Comprehensive Individualized Curriculum and Instructional Design

Once teaching and prevention strategies have been selected, the next critical step is to determine strategies to reinforce appropriate behavior and minimize or eliminate payoff for problem behavior. Although many people associate the word “consequence” with a punitive response, in behavioral terms consequences can be punitive or pleasant. Within a Positive Behavior Support (PBS; Carr et al., 2002) framework, the goal is to minimize the use of aversive consequences. The function (or purpose) of the student’s behavior should guide the selection of strategies to reinforce appropriate behaviors and minimize payoff for problem behaviors. Reinforcing Appropriate Behavior . There are four critical features for identifying effective reinforcers. The first two are broad strategies to reinforce the alternative behavior (Petscher, Rey, & Bailey, 2009) and to reinforce desired behavior or approximations toward the desired behavior (Wilder, Harris, Reagan, & Rasey, 2007). More specific considerations when setting up effective interventions to encourage behavior are to identify reinforcers valued by the student (Horner & Day, 1991) and to set reasonable timeframes and expectations for the student to encourage behavior (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). In our experience there are two common mistakes in using reinforcement. The first mistake is selecting incentives that are not valued by the student. The second common mistake is setting goals, expectations, and time frames that are not reasonable for the student to achieve. If we identify a desired reward but only offer it to the student for engaging in perfect behavior, we are oftentimes setting the student up for failure rather than motivating success. What is reasonable for a student depends on the student’s current performance as well as the discrepancy between this skill and the desired behavior. 74