Behavior Modification

WHAT IS BEHAVIOR ?

Essentially behavior is anything that a person says or

does..
Behavior can be :
#Overt(visible) behavior.
E.G. Walking, talking…

#Covert (private, internal)

behavior. E.G. Thinking, feeling..
 Behavior Modification

Involves the systematic application of learning principles and

techniques to assess and improve individuals' covert and
overt behaviors in order to enhance their functioning..
Basic behavioral principles and
procedures
Maintenance or removal
: of a response
& Reinforcement
Extinction
General guildeline for Behaviour
Modificatiom
1. Keep environment simple
2. Keep instruction simple
3. Give feedback and set goals
4. Be calm and redirect the task
5. Provide choices
6. Decreased chance of failure
7. Vary activities
8. Over plan
9. Task analysis
Steps
1. Perform behavioral diagnostics
2. Identify problem behavior
3. Statement of the problem behavior
4. Selection of the goals
5. Identify rewards
6. Collect baseline data
7. Functional analysis
8. Design and implement treatment procedure
9. Evaluate the program
10. Fine tune treatment procedure
11. Plan for generalization and maintence of changed
behavior
1. Perform behavioral diagnostics: prior to writing
a behavior treatment plan, it is essential that a
comprehensive assessment of the client’s history
and current status.
•Current history

•Current status
2. Identify problem behaviour
a)excessive behaviour:
•Violent and aggressive behaviour
•Temper tantrums
• Misbehaviour with others
•Hyperactivity
•Odd beh
• Self-injurious behaviour
•Abusive language
•stealing
b. Deficit behaviour
•Deficit in activities of daily living
•Communication
•Social skills
c. Stimulus control
•Overfamiliarity
•Public sexual behavior
•Undressing in public
•Public discussion of private events
3. Statement of the problem behavior:

Behavior must be observable and recordable. It

must also be operationally defines. It is
important to specify e.g- what exactly one does
being violent and aggressive.
4. Selection of the goals
•Long term goal- describe the projected
outcome of the treatment plan, e.g., client will
increase dependent living and a minimum
supervision level.
•Short term goal- define the desired measurable
change in target behavior.
5. Identify rewards: for proper implementation
of any beh. Programme identification of reward
preference schedule is must. This will help in
systematically reward appropriate so as to reduce
inappropriate behavior.

Rewards can be identified by observing the

client’s preferable activities, and interviewing the
client using reward preference checklist.
6. Collect baseline data: without consistent data
collection, it is difficult to ascertain whether the
programme is working . Common methods for
high frequency behavior:
•Event recording

•Duration recording

•Interval recording

•Time sampling
7. Functional analysis: its purpose is to identify the
precipitating factors in the person’s environment
(antecedents) which influence behavior. It may be
an event occurring externally to the person( light,
noise and instruction) or internally to the person
( eg headache, seizure, and medication)
Three parts
•Describing the behavior and its surrounding events
•Predicting the factors that control the behavior
•Testing prediction by manipulating the identified
factors.
8. Design and implement treatment procedure:
Treatment procedures can be either accelerative
(designed to increase the frequency or duration of a
target behavior) decelerative (designed to decreased
the frequency) or complex (having characteristics of
both).

Combination of these procedures, in a multicomponent

approach can also be used simultaneously to increase
the speed and stabilization of beh change.
Accelerative Decelarative Complex
•Positive •Changing the •Contracting
programming antecedent
•Stimuls control
•Shaping •Defferential
•Token economy
•Chaining reinforcement
•Prompting •DRI
•modelling •DRO
•DRL
•DRA
•Time out
•Over correction
 Definitions

Reinforcement :
An event, or a condition that increases the
likelihood that a given response will recur in a
situation like that in which the reinforcing
condition originally occurred.

