Robert: Ever wonder exactly what is considered punishment and if it’s possible to use only reinforcement in education and child rearing and to avoid the use of punishment altogether? And what on earth is extinction? Well, we’re going to go reasonably deep into these three major consequences today on the Just Seven Steps Podcast. 

Intro: Welcome to the Just Seven Steps Podcast with Robert Schramm, a board-certified behavioral analyst, educator, author and developer of the Seven Steps to Successful Parenting. For more than 20 years, Robert has been teaching parents and professionals how to support children and developing the values and priorities necessary to live a successful life. In this podcast, you’ll hear from some of the biggest experts in the fields of education, parenting and behavior analysis. So buckle in and get ready for a wild ride where you’ll learn to be your best in just seven steps. 

Robert: Hi, I’m Robert Schramm, a behavior analyst, education specialist, author and dad. And I’m also the developer of the Seven Steps to Introduction to Motivation. Each week, I’ll provide you with helpful information based on the Just Seven Steps approach. So if you haven’t already seen my YouTube channel, please take a second and subscribe. You’ll be glad you did. Whether you’re a parent looking to help your child live their best life or professional, charged with the education of children with or without disabilities, you’ll find a ton of help and information here, all filtered through just seven steps. In today’s episode, we cover consequences the things that give us reason to repeat behavior or not repeat it in the future. If it is true that one of the most misunderstood principles and behavior analysis is the principle of reinforcement, and certainly one of the most mislabel has to be the principle of punishment. In fact, the word punishment has such a negative connotation that it’s and it’s so widely mislabeled that I try not to even use the word anymore. The scientific term punishment doesn’t mean what it means in everyday language. What it means is a reduction technique or a consequence that leads to a reduction in a behavior. So more often than not, I just call it that. One of the reasons behavior analysis has been so helpful over the years is that it is set up to describe and label natural phenomena things that occur in our social environments that then allows us to benefit from these phenomena by planning for them or programing them into our lives in meaningful ways. Humans have shown the capacity to inflict horrible atrocities on each other in the name of politics, religion, progress and even love when driving. It is not unheard of for a person to speed down the highway with a complete disregard for the safety or well-being of others on the road. But then, immediately after causing a an accident that could forever change the life of innocent people, this same individual might turn around and demonstrate heroic acts of bravery trying to save those he’s harmed. A car is not an inherently ethical or unethical device. How the car is being used determines that driving whether the car driving is safe or effective or whether it should be used. And the same is true for the science of behavior. There’s nothing inherently ethical or unethical about using the principles of behavior to help you with your interactions with others. Everyone, whether they’re aware of them or not, use these principles in countless ways, each and every day. I mean, these principles are the reasons behind the many complex skills and behavior choices that all humans make, and they’re crucial to how we learn. However, having a detailed evidence based set of strategies at your disposal does come with great responsibility. And that responsibility demands that you use these principles only for the benefit of others and only in ways that are meaningful or important to their life or well-being. And we also have to be aware of our biases and that of the other stakeholders like parents or guardians, things that would cause us to work towards goals that are not accepting of neurodiversity or might be considered ablest. With time comes progress and better understanding. Community and cultural perspectives are constantly changing as well. If we want to be truly successful at benefiting others, we have to be able to see the world through these changing perspectives and expectations and continue to change how we work. 

