Tag Archives: types of differential reinforcement

Tip of the Week: Using Differential Reinforcement of High Rates of Behavior to Increase Preferred Behaviors

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Differential Reinforcement of High Rates of Behavior (DRH) is “reinforcing only after several responses occur at or above a pre-established rate” (Mayer, Sulzer-Azaroff, & Wallace, 2013). There are times when a behavior is already in a student’s repertoire, but you may want to increase the rate of the behavior.

Mother Waking SonFor example, let’s say Harold frequently won’t get up independently on weekdays before school. It’s driving his parents crazy, because they have to drag him out of bed several days a week. You may set up a DRH to increase the rate of him getting up independently. Since Harold currently gets up independently at least one time per week, you would set the goal for two times per week. (You don’t want to set the goal too high, because then Harold might not ever come into contact with reinforcement, and his behavior will likely remain unchanged.) Let Harold know that if he gets up independently two days in a row, you will make his favorite breakfast on the second day. Once Harold has met this goal a few time, increase the requirement for reinforcement. You would move from two days in a row to three days in a row in order to receive his favorite breakfast.

You would continue this until you had reached a pre-arranged goal. It’s important to be realistic in our expectations. You don’t want to change the goal to quickly or make it unreachable. You also don’t want to place higher demands on an individual with disabilities than you do the general population (as discussed in our previous Simplifying the Science article). Many people, for instance, hit the snooze button several times before they actually get up, so it may not be necessary to require an individual with disabilities to wake up the very first time the alarm clock rings 100% of the time.

You may discover that your intervention with Harold is working quite well for a couple weeks, then suddenly stops working. You may need to backtrack a bit, and require fewer consecutive days of independently waking up. Or, you may need to vary the reinforcement. It’s possible that having his favorite breakfast has lost some of its power as a reinforcer.

Finally, after the behavior has reached your goal rate, you should begin to fade the reinforcement entirely. Of course, Harold should still have access to his favorite breakfast, but you should not continue to give it to him on the fifth consecutive day of waking up independently for years to come!

DRH is yet another variation of differential reinforcement that can be very useful for you. It’s also provides an opportunity for a much more positive interaction than introducing punishment to Harold for not waking up independently, and can decrease everyone’s stress levels at the beginning of the day.

References

Mayer, G. Roy, Sulzer-Azaroff-B. & Wallace, M. (2013). Behavior Analysis for Lasting Change-3rd ed. Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY: Sloan Publishing.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.

Tip of the Week: DRA and DRO – Differential Reinforcement Tools for Behavioral Change

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Recently we’ve been delving into different types of differential reinforcement. We’ve taken a look at why differential reinforcement is valuable as well as how to use DRI. Today, we’ll look at two more that are closely related: Differential Reinforcement of Alternative behavior (DRA) and Differential Reinforcement of Other behavior (DRO).

DRA is “a procedure for decreasing problem behavior in which reinforcement is delivered for a behavior that serves as a desirable alternative to the behavior targeted for reduction and withheld following instances of the problem behavior (e.g., reinforcing completion of academic worksheet items when the behavior targeted for reduction is talk-outs)” (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). The key thing to remember here is if you are implementing a DRA, a specified alternative behavior has been selected for reinforcement.

For example, Miss Watson wants her students to stop calling out answers. She decides she will not reinforce students calling out. In her situation, this means that if a student calls out she will not provide them with any attention, including reminders not to call out. She is going to reinforce the alternative behavior of raising your hand. This is a very common use of DRA, and it works well.

In another example, Lisa’s daughter often cries when she doesn’t get what she has asked for. Sometimes this results in attention, and sometimes it results in Lisa finally giving in and providing the item. Lisa decides to use DRA to address this behavior. With this intervention, any time that her daughter says “Okay” instead of crying when refused an item, Lisa provides reinforcement in the form of attention or playing with a different item than was requested.

DRO is quite similar. It is “a procedure for decreasing problem behavior in which reinforcement is contingent on the absence of the problem behavior during or at specific times” (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). With DRO, you would reinforce any behavior that wasn’t the behavior targeted for change.

For example, Mrs. Cuthbert notices that Anne is staring out the window frequently during lass. She decides to implement DRO. She sets a MotivAider for 5 minute intervals. Each time the MotivAider buzzes, she looks up and if Anne is doing any behavior other than staring out the window, Mrs. Cuthbert provides reinforcement. (There are two ways to implement DRO, which we’ll get to in a future post.)

DRO is especially beneficial because it is widely applicable, relatively rapid, and often durable and general (Mayer, Sulzer-Azaroff, & Wallace, 2014). However, you should be aware that you may run the risk of reinforcing other unwanted behavior. It can also make you focus on the “negative,” since you’re always looking for the problem behavior or the absence of the problem behavior (as opposed to a specific desired behavior, as in DRA.)
DRA and DRO are useful tools to add to your arsenal of behavior change tools. You may be wondering why it’s important to consider the differences between DRI, DRA, and DRO. The key to remember is that using these terms and understanding the possible strategies for reinforcement improves your implementation of interventions and your communication with other adults implementing those interventions.

References

Cooper J.O, Heron T.E, Heward W.L. Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson; 2007

Optional Text: Mayer, G. Roy, Sulzer-Azaroff-B. & Wallace, M. (2013). Behavior analysis for lasting change (3rd ed.). Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY: Sloan Publishing.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.

