Johnny's Paladaptive Behavior

Before providing suggestions to Johnny’s parents and teachers, we should clarify which his behaviors are adaptive and which his behaviors are maladaptive because the suggestions should increase future likelihood of adaptive behaviors and decrease the probability of maladaptive behaviors occurring in the future.
His teachers complain that Johnny gets off task easily during class which leads him to turn in incomplete or incorrect classwork. Why does Johnny get off task easily? According to operant conditioning theory, the probability of a behavior occurring in the future is determined by a reinforcing stimulus. What is the reinforcing stimulus that cause Johnny to get off easily? One reason for this is that Johnny does not receive immediate and effective feedback from …show more content…
A teacher cannot pay close attention to each student in the class. When Johnny get off his task, the teacher may not give immediate response to his problem behavior. Johnny may perceive that getting off task is a corrective behavior because his teachers say nothing about it. Although the teacher may notice that Johnny get off his task, limitation of time in the class force the teacher to communicate with Johnny after the class. The delay of feedback exerts little influence on Johnny’s maladaptive behavior. Therefore, one suggestion for his teachers is to pay more attention to Johnny and give him immediate and effective feedback while getting off task. At the beginning, the teacher can tell Johnny that if he can turn in a complete classwork, he will not have to stay here to complete the classwork after the class. In this stage, the purpose is to complete his classwork regardless of correct or incorrect, so presenting negative reinforcer will be useful because he can achieve this goal easily. After Johnny can submit a complete classwork, the teacher tells Johnny that if ninety percent of his answers are correct in his classwork, he