Robert: In the early days of behavior analysis, there was little, if any, judgment put on individual behavioral principles, and therefore anything that worked was considered natural and potentially fair game. However, we have grown and learned over the years that there are likely many different ways and reasons. Some behavioral principles might be preferable to others, and some approaches might deserve prioritization over others as well. One area that this is certainly proving to be the case is in the use of the three basic consequence types of reinforcement, punishment and extinction. Firstly, the term used in the science of problematic reinforcement is often incorrectly equated with bribing or offering rewards. This is something that is certainly not, and punishment is a word that is completely taboo. Even though the definition of some forms of what would be considered punishment is something people willingly engage in every day. In fact, I’ve had experiences with people who say they dislike punishment as a concept and don’t think it should ever be used. Yet they seem to use it in almost every interaction I have with them. And Lord knows what extinction sounds like to those who are not trained in the science. I mean, isn’t that what happened to the dinosaurs? So if you followed my work at all, through my books, my presentations, my free online workshops or my online courses, you know that I have a very clear and convicted opinion on the value and benefit of these consequences. And I’m going to take the opportunity today to share this opinion with you, my podcast listeners. First and foremost, we are again talking about consequences. Consequences are defined as changes in the environment after a behavior that affects the future use of that behavior. So anything I do at all that has the potential to be something I choose to do more or less of in the future based on the type of change it makes for me or to me. And the environment would be a consequence. And after all, that’s the result the consequences have on behavior. Now, instead of getting caught up in the terms of of consequences, I’m going to split the goals up into the different types of consequences that are available to us. The ones that help to increase behavior and the ones that are designed to decrease the use of behavior. So if I meet a new person and I choose to smile at them, they may have many reactions. Some reactions may not move the needle on how I feel about my decision to smile, but most are likely to affect my decision to smile the next time I see that person in a similar situation. The person smiles and waves as a consequence. I might see that as a positive, making me more likely to smile the next time I see them. That would be an increased consequence for reinforcement. If they perhaps furrowed their brow and gave me a dirty look and walked away, I might see that as a negative outcome, making me less likely to smile to them the next time. This would be a decrease or reduction consequence also called punishment. So this can become even more challenging to plan for when a smile and a wave that would be considered positive to me might instead be seen as a negative to your child or another individual. So just because we might find something reinforcing or punishing to our behavior, it might have the exact opposite effect to your child. 

Robert: So once again, it becomes important to note that although you can try anything you like as an attempt to reinforce behavior, the only way to know if it’s actually been reinforced is to see if it begins to occur more often in the future. And for this reason, reinforcement can never not work if it doesn’t appear to be working. It is not that the reinforcement failed to increase the behavior, it’s just that your attempt was not actually reinforcement. So as you can see, this can all become a little bit complicated to try to simplify it down. I’m going to focus on the main three possible consequences. Then I’m going to give you two forms of each and tell you which of these two forms for each is most preferable to use. If, if, then, whenever it’s possible, then I will do a final order of these forms of each consequence that lists them from the best to use on down to the ones that I would avoid at all costs. Okay. Reinforcement. Reinforcement increases behavior that it follows. Not in the moment it follows it, but it increases the future likelihood of your child using that behavior again. Reinforcement is used to build new behaviors. It is an understanding that of the universe that indicates to us that what is useful by giving us outcomes that we see as being worth the effort of that behavior. There are so many things that can be reinforcing to your child from favorite toys and games to foods and drinks and activities. Even the ability to earn attention from someone or to avoid negative attention from them could be reinforcing to behavior. Because reinforcement is all about building is generally better as part of a plan, because you can pinpoint the specific behavior and reactions that you would like to see and then offer reinforcement to begin to see that behavior become more and more likely in the future. Now, there are two forms of reinforcement, and they’re not at all built equally. The first is called positive reinforcement. The second negative reinforcement and the difference between them is not what they do to behavior, because both of them increase behavior that they follow, which is why they’re both considered to be reinforcement. The difference is in how they increase the behavior. Positive reinforcement increases behavior because the behavior adds something to the environment that would be seen as a positive by the child. While negative reinforcement takes something aversive away from the environment after the behavior occurs, or because the behavior occurs, both end up with better with the child having a better environment than before the behavior. But both are better for different reasons. One has access to something new, the positive and the other negative is the subtraction of something seen as a negative or an aversive in most situations. The problem with negative reinforcement, though, is not that an aversive is being removed, but rather what that aversive is to use negative reinforcement as a planned consequence. You need there to be an aversive to be removed by the behavior, and often there isn’t a natural aversive in your child’s environment. And the problem comes when parents make themselves that aversive stimulus before the behavior that they then must remove after the behavior occurs. So practically positive reinforcement looks like mom or dad, making sure that things keep going well and happening for a child who’s making good behavior choices where negative reinforcement looks like mom or dad getting in the child’s way in the form of an annoyance, and then only stopping that annoyance when or if the behavior occurs. I think when you look at it this way, it becomes pretty clear that whenever possible, positive reinforcement or adding something positive to the environment after a behavior is far better than using negative reinforcement or becoming and then removing yourself as an annoyance. So when judging reinforcement, it’s quite, quite clear who wins. Positive reinforcement beats negative reinforcement almost every single time. 

