What type of reinforcement do you use...?

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I have just had a heated discussion with someone who insists that positive reinforcement won't change a child's negative behaviours. They are adamant that positive reinforcing merely bribes a child and they learn nothing. They told me that negative reinforcement and threats etc will only work and that negative reinforcement is stronger than positive. As someone who has seen first hand the improvements using positive reinforcement (token economy systems) I would like to hear your thoughts.

All though not a parent, I am an older brother of two younger brothers. One is 19, the other is 14. The 19 year old has mild forms of aspergers. Where as the 14 year old is high functionining, er not as Aspergers as my brother and I. I have learned over the years that positive reinforcements helps the both of us out.
I think positive reinforcement is the better choice. I don't think I have the same form, as I am not the parent and cannot give my brothers money. But I feel if they are having a hard time, that I should be calm and that I shouldn't be negative with them.

Negativity causes confrontation. And with confrontation nothing is discussed.

I make sure I am on the same wave length as them because it means they are more open to discussion and more open for constructive criticism. A family should never judge. I feel a family should accept, maybe not respect a decision, and support. A family should never judge or label someone a failure.

There are so many opportunities to use positive reinforcement, there's very very few times you would ever even consider negative reinforcement. People who think negative reinforcement works best are typically either lazy or bad at using positive reinforcement...or both. What do they think it does to the child's self esteem if they feel like a constant failure and are terrified? There's just no use for it!

You said you had a heated discussion about changing a child's behavior. Did that person you were talking with know you had an aspie child?

I think the first aspie trait that most parents notice is that their child does not respond as normal to negative consequences, especially when they are young. Their behavior gets worse instead of better. They don't understand why they are being punished and therefore feel they are being abused and act out more. My son is better about it now that he is 9 1/2, and if I act calmly and don't punish right away.

What seems to work better is lots of training and explaining. At times positive reinforcement or negative consequences are useful but not on a regular basis. The most important thing I learned from this site early on is to never take away computer time - or whatever your aspie does to relax. My son will gladly clean toilets or do other extra chores for fighting with his sister but has a major screaming fit if I take away computer time.

Hi Guys
Thank you for your comments
The individual I was speaking too is alot older with very old fashioned views about kids so maybe that explains the different mind set?
Yes they know I have an aspie (in fact they do also)
If I stay clam my aspies behaviour is calmer also. They are not constantly being bribed with treats and gifts in order to comply but if they do all that is asked in school and at home they get loads (I mean loads) of praise and can pick a treat at the weekend e.g. cinema or McD's or a token to save for something bigger. I feel they have worked hard to earn it, you or I wouldn't work all week for nothing and I know if my boss praises my work I get a kick out of it and it makes me do the next project to the same level.

If they don't do what is asked of them then there is no treat and a big discussion about it finding out why and how to improve with help is necessary

I just wanted to know what other parents and importantly apsies thoughts were?
I know what works for one child won't always work for another Negativity was the norm when I grew up and I lived in fear of my parents (I am NT) and I don't want that for my child

I think the very key of positive reinforcement is to earn your pleasures.

That's what I have been taught all my life.

"Sure I can play 12hrs video games, but did my contribution to the house and to myself actually warrant me playing 12hrs"

I had to earn all of my pleasures, by doing homework, doing household chores, etc. Making contributions where it counted.

Sorry if this is a bit off-the-wall, but reading your post made me think about Star Wars. Yes! Star Wars!

Negative reinforcements are like the dark side of the Force. They're stronger, quicker, easier, with immediate short-term benefits but negative long-term ramifications.

Positive reinforcements are, in contrast, the light side of the Force. They take discipline, compassion, patience, but will the long-term benefits are substantially more rewarding and enlightening.

Anyway, I'll put my inner-geek back in his box and let you go about your business.

I think the biggest issue with discipline is really what you want out of it. Is the most important issue for you how your child behaves now, or is the most important issue for you what kind of adult your child becomes?