Reinforcer :
A stimulus, such as a reward, that maintains or
strengthens a desired response.
Ex: gift - money
Getting A behavior to occur more often
with positive reinforcement
#Positive reinforcer : is an event that,
when presented immediately following
a behavior, causes the behavior to
increase in frequency (or likelihood of
occurrence)…
 Factors influencing the effectiveness
of positive reinforcement

1-Selecting the behavior to be increased.

2-Choosing reinforces.

3-Reinforcer size.

4-Reinforce immediacy.

5- Contingent versus non-contingent Reinforcement

1-Selecting a behavior to be increased :
-Behavior to be reinforced must be identified
specifically.

Ex: if you start with general behavior such as(being

friendly) you should then identify specific behavior
such as(smiling)
 2- Choosing reinforces..
•Different individuals are frequently turned on by
different things.
•The important thing is to use a reinforce that is
effective with the individual with whom you are
working…
Negative Reinforcement or Escape
Conditioning: The removal of an event following a
response.
Positive reinforcement can be classified
under 5 categories:

1-consumable :
Reinforcer that can be consumed (food or
drink)
Ex: cookies, fruits ,Pepsi ?.

2-Activity:
Ex: watching TV.
3-Manipulative:
Ex: play with favorite toy ,color, paint, surf the
internet.

4-Possetional:
Ex: have a private room.

5-Social:
Ex: hugs, smiles, nods.
3- Reinforcer size:

The size(magnitude)of reinforcer is an

important determinant of its effectiveness.
Ex:
Many of teenagers would likely be
unwilling to eat fruits for 10 SR but many
will eagerly do so for 50SR.
4-Reinforce immediately :

For maximum effectiveness , a reinforcer

should be giver immediately after the desired
response.
5-Contingent versus non-contingent
Reinforcement :
Contingent reinforcement:
When a behavior must occur before a reinforcer will be present .
Ex: child doing his homework after that the mother reward him
with a chocolate.

Non-contingent reinforcement:
If a reinforcer is presented at a particular time , regardless of
preceding behavior.
Ex: The teacher told the student that he’s smart and he can do
the test ,after that the student confidently take the test.
 Pitfalls of positive reinforcement:
Some of reinforcer unfortunately might
strengthen some undesired behavior
unknowingly.
Ex:
Situation response Immediate Long-term
consequences effect

Mother and Child begins to Mother is Child is more

child are whine ‘I want embarrassed likely to whine
shopping in a home , I want and leaves the in similar
.supermarket ”home store situations
. immediately
 Decreasing a behavior with extinction
If a response has been increased in frequency
through positive reinforcement, then completely
ceasing to reinforce the response will cause it to
decrease in frequency.

:Example
 Stimulus Control

*When a particular behavior is more likely to occur

in the presence of a particular stimulus and not
others, we say that the behavior is under the control
of that stimulus.

*The term stimulus control refers to the degree of

the correlation between stimulus and subsequent
response.

stimulus response
*Through experience, we learn to
refrain from performing certain
behaviors in the presence of certain
stimuli because we have learnt that
those behaviors will go
unreinforced.
 Shaping
• Shaping is used to develop a
target behavior that a person
does not currently exhibit.

• Shaping is defined as: the

differential reinforcement of
successive approximations of
a target behavior until the
person exhibits the target
behavior.
 Differential Reinforcement
• A procedure in which a reinforcer follows a
specific desirable behavior but other
undesirable behaviors are not reinforced
• The result is an increase in the desirable
behavior and extinction of the other behaviors
)Miltenberger, 2012(
• DRI (incompalible behavior): It involves
reinforcing behaviors which are topographically
different from or incompatible with target
behavior,
• e.g., if after TBI a person develops tickling
behavior touch and prick at his nose and face
etc. throughtout the day, he may be reinforced
for keeping his hands either on the table or
engaged in hand involved therapeutic tasks.
• DRO(zero frequency): it is reinforcing of target behavior
for a specific time interval.

