Review of “Toward a Functional Analysis of Self-Injury”
An alarming and surprisingly common behavior among some developmentally disabled individuals is self-injurious behavior. The severity of this ranges from mild nail-biting to very severe head-banging or choking. This can be quite alarming for caregivers, other children, and can present a serious danger to the child engaging in the behavior. While such behavior would seem to be maladaptive, there is evidence that it is in fact learned through operant conditioning and that these behaviors persist because they reinforced by the child’s environment. If this is true, it presents an opportunity to combat the behavior by eliminating sources of reinforcement. Iwata, Dorsey, Silfer, Bauman, and
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One, social disapproval, in which each participant was sat in a room with an experimenter and asked to play with toys while the experimenter read a book, if the child began to engage in self-injurious behavior the experimenter would make statements of disproval towards the participant. Two, academic demand, in which a child was asked to complete academic tasks, the participants were praised for successfully completing each task, however if they began to engage in self-injury the experimenter would stand up immediately and ignore them for 30 seconds. In the third, unstructured play, participants again were placed in a room with the experimenter and toys but no demands were made and they were given praise for playing. In the last condition, the participants were placed in a room alone without toys, and were simply observed.
Three conditions isolate one potential reinforcer of self-injurious behavior. In the social disapproval condition, attention from the experimenter acts as a reinforcer. In the academic task condition, escape from the task acts as a negative reinforcer. In the alone condition, the stimulation provided by self-injury acts as a positive reinforcer. The unstructured play condition however emulates an enriched environment offering reinforcement for behaviors other that
Early Childhood is marked by a time in children’s lives when they develop “a confident self-image, more effective control over their emotions, new social skills, the foundations of morality, and a clear sense of themselves as boy or girl” (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011, pg. 45). According to Erik Erikson, early childhood is a period of “vigorous unfolding,” one where children have a sense of autonomy and a new sense of purposefulness or initiative (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011, pg. 45). Play is a means for children to learn about themselves and they begin to adopt the moral and gender-role standards of the society in which they live (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011). A negative outcome of early childhood is the guilt children feel as a result of excessive punishment and criticism by the adults in their lives (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011)....
If a behavior is desirable, consequences called reinforcers are used to encourage the behavior in the future, via the process of reinforcement. Reinforcement can be positive (presenting reinforcing stimulus) or negative (removing a negative stimulus). However, if a behavior is undesired, a negative consequence can be used to discourage the behavior, through the process of either positive or negative punishment. In positive punishment, a negative consequence is presented after the undesired behavior occurs. When negative punishment it used the idea is the same “to discourage future display of undesired behavior,” but instead of presenting a negative stimulus, a desired stimulus is removed following the behavior.
The observations were done in Alisha’s home in her living room, on the floor. For task one there were five tests in total. Test number one was to find a toy that caught the attention of the child and then hide it behind a large object. I used her blue teddy bear as the toy, and a large piece of cardboard to hide it behind. For test two, while the toy was in Alisha’s view, I dropped it behind a lazy boy so it would no longer be visible. During test three, I hid most of the teddy bear under a blanket but
Common behaviors exhibited by individuals on the Autism Spectrum are labeled as disruptive and self injurious. Fortunately, these behaviors, that can be dangerous to the Autistic individual and others around them, can be managed with psychopharmacological treatment. Behaviors that often times fall under the category of common disruptive and self injurious behaviors, according to Ji, Capone and Kaufmann (2011), are irritability, impulsivity, having temper tantrums and yelling at inappropriate times. Physically aggressive behaviors, such as biting, scratching, kicking and hitting, are often times, more dangerous than some of the other behaviors exhibited. Physically aggressive behaviors are seen as more dangerous than other type of aggressive behaviors because they can harm someone, and in some instances cause fractures, sprains and in severe instances, can cause death. Bronsard, Botbol and Tordjman (2010) found after researching 74 Autistic children and Adolescence that the most prevalent aggressive behaviors are slapping, pinching, throwing objects, head butting, scratching, tearing, hair/scab/skin pulling, biting, kicking, poking and spitting. Along with physical aggression, individuals on the Autism Spectrum often times display self injurious behaviors. In the study, “Self-Injurious Behaviour in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability”, Richards, Oliver, Nelson and Moss (2012) studied 149 individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and found that the most common self injurious behaviors displayed are hitting ones-self with their own body, hitting themselves against objects/with objects, biting themselves, pulling/rubbing and scratching self and sodomizing themselves. Researches found that these behavi...
Children and adolescents often test the limits of appropriate conduct by crossing the boundaries set by caretakers. When a youth exhibits a particular problem behavior, it is important to consider not only if the behavior has previously occurred, but also if it is exhibited in multiple settings and with what frequency, duration, intensity, and provocation. For example, a 2-year-old who playfully nips a playmate is less off the mark of developmentally appropriate behavior than a 4-year-old who aggressively and frequently bites playmates to forcefully gain possession of desired toys.
‘A good smack never did a child any harm, that’s how they learn what is right and what is wrong’ has been proven wrong by Behavioral Psychologists, by conducting conditioning experiments. B.F Skinner who studied and performed an experiment on operant conditioning proved that to punish a child, does not always provide the direction that reward does, and in fact it teaches the child that a particular behaviour is unacceptable, and doesn’t show which other behaviours are acceptable.
