"Don't shoot the dog" Talk to me about behavioral training methods for a 4 year old boy.

[colditz]

I have skimmed through it, and I think I may have taught my cat to sit.

Please could you give me an idea about how to apply it to life?

I want to stop doing "do this now or I'll do that". One Two Three Magic works - but not when I can't time him out, or when it is inappropriate, such as when I need him to sit still, or when I need him to look at my face, or when I need him to listen, or when I need him to hold the pushchair walking next to me and KEEP holding on. Plus, how do I fade a positive reinforcer?

I normally

You do?

Don't Shoot the Dog is a great book to teach about reinforcement. That's it'skey message really. Remember reinforcement is always about what your child find reinforcing rather than what you think they SHOULD find reinforcing (I think that is often the biggest mistake people make with behavioural methods).

Why do you need him to look at your face? The standard behavioural way of training eye contact is to hold the reinforcer right up next to your eyes then reward as soon as you get eye contact (the extend so only reward after eye contact is held for a certain period). Personally that's not something I've ever really bothered with- I'm more interested in where attention is rather than eyes iyswim.

For listening I'll say "first..... then " For fading a reinforcer just extend the time before you give it, then only give it a certain number of times etc. Then it's gone iyswim.

I need him to look at my face rather than my eyes ... he hasn't learned to make some of his speech sounds properly because he never looks at people for long enough for them to finish a sentence, so I need to model sounds for him, like L, Th/F, Ch/J.

He has some SEN, but is doing very very well in mainstream school ... he is on the SEN register thing because of his attention span and because of his speech difficulties.

Won't the behavior vanish if the reinforcer is taken away?

not ime. We use reinforcers heavily when introducing a new strategies but fade. Usually the activity itself becomes reinforcing once it's familiar.

Have you tried using a mirror? So sitting behind your ds with a mirror propped up in front of you doing speech sounds. have you been given the Nuffield cards? They're a bit dull- Kaufman cards are worth looking at.

If you CAT me I can send you some video of a session if it would be helpful. Will be very different from yours but shows heavy use of a reinforcer.

hold eye contact and reinforce good behaviour with praise and a sticker chart. With Ds I hold him tight (obv I don't hurt him in any way) and then look into his eyes and explain why no is no. My way of dealing with bad behaviour is what ds finds comforting and it enables