I think there is a place for both positive and negative reinforcement - I know I get a lot of push-back here regarding any negative reinforcement, but we use it on occasion because it does happen to adults, and my son needs to be prepared for it. It needs to be used very carefully, however - what is negative reinforcement for an NT kid may be cause for giving up entirely for a kid on the spectrum.

However, positive reinforcement often works better for an aspie kid, who tends to see life in a "what do I get out of it" kind of a way. It's also more structured and predictable than negative reinforcement (it doesn't depend on behaviors a child may not be able to control.) What I don't like about exclusive use of positive reinforcement is that it makes all behavior into a transaction ("earn your pleasures" is an interesting phrase.) This could be problematic for an adult living alone (and I suppose it's not really a great way to approach marriage, either,) or working in a situation where you are expected to give more than you receive in compensation.

It's tricky. However, for the OP - I would ask the parents if they want their child to follow whatever anyone tells them to do, which is often the goal of excessively negative parents. I'd suggest that they are setting their child up to be a victim of peer pressure later in life.

There's plenty of confirmed studies that negative reinforcement does NOT work with aspies or autistic children in general. Three reasons: 1) the adult is not going to be able to tell intentional from unintentional actions (e.g. meltdowns, stimming, accidental faux pas, reactions to sensory overload), or tell which punishments are going to be life-destroying or traumatic for this particular child; 2) stress - from the argument, from feeling devalued, from withdrawal of release mechanisms - raises the likelihood of meltdowns, stimming, etc; 3) most aspies are concrete thinkers, have a very concrete sense of social justice, and *will* feel mistreated if punished for something we couldn't help, didn't understand, or don't agree with the rule against.

From a practical point of view, positive reinforcement works a lot better. Your friend is right that it's basically bribery, but it does a lot less damage than the alternative she poses. My big issue with it is that it's still playing on conditional love. It's still assuming the child is 'worth less' if they don't conform, or if it doesn't assume this, it risks giving this message. And it's still assuming the ultimate goal is to produce conformity, not to enable personal development which is necessarily different in each case (and especially in our case). I've seen critiques of behaviourism which say that positive reinforcement tends to turn into negative reinforcement dressed-up differently: normal entitlements are transmuted into withdrawable privileged which have to be 'earned', and this has the same effect as if they were normal entitlements which are withdrawn in punishment. For instance, a child could become dependent on their weekend trip as part of their routine if it happens nearly every week, in which case, its omission one week would be experienced much the same way as a punishment.

Autistic people's internal self-control does not work via social status, guilt, or conventional standards, it works through a relatively rigid set of internal views on what's right and wrong which it's almost impossible for us to violate (except in situations where the relevant brain-sections shut down). I suspect the only exception is a kind of blind terror of the abyssal judgements of the other which lurks beneath the surface, and which comes from the traumatic effect of past punishments. All the standard parenting techniques are built on the assumption that children are already functioning in terms of social status from a very early age, and that they will mix up conventional standards with their own internal standards, internalising what's imposed on them. I think autistic children can often see right away that you're just doing it to get us to do what you want, and that your view that we should do it, or your inducements to do it, isn't an inherent, logical reason to do what you want. We don't mix up socially-imposed consequences and inherent consequences as easily as NT's do (though I've see aspies who DO mix them up). With autism (even between two autistic people) there's often an immense sensory gap which prevents another person's perspective seeming plausible. This means that it is never going to be internalised, it is always going to seem an external imposition. If it's a long way from a person's sensory needs, it's going to seem an arbitrary, violent and incomprehensible imposition (i.e. from the recipient's point of view, not only is it wrong - it's something no reasonable person could possibly believe).

