Written Activity: Do these Procedures make Sense?

1. Joey’s condition requires prolonged attention from his mother. However, his mode of seeking attention is not appropriate. His mother’s intervention strategy is also not suitable for Joey’s condition. His therapist intention to ensure that Joey does not cry any time he needs his mother’s attention, reinforces this behavior of seeking attention. As a result, Joey is likely to continue with this behavior rather than refraining. 
2. I feel that the behavior modification intervention proposed for Jeff’s condition is appropriate. If Jeff develops anxiety whenever he gets paper cut, a short time out will help him refrain from discarding the papers. The gloves also would offer a solution to prevent paper cuts (Wolstenhome, Rissman & Connelly, 2011). However, exclusionary time out needs reinforcement for Jeff to adapt.
3. The teacher's intervention method to encourage learners to withdraw from Hazel is not appropriate. Though helping Hazel develop verbal communication whenever she wants to be alone would be excellent, encouraging withdrawal would hinder the child from developing suitable social skills to interact with others in future (Hedquist & Roscoe, 2019). It would also make her peers develop a negative attitude towards Hazel. 
4. The behavioral modification proposed to change James’s verbal stereotypy is necessary. Through verbal instruction and shaping, James’s dad would be able to interrupt the former’s purposeless utterances, thus helping James to change his stereotypical thoughts. However, this behavior modification is prone to resistance and James may opt not to follow his father’s instructions 
5. Suzy’s mother intervention methods involve encouraging behavior extinction through punishment. I feel that this technique is suitable since Suzy will understand the punishment applied any time she refrains from taking food. Punishment would weaken and definitely reduce undesired behavior (Harrison & Pyles, 2013). As a result, Suzy will develop fear and hence adapting acceptable conduct. 
6. Daniel’s peers' attention maintains his dropping behavior. However, I feel that the use of behavior extinction strategy has been inappropriately employed to intervene against Daniel’s behavior. There is a lack of reinforcement to the accepted action in this intervention. Still, the response is reinforced by other students laughing and critics, while the intervention method is not focusing on this direction (Hedquist & Roscoe, 2019). Physical guide intervention would not prompt Daniel to refrain from dropping totally. 
7. Differential reinforcement is applied as an intervention for Allison’s condition. Alternative methods for verbal communications involved in her case are suitable to help her communicate with others (Hedquist & Roscoe, 2019). Praising Allison for using either or both devices proposed for intervention would facilitate to maintain the behavior, thus enabling her to communicate her needs to others sufficiently.
8. The application of non-contingent attention to intervene against Bill’s screaming behavior suitable for his condition and encouraging behavior modification. I perceive shaping to be necessary for screaming extinction. Providing non-contingent attention after every 10 minutes would interrupt Bill’s screaming behavior as an adult’s aide will be available each time he is tempted to scream. Consequently, behavior extinction will be achieved.  

Recommendations  

Joey’s attention-seeking condition would be solved through a planned response method. This strategy would require his mother to refrain from providing attention to Joey anytime he cries (Tillery, Varjas, Meyers & Collins, 2010). Consequently, the behavior would reduce and eventually disappear over time. This is because any time that Joey cries and his mother fail to appear instills negative reinforcement which would prompt him to engage in an alternative behavior. 

Moreover, the pre-arranged signal technique would be essential in dealing with Hazel’s condition. This technique would allow the teacher to develop a signal that would notify Hazel anytime she does something inappropriate. For instance use of a hand motion or a shake of the head each time Hazel throws objects to her peers would alert her of the behavior and subsequently refrain (Tillery, Varjas, Meyers & Collins, 2010). Pre-arranged signals are significant since they are agreed upon by both teacher and the student while may not be understood by others. 

References  

Dutton Tillery, A., Varjas, K., Meyers, J., & Collins, A. S. (2010). General education teachers’ perceptions of behavior management and intervention strategies.  Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions ,  12 (2), 86-102.  

Harrison, A. M., & Pyles, D. A. (2013). The effects of verbal instruction and shaping to improve tackling high school football players.  Journal of applied behavior analysis ,  46 (2), 518-522.  

Hedquist, C. B., & Roscoe, E. M. (2019). A comparison of differential reinforcement procedures for treating automatically reinforced behavior.  Journal of applied behavior analysis .  

Wolstenholme, J. T., Rissman, E. F., & Connelly, J. J. (2011). The role of Bisphenol A in shaping the brain, epigenome, and behavior.  Hormones and behavior ,  59 (3), 296-305.