Reinforcer Assessments

A basic premise of behaviour is that when behavior is reinforced, it is more likely to reoccur. When behavior is repeatedly reinforced, it becomes learned behavior. When we teach, we want students to learn specific behaviors. When students have problem behaviors, we need to teach alternative, or replacement behavior. For example, instead of yelling out anwers or interrupting a class, we want students to raise their hand. The more a replacement behaviour is reinforced and the problem behaviour is ignored, the more likely the student will demonstrate the appropriate, replacement beaviour (http://specialed.about.com/od/ABA/a/Reinforcer-Assessment.htm).

Parents and caregivers are a good place to start when exploring reinforcers. You can ask for the child's personal preferences: What does he/she enjoy doing when they can choose themselves? Does he/she have a favorite television character? Does he or she perseverate on that particular character? Parents and caregivers can give you some insight in the child's interests that will give you a sense of the kinds of preferences the student will find reinforcing. If the student is able, you can simply ask the student. Sometimes just watching or listening to what the student plays with, spends doing in free time, or talking about will provide you with a list of items or activities that are probably reinforcing.

It is important to have a wide variety of potentially reinforcing items/activities. Not every item that is reinforcing for a student remains reinforcing. It may depend on the time of day, satiation, or the student's mood. It's important to have a rich menu of reinforcement that you can use with individual students when attempting to change behaviour (http://specialed.about.com/od/ABA/a/Reinforcer-Assessment.htm).