One thing you did not discuss is fading. Fade tokens to just use praise and positive attention. Fade constant praise to occasional random praise. Random reinforcement makes a habit more robust and less prone to extinction. (I think of fading as moving toward occasionally reminding the kid that the behavior is evidence of his good character, his virtues, but I a not sure that is explicit in Kazdin’s book.)
A central idea is catch them being good and reinforce. Then, after a period of constant reinforcement, fade. If the target behavior does not happen then you can’t just catch them doing it. So, use methods to get it started: simulation, prompting, token reward charts. (Also, you might shape if starting with some existing behavior.)
Prompting is a technique to get more compliance to commands. Get close to the kid, speak calmly, touch, don’t use a question. Avoid prompting more than a few times (3 or 4) without compliance (nagging). Instead, come up with a different strategy.
Better yet, encourage them to implement their own mental token economy:
″changing cognitive representations of rewards (e.g. making long term rewards seem more concrete) and/or creating situations of “pre-commitment” (eliminating the option of changing one’s mind later) can reduce the preference for immediate reward seen in delay discounting.[146]″
One thing you did not discuss is fading. Fade tokens to just use praise and positive attention. Fade constant praise to occasional random praise. Random reinforcement makes a habit more robust and less prone to extinction. (I think of fading as moving toward occasionally reminding the kid that the behavior is evidence of his good character, his virtues, but I a not sure that is explicit in Kazdin’s book.)
A central idea is catch them being good and reinforce. Then, after a period of constant reinforcement, fade. If the target behavior does not happen then you can’t just catch them doing it. So, use methods to get it started: simulation, prompting, token reward charts. (Also, you might shape if starting with some existing behavior.)
Prompting is a technique to get more compliance to commands. Get close to the kid, speak calmly, touch, don’t use a question. Avoid prompting more than a few times (3 or 4) without compliance (nagging). Instead, come up with a different strategy.
Better yet, encourage them to implement their own mental token economy:
″changing cognitive representations of rewards (e.g. making long term rewards seem more concrete) and/or creating situations of “pre-commitment” (eliminating the option of changing one’s mind later) can reduce the preference for immediate reward seen in delay discounting.[146]″