Positive Reinforcement Part Two: How to give Positive Reinforcement

On my last blog I wrote about the basics of positive reinforcement! We learned that positive reinforcement is anything that we can add to a behaviour to increase the probability that that behaviour will happen again in the future. We also talked about the individuality of positive reinforcement ..everyone has different reinforcers and they can change based on the day or even the time of the day!

Now Id like to talk about how we give positive reinforcement. In the beginning we want to give the reinforcement straight away, as soon as they learner engages in the behaviour that we are teaching. For example : if the target behaviour is a dressing skills such as unzipping his coat and the identified reinforcer is a balloon, we would give the child the balloon as soon as he unzips ……his hands may still be touching the zip ..the important part is that he is reinforced. In time we will increase the time between the delivery of the reinforcer and the behaviour that we are teaching. Usually once the child gains fluency in the skills it a good indicator that we can increase the time between the behaviour and the delivery of reinforcement 🙂