Robert: Now, let’s move on to the reduction techniques. When reducing a behavior you want your child to avoid. You can also use both positive and negative punishment. Here, punishment is defined as anything that happens after the behavior, but makes the behavior less likely to occur again. However, when you use positive punishment, you’re again adding a negative to the environment after the behavior to reduce its use. And this might look like a spanking or a loud voice or an angry response. Additional work tacked on to your child’s work load. Would also be a form of positive punishment. The problem with positive punishment as a form is that it requires you to present these negative experiences to your child, to work making you the bad guy and causing your child to want to try to avoid you and your negative influence. Now, the alternative form of reduction programing is to remove something from the environment after a behavior to reduce that behavior’s perceived value in the future. And this might look like removing a toy or your child that your child is playing with or turning off the TV that they’re watching or cutting their dessert in half after a problematic behavior occurs. Granted, these actions still make you the bad guy, but because you have removed a reinforcer in the moment, you can also be the one who decides to give it back as reinforcement as soon as better behavior develops. And because you’re the one now holding access to the preferred item or activity, the child would still need to come to you and engage with you to get these items back, leading you to further interaction, not less interaction, which is often what happens when you use positive punishment. So back to when we talked about reinforcement, we said that positive was always better than negative. But in the case of reduction, negative taking away would be the preferred method, leaving positive punishers on the bench whenever possible. Now, the third consequence, which we’ve barely touched on, is called extinction. Extinction is described as a condition where previously reinforced behavior is no longer making contact with reinforcement, causing that behavior to reduce over time. So in this case, we have a behavior that’s occurring because it already has a history of producing reinforcement. The goal of extinction is to then remove access to that reinforcer so that it now no longer follows the behavior. Gives that that gives that behavior a new relationship to the environment that is no longer beneficial. The benefits of extinction are that the behavior will occur or begin to occur less and less, as long as the behavior remains in the condition of extinction. Now, whenever it is used, though, there is a danger of extinction. And the reason it is best to be used as part of a plan with the guidance of a trained behavior analyst, is that behavior and extinction does tend to doesn’t tend to reduce right away. It often sees this reflexive burst or increase of behavior to fight back against that extinction before it eventually reduces. 

Robert: I’ve got I’ve got a couple of great stories that illustrate extinction and the potential dangers of using it. Unfortunately, we aren’t going to have time today because I really want to keep these episodes between 20 and 30 minutes for you. But I am going to dedicate a whole future episode on this concept of extinction, and I can share those stories with you that now basic extinction is one form of extinction and one of the two forms available to us. Basic extinction is a higher value to us if it’s used compassionately and with a thought out plan that includes lots of opportunity for reinforcement, for other behaviors, the form of extinction that I find much more problematic and one that I choose not to use at all in my teaching is called Escape Extinction. As the name suggests, the goal of Escape Extinction is to try to block or extinguish, take the value away from escape. And any time you block movement away from your teaching activity or you nag your child with repeated instructions or hold them in and manipulate them to help them do something that they don’t want to do, then you’re using this weaker form or this negative form of escape extinction. Now, much of my professional career has been spent finding ways to earn cooperation and better engagement with kids without the use of any escape extinction. This is this, in fact, is what was first so groundbreaking about the seven steps to instructional motivation. It served the purpose that progressive behavior analysts like myself were searching for, and that it allowed us to issue force participation in any form and allowed for child ascent and learning. Now, if you’re not familiar with the term assent, hang in there. I have an episode coming up on that. We’ll talk all about assent, how it relates to consent and why it is important in the present and future of behavior analysis. And if I’m lucky, I might even be able to bring in a behavior analyst or two who are on the forefront of teaching the world about this important issue of a set. For now, just know when I say allowing for assent, I mean allowing for the child to be able to choose participation rather than have it forced on them, because escape extinction does not allow for assent. In my opinion, it’s far less preferable option to basic extinction. Basic extinction is something that, although it needs to be done compassionately and with planning and forethought, I do believe it still has an important place in the development of instructional control or structural motivation for many of our children. 