Children are reacting to the authority of persons in their lives. The teacher acts in a firm but friendly manner to reinforce limits, raise conscious levels, and teach alternative behaviours. I have noticed a child in a childcare, showed mistaken behaviour as a result of dominant character. Despite her small size, she has rapidly become one of the leaders. She plays with just about all of toys, and she has a constant need to be in control of other. She occasionally gets in to arguments, with her peers when they no longer accept her leadership. She has difficulty resolving these conflicts and frequently has a tantrum when she is unable to have her own way. Then I made them sit quietly and I asked her whether she likes it when her friend feels sad. He says "no." I continue to guide him through discovering a solution by asking questions until we reach one that works. The kind gesture makes her feel happy and stopped her argument with peers. Together we find a solution that builds her awareness and how to solve peer conflicts, giving him tools to build positive relationships in the future. According to Gartrell” At the socially influenced level, children have learned that using
My choice of research was in the play behaviors of children as well as aggression. Breaking the topic down more, behavior relates to the psychology and the psyche of each individual. The definition of psychology is “science of mind and behavior” (Clavijo, 2013). After reading the article by Clavijo, I have realized that psychology can be defined in three ways such as the study of the mind, the study of behavior, and the study of the mind and behavior. In the text “The Developing Person” by Berger, behavior is learned through social learning. Children learn different behaviors through the observation of others, others being children and adults. Different people have affects on a child’s life that can affect their behavior. A child’s behavior is heavily influenced by their parents. A son may speak aggressively and without respect towards his mother because this is the way that his father speaks to her therefore he feels that is how to communicate with his mother (Berger, 200, 2012). Moving into play behaviors, children learn from other children in how to play. Most believe cognitive growth relies on child’s play time. Vygotsky and Piaget both believe that when children play it is beneficial, but according to Vygotsky, playing enables a child to think outside the box and create their own meaning from objects, using their imagination. Piaget believes that child benefit from playing together because children and sharing their knowledge and making it more concrete ideas and thoughts. There are four stages of plays, with the fourth stage being the highest most complicated play which consists of rules and guidelines for the game. The lowest level or play would be functional play being infants shaking rattles, clapping their hands, or blow...
Play helps build sturdy learning foundations because later levels of learning are built upon the earlier ones. All types of play, from fantasy to rough-and-tumble have a crucial role in the development of children. It is the lens through which children experience their world and the world of others. If deprived to play, they are at bigger possibility for atypical development and deviant behavior. Without play, self-control does not develop satisfactorily Goldstein, J. (2012)
When a child is put into play therapy, what they will experience is something much different than a classic therapy scene, but the underlying idea is still the same. The child would be placed in a room filled with toys, puppets, games, and many other creative outlets. Depending on the approach of the therapist depends on how the child is able to interact with these objects. If the therapist chooses to pursue a non-directive therapy session then the child will be able to do as they please. The purpose behind this approach is that when given the freedom to play freely, children will resolve their issues on their own (“Play Therapy”, 2015). On the opposite end, some therapists chose the directed play therapy approach where the therapist may ask the child to perform specific tasks such as acting out a scene with puppets or drawing a picture of their family. Many believe that this approach leads to faster, better results because no pressure is placed on the child to fix their own problems, something that they might not be completely capable of at a young age (“Directive vs Non-Directive Play Therapy”, 2010). At its basis, many forms of therapy stem from the same basic ideas, for play therapy its’ basis can be traced back to Sigmund Freud and his
This assignment will examine an eight year old child who has started to display aggressive outbursts since the discovery of his/her parents’ divorce. This will include the therapeutic approach, techniques and activities I will use as well as the play therapy principles that I will be using. Finally, I will
In conclusion, the theory of behaviorism is based on observable behaviors for easier quantification and data collection. Effective techniques such as behavior intervention and discrete trial training originate from this school of thought. The approaches are very essential in altering the maladaptive behaviors in adults and children (Cherry, 2011). Today, conditioning and the use of reward and punishment are used to help people learn accepted behavior and in other cases to help them stop problematic behavior (Coon & Mitterer, 2008). This has made behavior modification and training easy and possible. Therefore, Dr. John Watson played a tremendous role in the transition of psychology from the work of earlier scholars to the modern scholars.
The children are put through different learning experiences and tasks, for the professionals to evaluate and observe their different development stages. All this helps to understand the children’s adult characteristics for future life as every child’s play experiences are crucial to their adult life.
In Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment, performed in the 1960’s by Dr. Albert Bandura, showed the children a video of an adult hitting, punching, kicking and, moreover general aggression towards the doll. While another group of children viewed an adult, being gentle with the Bobo doll and a control group in which there was no influence towards the doll. Because Dr. Bandura used isolated groups and used unique methods with each group, his research, classified as an experiment as he was manipulating a factor, which was the type of attitude shown to the Bobo doll that the children watched (Myers, 2014). In the begging of the study, there were 72 children, 36 boys and 36 girls, observed at the Stanford University and tested for aggressive behavior
The successful application of these theories have been very interdisciplinary in their use, being applicable in the development of disorders and even calculating spending patterns across social groups. Behaviorism and social learning have evolved beyond the original use of solely educational purposes. However, the effectiveness of the behaviorism theory has come into question as an educational approach., L’Ecuyer (2014) explains that the behaviorism approach, “emphasizes the accumulation of information (knowledge), on external behaviors (skills and mechanical habits) and their emotional and physical reactions in given situations, rather than on the person’s internal mental states, such as intentionality, which are much more complex (p.2). The article questions the modern effectiveness of the behaviorism approach on children. I have found that the theory of social learning when paired with the behaviorism theory is still very useful in education, even with the influx of modern technologies. At the very core, behaviorism, both classical and, seeks to explain why humans react to certain stimuli. Operant is more used in socially especially in child rearing, how to effectively discipline and child via reinforcement of positive behaviors or corporal punishment for negative behaviors is still a highly debated topic. Social learning can also heavily influence