Tip of the Week: Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Behavior

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In a recent post, I talked about Skinner’s emphasis on differential reinforcement. Today, we are going to take a closer look at Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible behavior (DRI). DRI is defined as “a procedure for decreasing problem behavior in which reinforcement is delivered for a behavior that is topographically incompatible with the behavior targeted for reduction and withheld following instances of the problem behavior (e.g., sitting in seat is incompatible with walking around the room) (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007).

Let’s look at a few examples of DRI in action:

  • Mrs. Clark is teaching a classroom with six students with autism. One of her students has recently begun to pinch his arms. She takes data on the behavior and discovers that it functions for attention. (When he pinches his arms, she or a teacher’s aid comes over and tells him “no pinching.”) She decided to implement an intervention that utilizes DRI. She teaches him how to sit with his hands intertwined on his desk. This is an incompatible behavior with pinching because he is not able to pinch while his hands are intertwined. She and the teacher’s aid reinforce him for intertwining his hands (come over and tell him, “great job” or “I like how you’re sitting”) and do not provide attention when he engages in arm pinching.
  • Carly has a 9-year-old daughter. When her daughter wants a break from doing homework, she reaches over and hits Carly’s arm. Carly typically says, “Do you need a break now?” Then, she allows her to take a five-minute break. Carly recognized that her daughter’s intensity with hitting seemed to be increasing, and she was worried she might get hurt. She decided to implement an intervention that utilized DRI. She put a timer on the table within her daughter’s reach, and taught her daughter to touch the timer when she wanted a break. This is an incompatible behavior because her daughter cannot simultaneously touch the timer and hit Carly. When Carly’s daughter touched the timer, she immediately received a break. When she hit Carly, she did not receive a break. This was an especially useful intervention because, over time, Carly taught her daughter to set the timer on her own and become more independent with managing break times.
  • Mr. Holley teaches a preschool class. During circle time, many of his students become very excited and can be quite loud. Sometimes it seems as though all of his students are yelling at the same time. Once they become too loud, it is very challenging to regain their attention. He decides to implement an intervention utilizing DRI. He uses a decibel meter on his tablet (such as the app Too Noisy). He teaches the students that when the noise level is below a certain number or threshold they all earn stickers. This is differential reinforcement of an incompatible behavior because the children cannot possibly speak loudly and softly simultaneously.

DRI is not always the best option. For example, it may be very challenging to come up with an incompatible behavior. Or, in the case of self-injurious or aggressive behavior, it may be dangerous to use such an intervention.

If you do use DRI, you may consider explicitly telling your learner(s) that you are implementing this new plan, such as Mr. Holley did in the third example above. And remember, this is only one form of differential reinforcement. If DRI is not appropriate for your situation, there are definitely still options for reinforcing appropriate behavior in an effective and efficient manner.

References

Cooper, J.O., Heron, T.E., & Heward, W.L. (2007). Applied Behavior Analysis – 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.

Tip of the Week: Why Differential Reinforcement is Preferred to Punishment

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In B.F. Skinner’s phenomenal book The Technology of Teaching, he briefly discusses problems with punishment. He explains that the use of punishment (defined as adding or subtracting something from the environment in order to reduce the occurrence of a behavior), is not as clear-cut as we might imagine.  When we attempt to punish a behavior, it’s quite likely that we will unintentionally suppress a broader range of behaviors than we intended.

Skinner gives the example of a child who has touched a candle flame and been burned. The child has probably been taught not to touch the flame, but Skinner argues that it’s quite possible that “in the presence of a candle flame he will not be likely to explore any part of the environment, to reach for or grasp objects of any kind” (Skinner, 1968, p. 186). This is an important consideration, especially when we consider the classroom.  We have to ask ourselves, when we punish certain behaviors, are we unintentionally suppressing other, desirable behaviors?  And in punishing the undesirable behavior, are we clearly communicating to the child what the desirable behavior is?

Skinner then moves on to discuss alternatives to punishment. What he describes is known today as differential reinforcement.  Since Skinner wrote The Technology of Teaching, a great deal of research has been completed on differential reinforcement, which “consists of reinforcing particular behavior(s) of a given class (or form, pattern or topography) while placing those same behaviors on extinction and/or punishing them when they fail to match performance standards or when they occur under inappropriate stimulus conditions” (Mayer, Sulzer-Azaroff, & Wallace, 2014).  Put simply, we reinforce the desired behavior and do not reinforce the undesired behavior.

Today we have categories for many different types of differential reinforcement to better describe strategies for implementation.

Types of differential reinforcement include:

  • Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DRA)
  • Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO)
  • Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Behavior (DRI)
  • Differential Reinforcement of High Rates of Behavior (DRH)
  • Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates of Behavior (DRL)

Differential reinforcement is an incredibly useful tool for teachers and parents.  So we will devote several Tips of the Week over the upcoming months to how to use it effectively, taking a closer look at each of the types listed above.

References

Mayer, G. Roy, Sulzer-Azaroff-B. & Wallace, M. (2013). Behavior analysis for lasting change (3rd ed.). Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY: Sloan Publishing.

Skinner, B. F. (1968). The technology of teaching. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.