Robert: So let’s see, we said positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement. I’ve said negative reduction techniques are better than positive ones and basic extinction is better than using escape extinction. So if I was going to order all of these consequences and there forms that are available for any parent or teacher to use to help support a child’s development, I would have to rank them this way. But before I do, let me make something very clear. Behavior analyst did not invent reinforcement, punishment or extinction. They merely identified them and labeled them for potential future use. These are the three possible consequences to any behavior, whether you understand and plan for them or not. Your child is already affected by positive and negative reinforcement all the time. Every day you and your child are working to deal with positive and negative. Punishers and extinction is often a natural phenomena that is affecting your behavior. So when ranking and using these things don’t think that behavior analysts are somehow making up something new or doing something that other teachers or parents don’t. We just have a better understanding of the actual outcomes of these consequences, which which gives us a leg up in knowing how to use them for positive results in important behavior development with our kids. So back to the list. First and foremost, valuable form of consequence for us to use is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement takes first prize because it only involves increasing better behavior that you want to see more of. And it allows you, the parent or the teacher to be the bringer and giver of good things to the child. It can be applied to important behaviors and helps prepare you and the parent, you, the parent, or the teacher as a positive in the child’s environment, someone they’re going to want to continue to be with and learn from. Using positive reinforcement also has the added benefit of building better relationships between you and your child. Coming in second is a tie between negative reduction techniques and basic extinction. If you can’t address a situation by finding a way to positively reinforce it, you can consider how to reduce the less preferred options that you see currently happening with negative reduction or the removal of a reinforcer. Or you can try to block or stop access to any reinforcer that’s already at fault for increasing this behavior. And that would be a form of basic extinction. The first and most valuable form of consequence for us to use is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement takes first prize because it only involves increasing better behavior that you want to see more of. And it also allows the parent or teacher to be the bringer and giver of good things for the child. It can be applied to important behaviors across the board and helps spare you the parent or the teacher as a positive in the child’s environment, someone they will want to continue to be with and learn from. Using positive reinforcement also has the added benefit of building better relationships between you and your child. Coming in second is a tie between negative reduction techniques and basic extinction. If you can’t address a situation by finding a way to add positive outcomes after it occurs, you can then consider how to reduce the less preferred behavior with some kind of a negative reduction or removal of reinforcement after the behavior. Or you can try to block or stop access to any reinforcer that’s already at fault for having increased the behavior to its current level. So preferred consequence one is positive reinforcement and the next best alternatives are the use of negative punishment and or basic extinction. In all honesty, after that, I would begin to avoid using the last three forms of consequence. By all means necessary. I would avoid them and I would only consider them under the guidance of a qualified behavior analyst. And if I had to rank them, I’d say negative reinforcement is the least damaging of the three. Positive punishment is Marcel, but escape extinction, which doesn’t allow the child the opportunity to ever decide if they even want to be a part of what you’re doing. That would have to be the least preferable in my book. 

Robert: There you have it. I hope you found this discussion helpful. Whenever possible, look for ways to use that positive reinforcement for your kids. The more natural, the better. And do so with a plan to make this reinforcement more natural over time. Then, if you need to reduce a behavior on top of increasing others, consider using negative reduction techniques or basic extinction. Remember, extinction is likely to lead to an extinction burst. So don’t be surprised if the behavior immediately increases before it begins to decrease. For this reason, save extinction procedures for when you have someone to help to guide you and you’ve done a little bit more and you know about the dangers. And finally, I would do all that I could to avoid using negative reinforcement, positive punishment, or escape extinction. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend creating behavior plans, using them without training or professional help. Did you know that there are different functions of behavior that can also be categorized and that some kids are far more motivated by some of these functions than others? If you’re interested in learning what behavior type your child might demonstrate, go to the website WWW dot just seven steps dot com forward slash quiz and take the short but helpful behavior types quiz we have there. Find out what’s motivating the challenging behavior your child is using on a daily basis. The better you understand your child’s goals, the better you can help them achieve their goals through positive behavior. The Behavior Types quiz is available for you right now at just seven steps dot com forward slash quiz. I hope to see you there. Thank you for taking the time to join me today on the Just Seven Steps podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please take just a moment to leave me a comment. Give a thumbs up. Share the video with others and subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you won’t miss out on any of our Just Seven Steps videos designed to help parents of children with challenges. Find your family’s path to progress. See you right here next week.