value to it, I can't, I can't spend that. I'd have to go convert it. You know what I'm saying? So you have to make sure that the reinforcer you're using, if it is a token, if it's not something that is already established as a reinforcer, you have to pair it with something that is reinforcing to give it value, and then you can slowly thin it over time is what we would say.

Amy Wonkka: So just to recap, reinforcement has to be reinforcing, so it has to meet those descriptions. We said earlier, it has to increase the frequency reinforcement. When we're first [01:08:00] teaching you something new, we're giving you lots and lots of reinforcement. Every time. Yeah, every time. And that might take the form of things like stars.

If you understand what the stars are, that might be getting a video that might be just saying, great job. You did a great job, but it should be every time. So that it's clearly following that behavior every time. But over time, 

Kate Grandbois: slowly, 

Amy Wonkka: slowly, incrementally, so the, so the client has so much success. We're 

Kate Grandbois: fading that out.

Yes. You wanna set them up for success. So in my example, if I had given Johnny the Star and the Power Rangers video in the first session, and it went really well, and by the end of the session he was like, oh, this star is awesome. The next time he came back. But I was like, all right buddy, five stars, you gotta wait.

That's so not fair. Right? Not he has to learn. Okay, first it's one star and I get the Power Ranger, then it's two stars, and I get the Power Ranger. Then it's three stars and I get the Power Ranger. So you have to teach them slowly over time that they have either a delay [01:09:00] for their reinforcer or they're expect the re the stars become reinforcing, and you might give it every time they say the th sound, or every third time they say the th sound, or every second time they say the th sound.

Amy Wonkka: Well, and I think we're gonna talk more about this in the second part of this podcast, but there's also a piece that what you're doing is you are becoming reinforcing by doing that, by being a place where your client comes, they're successful, they get access to all of these reinforcing activities or items, you just like the star chart.

You're, you're always there too. And you're the person who's, you know, providing access to all of these things. And I think as a speech language pathologist, this is something that we all know about. Mm-hmm. And we think about establishing rapport. We just don't think about it in this framework. Right. I mean, we, you know, clinically and, and you learn over time that of course you don't want somebody to come in for their initial sessions with you and have it be a bad time for them.

You [01:10:00] don't want your client to feel badly. You don't want them to think that you are a, a bad experience, that they don't wanna come back to. And so I think that's sort of an added plus about doing all of these things that you just explained about reinforcement. Because by, by using that framework and, and being, you know, delivering these high rates of reinforcement at first and making sure your expectations are reasonable and manageable, you're also making your, that client's experience with you a better experience for them.

And that's so important. 

Kate Grandbois: You know, we, we want our, our clients to en you know, enjoy therapy. We want them to, you know, feel like I can achieve this, I can accomplish this. Look at all this great stuff that I've gotten from working so hard. There's that sense of, um, productivity and that sense of, you know, like strong sense of, of success.

Amy Wonkka: And, and because we are all [01:11:00] individuals, what that looks like is so different for everybody. You know, in your example where you had that big celebration for your client, another client that, oh my God, they wanna party, that could been amazing. And they love it and they love, you know, they love the Kate Circus show.

And so that's part of what you're doing as a clinician too, is you're trying to feel out what are those real reinforcing things that make this a great place for this person to come. 

Kate Grandbois: Totally. I feel like that we, we've, I think that maybe wraps us up. I feel like this was very dense. I didn't make too many mistakes, so, so, uh, hopefully our listeners will walk away from this with a little bit of knowledge about, if nothing else, what reinforcement and punishment is, and stay tuned for our next episode, um, where we are going to go through our final two learning objectives related to commonly used behavior management strategies, uh, the science behind them and different antecedent management strategies.[01:12:00] 

Amy Wonkka: Yeah. 

Kate Grandbois: Come back. 

Amy Wonkka: Yeah, come back. Come back and learn with us more because you've learned half of the a, b, c relationship and, and the first part's important too. There we go. Well, thank you for joining us and 

Kate Grandbois: we hope to see you or hear you or something back here again sometime soon.