Behavior Modification Essay

PROCEDURES TO ESTABLISH NEW BEHAVIOR In behavior modification, we use a lot of techniques to replace undesirable behaviors with more desirable one. Shaping is a behavior modification technique that is used in everyday situations. It can help a person overcome the fear of spiders or institute potty training to toddlers or animals. Shaping is defined as the differential reinforcement of successive approximations of a target behavior until the person exhibits the target behavior. Thus, shaping is broken down into small, attainable steps. In using this approach, firstly, determine the target behavior. Second, establish steps that work toward that target behavior. Once the steps are instituted, positively reinforce only a

Under response prompts are verbal prompts, gestural prompts, modeling prompts, and physical prompts. We can say that the prompt use is verbal prompt when the person say something or provide assistance verbally and the learner shows the correct behavior. An example of this is when a teacher ask the question “What comes after Thursday?’’ and the teacher prompts by saying Friday. Another type of response prompt is any physical movement or gesture of another person such as pointing or nodding that resulted to a correct behavior in the presence of SD is a gestural prompt. Another example is when the teacher ask the learner “what is something you drink from?’’, So, the teacher would point to a cup. When an educator demonstrates the desired behavior and the learner imitates the modeled behavior and most likely get the right behavior we call this modeling prompt. Lastly, physical prompt also known as physical guidance is described as physically guiding the learner to engage in the correct behavior. Since response prompts are intrusive, it is suitable to use the least intrusive response

It involves adding or changing stimulus to increase the chance of making a correct response. Changing the stimulus is called within-stimulus prompt. There are several ways you can change the stimulus to make the response more accurate by changing its size, shape, name, or color. Allowing the learner to choose the correct image of a popcorn and making the image of a popcorn a lot bigger compared to the other image presented is an example of within-stmulus prompt. On the other hand, adding another stimulus to the SD for the learner to easily identify the correct response is called extrastimulus prompt. It is very important that prompts must be eliminated once the learner is able to engage or identify the correct response. Once the person exhbits the correct behavior at the exact time without the educator or teacher giving any cues, there is a transfer of stimulus control. Prompt fading, Prompt delay, and stimulus fading are different techniques to transfer stimulus control. Similar to shaping there are also procedures to use in prompting and transfer of stimulus