Pairing Yourself As a Reinforcer
- alyleca
- Nov 1, 2015
- 2 min read
What I've learned from my online training program in Applied Behavior Analysis is that you cannot successfully begin teaching a child with autism until you have "paired" yourself as a reinforcer, or in other words, established yourself as "the giver of all good things". This is an extremely important process, and one that is often overlooked.
What is a reinforcer?
A reinforcer consists of any item, person, or activity that increases the future likelihood of a certain behavior occurring. If therapists, teachers or parents become a reinforcer, they are increasing the child’s likelihood of coming TO them, instead of running away from them.
What does pairing mean?
Pairing yourself as a reinforcer refers to associating yourself with items or activities that the individual finds enjoyable.
Establishing yourself as someone that the individual enjoys coming to.
How is pairing done?
When beginning the pairing process, do not place any clear demands on the child. Instead, just play or interact with the child. Find out what they like/ what activitives are enjoyable or reinforcing for them.
Make sure only you have access to the items or activities at first instead of having the items or activities all readily available to the child. This is to ensure the association between you and the preferred items and activities will occur.
Do not take any items from the child, but always offer additional items so the learner does not become tired of the item he is engaging with.
Be patient! Pairing yourself as reinforcer means gaining the student’s trust and being someone they want to be around. Do you trust someone after meeting them just one time? This doesn’t typically happen after one meeting with the student either.
Once pairing has occurred, you can progressively introduce work or demands and learning can occur
References
Pairing: The First Step to Gaining Instructional Control With Your Child/Learner. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://autismtrainingsolutions.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/pairing-the-first-step-to-gaining-instructional-control-with-your-childlearner/
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