You're going to get further by reasoning with someone as to why they shouldn't do something than by offering/threatening consequences which are logically unrelated. You also need to simply pare back the demands you make and the force with which you make them. An autistic child is never going to have a normal childhood, is never going to have a normal adulthood, and the best thing you can do is minimise the trauma you cause, on top of the trauma they'll suffer from other children, random authoritarians, hostile sensory environments and so on. It's self-indulgent to imagine you can, or ought to be, making a child who eats normally, sleeps normally, is tidy, does housework, never stims, never melts down, always goes to school, etc, etc. In some cases you'll simply face an immovable obstacle; in others you'll eventually get something like what you want, but at enormous (often invisible) psychological cost. Quite frankly, we have enough problems already, we don't need parents who are additional problems. We need someone who is a friend and enabler, not a boss. You're going to need your child to trust you enough to listen when it really matters, and when they're big enough that you can't dominate them by force any more. Every fight you have, every rule you impose, is a step away from earning this trust. I think we need to move away from the parenting-as-control or socialisation model, especially in relation to autistic children. Personally I'm all for libertarian parenting, such as Taking Children Seriously and Natural Child Project. I think that what appears as deviance is nearly always unmet needs and should be addressed as such. *Especially* in aspie/autistic children. There's other approaches, too, which look at drawing-out instead of putting-in (Montessori, Steiner and the like). I've seen them misused with autistic people because we don't follow the usual developmental stages, but the basic insight is right: external control does more harm than good. The more it comes down to understanding and responding to your child's perspective, rather than imposing your agenda on the child come what may, the better.

You make excellent points aspie1968, thanks a lot for taking the time to post here.

"Someone" is an idiot. Positive reinforcement is about rewarding positive behavior. Period. It doesn't necessarily mean we totally ignore negative behavior, but it does mean the main focus is on the positive behaviors.

The idea behind positive reinforcement is to bring positive behaviors to the forefront. To get the child to focus more on the positive, rather than their entire focus being on avoiding the negative.

Negative reinforcement puts the focus on what the child should NOT be doing. The result is that the child is constantly thinking of what sort of behaviors to avoid, rather then what sort of behaviors to engage in.

With positive reinforcement, what "someone" is calling a bribe, is NOT a bribe. It's a REWARD. A reward that is NOT gained if negative behavior is chosen over positive.

I'm not saying that punishment should never be used. There are, of course, some acts that should be punished, such as intentionally harming others, or putting oneself into a life threatening situation when one clearly knows better.

"Someone" should learn more about this before they open their mouths. "Someone" is ignorant.

As others have just said, I think the someone referred to in the OP has a grave misunderstanding about positive reinforcement. My son went to the dentist this morning and after several attempts we were able to get some good Xrays of his teeth that the dentist really wanted to get. This was the third visit we had been to where we tried to get those. At one point in the middle of the process he said "I can't do it" in the tone of voice I know to be his self-defeating, I'm a failure kind of voice. We said as many re-assuring words as we could think of and he gave it another try (VERY brave of him!) We got through it without any tears and when he was done with the last one, the assistant held up her two hands and said, "You did great! Give me 10!" He slapped her hands exuberantly. I told him that he should be so proud of himself for doing this very hard thing. He was beaming and apparently very pleased with himself. This was all done with TONS of positive reinforcement in the form of genuine encouragement from the adults in the room and while he did get a toy at the end of the visit the toy was be no means the inticement for him.

It is obvious in my son's case that either negative or positive reinforcement are perceived differently for him than for his NT older brother. I have learned to revise my expectations for #2 son but there are still some things that kids must just learn to do, like getting dressed. This act has been a huge struggle for us. No bribes, no threats ever seemed to work. What finally did work was a chart with pictures of the articles of clothing velcroed to the front. As he put each article on his body, he got to tear off the picture from the chart and put it into an envelope. It seemed that he derived a lot of pleasure from the sound/feel of the velcro separating (he would often remove the velcro slowly seeming to savor the sensory experience of it)and also from seeing the picture go away into to envelope (visual progress?). I won't pretend I understand the satisfaction he received from this process but it got him on the road to getting dressed without a meltdown every morning. Is this bribery? Certainly I wouldn't think it is in any normal sense of the word. I do think it was simple positive reinforcement. In addition to his direct interaction with the chart, we also gave him plently of praise and encouragement. It worked where other things like sticker charts and such had failed.

