- This candy is not for eating!
- This candy is not for eating! — Part 2
- This candy is not for eating! — Part 3
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now that Halloween has passed, kids (and adults) all over the country are digging through bags of loot. Some candy is definitely preferred over others. Now might be a good time for a good candy blog post.
So, remember that fantastically foul candy which made a better punisher than reinforcer? Things aren’t always so black and white…!The candy was foul, and Emma didn’t like it — but she Emma is a clicker-savvy kid. She likes to work, she likes to play the game. Emma wanted to engage and earn reinforcement during the service, and getting it right is reinforcing, too.
The candy became a tangible indicator that she had achieved her criteria. It wasn’t tasty, but it was the equivalent of a star on a chart. In fact, she so wanted to work, she worked to earn that candy.
By the end of the session, she even liked it. /shudder/
Moral of the story? Being right can be a reinforcer in itself — and it can be the only reinforcer needed, as is often the case in TAGteach. While it’s not a good idea to use sub-standard reinforcers, and while a tangible reward when the learner prefers an intangible can often backfire, in this case, the power of the game carried through to the low-grade reinforcer.
Evaluate your external reinforcers, as we’ve said before — but don’t underestimate the power of internal reinforcers, either!
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