This week's post

It has been a crazy week with it being the first week of school.  I will try to return to posting questions next week.  In the meantime, here is a quote by Temple Grandin that I enjoy.

“What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool?

You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.”

― Temple Grandin, The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's

Bribery VS Reinforcement

While coaching parents or teachers on how to deal with a difficult behavior I have suggested using some sort of reward system.  Often I have been asked, "But isn't that bribery?"  So, today I am going to talk about the difference between bribery and reinforcement. 

So lets look at some official definitions of bribery.

Persuade (someone) to act in one’s favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement - Oxford Dictionary

Money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust  - Merriam Webster

Money or a present that you give to someone so that they will do something for you, usually something dishonest: Cambridge Dictionary

So are you trying to get your child to do something wrong? If not, then you are not bribing your child.  You are trying to reinforce a positive behavior.  Another way to think about it is going to work.  If you were not getting paid to do your job, would you go to work?  Your boss pays you to reinforce your desire to work for him.  

So now lets look at official definitions of reinforcement.

The action or process of reinforcing or strengthening. - Oxford Dictionary  

 The action of reinforcing : the state of being reinforced - Merriam Webster

The act of making something stronger - Cambridge Dictionary

Doesn't that sound more like what you want to do with positive behaviors?  There is such a thing as over doing reinforcement, but I will cover how to properly reinforce in a later post.  But for now, next time you are reinforcing a positive behavior and someone asks you "but isn't that bribery?" you explain the difference!

Spitting part 2


This week I am going to talk about spitting  that is deliberate.  This is a much harder thing to deal with (and much grosser!) because the child has learned that adults do not like being spat on, especially in the face.  Usually I see this behavior in a child with autism who is more impacted, but I have seen children who are very high such as those with Asperger Syndrome learn to spit on people.

A child learns to spit because:
1.  They got a great reaction! So it is fun to see the reaction again.
2.  They got out of doing an unfavored task.
3. They got the person to leave them alone.

So, if your child starts to spit on you, first thing is to not react to it.  I know this is very hard to do.  So if you are giving an instruction and your child spits on you, continue to give the instruction and try to ignore the spit.  Make sure the child finishes the unfavored task, then go clean up.  Spitting is a very hard thing to break, so it is going to take time, be consistent with the ignoring and follow through with the task, and make sure that everyone is reacting the same way. When the spitting no longer gets your child out of the task and nobody gives a reaction, then the spitting should start to go down (also make sure it isn't a sensory issue as I talked about in last weeks post).

Another thing you can do is to determine when your child is going to spit the most.  Maybe there is a certain task he really hates and so that is when the spitting begins.  If you can pinpoint these times, then be proactive and offer a reward for doing the activity.  For example, if your child hates getting ready for bed, then maybe he can play 10 minutes of Angry Birds on the i pad if he can get ready for bed.  Give lots of praise for "keeping mouth to self."

Please feel free to comment below!