Summary of the Observations of the Target Behavior: A Token Economy

A token economy is a system that is used to facilitate a change of behavior in a child and enable them to develop good behaviors in an education setting. The token economy is a highly individualized, reinforcement-based and behavior change system that is inferred from the principles of operant conditioning which can be used either with groups or individuals (Kazdin 2012). In this manner, the children are given tokens on the occasions when they complete tasks or behave in the desired ways with the view of providing positive reinforcement to the children. In the process of conducting the functional analysis of the target behavior; which is developing a culture of reading, there were observations made in the course of one week. During one week, the child reduced the durations for watching television and taken the extra times to study.

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Other observations that were made in the behavior of the child was the decrease in the interest in playing computer games, and playing games on the smartphones. It was evident that by the children reducing the times spent on playing computer games; there was free time available for him to read. Additionally, reducing the durations for watching television enabled the child to develop an atmosphere free of disturbance and distraction and this was a great way of acquiring skills and finding interest in reading. Third, the child developed an interest in reading newspapers and short articles that he would find around him; this played a critical role in the development reading culture that had great help on his acquisition of knowledge and enabled him to familiarize with written words and gain skills on different aspects of the society. It is of great importance to acknowledge the impact that reading culture played in the life of the child and the benefit it had on his reading culture. Finally, the child reduced his playing times which also helped him to improve on his cleanness.

Narrative of what occurred

During the process of making observations for the one week and the making of the analyses, the child was making some general behavioral trends, and this helped to conform the behaviors of the child towards reading culture. The child would wake up early enough, do general house cleaning and then take a bath to stay fresh. He would then take his breakfast and do homework or exercises from the school books. Such would take about one hour after which the child would take a break to refresh by either watching television, play computer games or play with his friends. Time for refreshing would take about two hours after which he would engage in the general cleaning of the house and that of the homestead and later on have the time to watch educative videos such as documentaries and gospel music and films that served to help him expand knowledge about the society and the world in general. Watching of the educative videos would take a lot of the childs time, and this would be about three hours.

After that, the child would then have time to build his artistic skills whether through the reading of poems or taking part in the development of his talents by practicing music, reading or writing of poems and short stories. Such steps offered the child ample time to improve his reading skills and allowed him to acquire knowledge that is highly applicable to the modern-day learning and development of skills in the modern society. After taking time in the development of his skills, the child would take the time to refresh either through watching kids films, playing video games or playing with his friends. The daily routines of the child were crucial for building reading skills and giving the child the opportunity to acquire knowledge and information.

Reference

Kazdin, A. (Ed.). (2012). The token economy: A review and evaluation. Springer Science & Business Media.