PSYB45H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 22: Token Economy, Intellectual Disability
Document Summary
Token economy"s purpose is to strengthen clients" desirable behaviors that occur too infrequently and to decrease their undesirable behaviors in a structured treatment environment or educational setting. Each point received by the adolescents for desirable behavior is a token which is delivered to a person immediately after a desirable behavior accumulated by the person and later exchanged for backup reinforcers. Because token is paired with other reinforcers, it becomes a conditioned reinforcer that strengthens the desirable behavior it follows. Backup reinforcers can be obtained only by paying for them with tokens and tokens can be obtained only by exhibiting desirable behaviors. Backup reinforcers are chosen b. c they"re known to be powerful reinforcers for the clients in the treatment environment. Optional: a response cost component, in which the undesirable target behaviors to be eliminated are identified, together with the rate of token loss for each instance of these behaviors.