e.g., if a TBI client exhibit hitting, kicking, yelling, and

noncompliance in therapy, one may design a programme
where client will be required to participate in the therapy
tasks for a total of two minutes without any target
behavior. If client is successful an x can be marked over
one of five squares. If successfully completed will then be
taken out for a walk.
• DRL (low frequency): It provides reinforcement if
target behavior is exhibited at lower rate either in
time or in frequency.
• DRI reinforces a physically incompatible
behavior to replace the unwanted behavior. This
means it’s impossible to perform both behaviors
at the same time.
For example, if you’re trying to teach a child to
remain seated in class, you’re going to provide
reinforcement when they are in their seat and
withhold reinforcement when they are out of
their seat. A child cannot have in and out of seat
behavior at the same time, and so the positive
and negative behaviors are physically
incompatible.
• DRA (alternative): It is giving reinforcement for a
better alternate behavior than for the absence or
incompatible behavior. This is teaching positive
behavior. For example, a student who draws on
her desk when bored may be reinforced for
drawing on paper, playing a game, and helping
classmates on seat work, since these behaviors can
not be going on if the student is doodling on her
desk - they are incompatible with doodling
Stimulus Satiation: it allows unrestricted excess
to the reinforce of an undesirable behavior. The
unconditional availability of the reinforce will
eventually weaken its relationship to target
behavior.
e.g., one TBI pt. developed unusual behavior of
staying in the toilet. When we used to leave
bathroom, he would extremely agitated. When
under satiation programme he was allowed to stay
in the bathroom as long as he desired, though the
problem increased in the beginning, it started
decreasing after two weeks after satiation.
• A child who keeps playing with matches might
be sat down with a large number of matches to
strike and light. This would be continued until
lighting matches lost their reinforcing effect. It is
not known how or why stimulus satiation works,
but it seems to contain components of aversive
counterconditioning and respondent extinction
of reinforcing effects.
Stimulus satiation has been used in the
treatment of smoking by dramatically increasing
the number of cigarettes smoked and/or the
rate of smoking the cigarettes. This stimulus
satiation produced a significant reduction in
smoking with 60 percent of the subjects
abstinent at six months.
Overcorrection: Alternative form of punishment is
overcorrection. It can be of two types.
•In positive practice
•Restitutional
•In positive practice overcorrection the client is required to
practice correct behaviours each time an episode of the
undesired behaviours occurs. For instance, a child marking on
the wall might be required to copy a set of patterns with
pencil and paper.
• In the case of an autistic or hyperactive child who
is pounding objects or himself, he would be told of
his inappropriate behaviour which would be
stopped. Then the child would be given verbal
instructions, and physical guidance if necessary, for
the overcorrection behaviour; in this case a few
minutes of instruction for putting hands at sides,
then over head, then straight out, and so forth
• If clients walks with poor posture to be asked to
practice of an walking with upright posture for
specified period of time.
• Restitutional overcorrection requires that a
person returns the environment to a state better
than before the behavioral episode.
Contracting: It involves a written agreement. A key
to this programme is that the elements of the
contract are agreeable and understandable to both
parties. It can shift the focus the demand of the
therapist to one of cooperative problem solving. It
can work well for tardiness, cooperation and quality
of performance.
9. Evaluation: It is important to continue data
collection during therapy session to evaluate the
effectiveness of the programme.

10. Fine tune treatment procedure: If some

programme does not seem to be working as
effectively as thought of, necessary tuning may be
required.
Plan for generalization: treatment plans are not successful
if behavior change is not generalized to other environment
and condition and maintained over time. There are two
types of generalization.,

Stimulus generalization

Response generalization

Behavior change take place in a restricted environment. It

is the goal of stimulus generalization that behavior learned
under these conditions
be transferred to other setting. Response
generalization involves behavior rather than
conditions under which they occur, e.g., a behavior
treatment plan that focuses on reducing the most
problematic behavior decreases other less severe
behaviours at the same time.