Helping diminish fear, dependence, and withdrawal behaviors

The following information is from Unit 15 of the book Teaching: A Course in Psychology by Wesley C. Becker, Siegfried Engelmann, and Don R. Thomas. 

Note: Science Research Associates published the book in 1971. I am unsure if the publishers reprinted the book or if it is available to buy. I found it through a university inter-library loan program. I suspect that Becker or Engelmann use the book or some form of it in their special education teaching classes at the University of Oregon.

• Two types of responses in respondent conditioning
• Operant behavior: responses from consequences of behaviors
• Reflexive or respondent behavior: responses (reflexes) from preceding stimuli
• Reflexes
• Are controlled by specific stimuli that precede the reflexes
• Reflexes involve the body (example: the physical reactions to being scared)
• Unconditioned stimuli cause reflexes
• Examples: seeing food makes you feel hungry, loud noises startle you, pain makes your heart rate go up, and emotional responses (feelings) use combinations of reflexive reactions
• A neutral stimuli preceding an unconditioned stimulus can come to invoke the same response as the unconditioned stimulus
• Then the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus
• This is why when students are punished they learn to escape the punishment (punitive discipline), the punisher (teacher), and the place (school)

• Avoiding fear of school
• Teaching does not condition fear if it emphasizes reinforcement, success, and competence
• Effective use of reinforcers eliminates negative attitudes and feelings and builds positive attitudes and feelings

• How to change a reaction to a conditioned stimulus
• Extinction: Keep presenting the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus
• Over time the response weakens because it is not reinforced (shown to be upsetting)
• Counter-conditioning: teach an incompatible reaction to the same stimulus
• Example: pair an animal the student views as scary in positive environments with other students
• Gradually bring the animal closer to the student
• Pair reinforcement with the subject showing less avoidance of the stimulus

• Operant and respondent conditioning differences for neutral stimuli to become punishing
• Operant conditioning
• Signals control learned responses
• Conditioned stimuli control reflexive responses
• Respondent conditioning
• Unconditioned stimuli control the responses
• Unconditioned reinforcers and punishers control the responses that precede them as well
• Example: a man blows a whistle for a dog to come get a biscuit. The whistle is a netural stimulus that becomes a conditioned stimulus to salivate because when the dog sees the biscuit, he salivates (unconditioned response)

• Case study of fear of school: shaping
• Many young students are afraid to stay at school
• It is normal and after a few minutes they tend to recover
• But some students have abnormal reactions
• A seven year-old boy was terribly afraid to stay at school without his mother present
• He was taken to a behaviorist
• On the first day the behaviorist started a role play session with dolls with him
• Mother sat by the door
• The role play dealt with what a doll would do when he was in situations without his mother
• The boy was given candy if he discussed that the doll would be brave
• When the boy was immersed in the therapy, his mother left the room
• Advice to mother
• His mother praised him for staying with the behaviorist
• The behaviorist told his mother to encourage the boy at independent behavior at home
• Over eleven more sessions, the role play showed the doll going to school and eventually staying at school
• The boy expressed positive ideas about staying at school
• School became associated with positive adults and candy
• A teacher began to visit him at the therapy to adjust him to an adult at school
• On session 11 she took him to the school to visit
• Over two weeks he spent more and more time at school until he stayed all day by himself
• Three months later the boy was still comfortable with being at school

• Case study of combating dependent behavior: reinforcing for mature behavior
• A six year old girl would not do the activities she needed to do to go to school even though she was capable
• Examples: dress, brush her teeth, eat food
• She only did them if her mother nagged or helped her
• The mother thought she needed to help her and she didn’t want her late for school
• Behaviorists told her mother what to do
• Get the girl an alarm clock to wake up
• Tell the girl she was responsible to get ready
• Stop nagging (stop giving attention)
• Praise the girl for success
• The plan involved the girl’s teacher as well
• She could not give the girl attention if she came late
• The girl was late for school six times in the first two weeks of school (6 out of 10 days)
• The girl was late once in the next two weeks
• In the next six weeks the girl tended to be at school on time and only left home a little late about once a week
• Adults must reinforce responsible behaviors that students can do
• Do not reinforce immature behavior   by giving the student too much attention or affection through coddling
• This encourages the dependent and unwanted behavior

• Case study of regressive crawling: selective ignoring and attention
• A three year old girl spent 80% of her time crawling like a baby though she could walk
• Teachers gave her attention under the assumption she crawled because there was a new baby sibling in her family
• They suggested activities that needed standing
• So the teachers ignored the crawling and gave her attention only when she stood
• Normal behavior came back within a week
• No special reinforcement was needed after another week for her to do usual activities

• Case study of a child who avoided playing with other children: selective ignoring and attention
• A four year-old girl was not afraid of playing with the other children but she did not engage them
• She started playing alone and talking with adults only
• Teachers changed how they responded to her
• If she came to them alone, they ignored her
• If she came to them with another child, they gave her some attention
• If she played with another child, they gave her a lot of attention and provided more playing materials
• If she tried to stop playing with the child when an adult approached her, the adult ignored her and paid attention to the other child
• After six weeks she played with children more often, talked to adults much less often, and played alone much less often

• Clingy behavior: shaping and selective attention
• Children who show dependent behavior on adults are reinforced by social reinforcers from the adults
• Examples: attention, affection, praise, proximity
• Use the social reinforcers to strengthen independent behavior
• The teacher prompts small steps towards an activity the student can do on his own or with another student
• The teacher reinforces improvement
• The teachehr ignores dependent behavior
• Be prepared that when a student who is used to dependent behavior no longer is reinforced for it, he will go through an extinction phase
• His behavior will become outbursts
• Do not give in or get angry
• The first few outbursts are the worst
• After that the student will have less powerful outbursts and then not use the behavior anymore

• Withdrawal behavior: teaching skills and setting up situations
• Withdrawal can be due to avoiding people or places due to punishing reinforcers in the past
• The earlier information addresses this issue
• Withdrawal can also be due to lacking social behavior
• Some students do not KNOW how to interact with others
• They need someone to take the time to acclimate them
• A student was afraid of her classmates and teachers
• One teacher worked on being a reinforcer for her
• The teacher gave her attention, gave her things to play with, talked to her, and played with her
• When the student felt the teacher was a reinforcer, she used her attention to encourage the student to play with others
• She brought the peers to the student’s play area slowly over time
• A boy seemed disinterested in playing with other boys, so they excluded him
• The teachers reinforced one activity for the boy to play
• They socially reinforced him for climbing on the jungle gym
• After nine days he went from 5% of his day outside on the jungle gym to 40% of his day
• He also started talked to peers and began playing with them