The idea aspie1968 suggested about reasoning based on related as opposed to unrealted consequences seems to be very true for us. Tooth brushing can be a stumbling block for us once in a while. DS has never said that he objects to the sensation of it. It seems to be more because the act is part of the transition to leaving the house to go to school in the mornign or go to bed at night. This usually isn't a big deal more of a minor annoyance. I have noticed that when I tell him that he needs to go brush or else he will get sugar-bugs (cavities), he usually hops right to it. This is a consequence that is a fact of nature not one that I am imposing - at least I *think* he gets that?!

Great comments

It seems that a lot of people here are having trouble with terminology. Punishment and Negative Reinforcement are not the same. Reinforcement, be it positive or negative, is used to INCREASE behavior. Although we can certainly use procedures to disseminate reinforcement, these are naturally occurring phenomena. Using positive reinforcement as a synonym for "bribery" is also radically incorrect.

I would really suggest reading "Applied Behavior Analysis" by Cooper et al. I think it would help several posters here understand the principles of behavior.

zt said what I was thinking about reinforcement. Any type of reinforcement is designed to increase and reward behavior. Negative reinforcement and punishment are two radically different things, and I think the posts here have almost all been referring to punishment instead of negative reinforcement. Punishment is designed to stop unwanted behavior by punishing it, negative reinforcement is designed to increased desired behavior. Negative reinforcement refers to the withdrawal of an undesired stimulus as the reward for performing the behavior. An easy example we can all relate to is the alarm clock. When it goes off, it makes a displeasing noise. When we wake up and hit the snooze, we are rewarded because the noise ends. The desired behavior was waking up, and the reward was silence.

As to the OP, I believe reinforcement is a really powerful tool, and should be used in a smart fashion. It's not akin to bribery, and the more often the reinforcement can be natural and perhaps eventually faded or adjusted, the better. I find my aspie kid responds well to the Premack principle contingencies-- I use a higher desired activity to encourage the performance of a nonpreferred activity. For example, if he needs to complete a chore, but really wants to play with legos, the legos become the contingent "reward." When he's finished with the dishes, he gets to play legos for a set period of time. I see this used effectively in the school setting all the time (but not with dishes and legos, necessarily!).

I definitely would not like this person LOL.

When they started TEACCH therapy with my daughter the ONLY thing that motivated her was positive reinforcement. With Aspie and Auties its easy because they dont really want extravagant things. My son just wants his battle tops and my daughter wants her squinkies. They typically only want one thing and tend to focus on one toy or one game, ect. When my kids were younger it was even easier. Maddy just wanted squishy sensory toys and play doh and Luc just wanted to watch Thomas. Also our kids love order and schedules, they are so easy!....at least mine are and if they arent then I am doing something wrong or its a good sign for me that something is stressing them out and I need to find out what that is.

Im building (actually my husband is doing the building part as I am in bed a lot due to my disease but Im doing all the buying and planning ) a sensory room for my kids. We moved my daughter in with my son which makes them both happy as they are both scared of the dark, Maddy was sleeping with us and Luc had to have lights everywhere and the cats locked in there with him. Maddy even gave up her sucky (pacifier) by herself due to this move. So Maddy brought her stuffed star lady bug which makes Luc happy and it goes along with his moon. Anyway, Maddy's room is now the sensory room. Im hoping this helps them while Im in the hospital for two weeks next month....and then will probably be going back or possibly staying later for surgery. Its been rather inexpensive so far....we are using a blow up pool for the ball pit and I already have so many sensory toys and lights. Ill have to take pics when we finish!