COPING WITH UNDESIREABLE BEHAVIOR

COPING WITH UNDESIREABLE BEHAVIOR

No matter how successful you are at accentuating the positive, there are times when you must cope with undesirable behavior, either because other methods fail or because the beahaviour itself is dangerous and calls for direct action. For this purpose, negative reinforcement, satiation, reprimands, and punishment all other possible solutions.

Negative Reinforcement. Recall the basic principle of negative reinforcement; If an action stops or avoids something unpleasant, then the action is likely to occur again in similar situations. Negative reinforcement may also be used to enhance learning. To do this, you place students in mildly unpleasant situations so they can "escape" when their be­havior improves.

Negative reinforcement also gives students a chance to exercise control.

Satiation.   Another way to stop problem behavior is to insist that students continue the behavior until they are tired of doing it. This procedure, called satiation, should be applied with care. Forcing students to continue some behaviors may be physically or emotionally harmful or even dangerous. In using satiation, a teacher must take care not to give in before the students do. It is also important that the repeated behavior be the one you are trying to end.

Reprimands. Criticisms for misbehavior, rebukes.

Response cost. Punishment by loss of reinforces.

Social isolation. Removal of a disruptive student for 5 to 10 minutes.

Time out. Technically, the removal of all reinforcement. In practice, isolation of a student from the rest of the class for a brief time.