Applied Behavior Analysis I
T C
Professor C.A.
November 12, 2013
Case 1: The Case of Bobby
Bobby is an 8 year-old boy who has the tendency to always leave his room in disarray. This continues to occur despite the fact that Bobby’s father Mr. Kelly frequently reminds Bobby to clean his room. Mr. Kelly would like to increase the frequency in which Bobby cleans his room.
Operant Conditioning “Occurs when a behavior in a particular situation is followed by a reinforcing consequence, thus making the behavior more likely to occur in similar circumstances in the future (Miltenberger, 2012).” In Bobby’s case, Mr. Kelly, Bobby’s father could sit Bobby down and talk to him about a token system where Bobby would be given tokens in exchange for …show more content…
She has changed her behavior to protect herself from getting bitten again. Jackie’s reinforcer would be to stay away from dogs to avoid being bitten. The punishment was the dog biting her and she doesn’t want to feel that pain again. The negative reinforcement means removing the dog from her presence so she doesn’t get bitten again. “The result of operant conditioning is that the behavior is more likely to occur in the future in circumstances similar to those in which the behavior was reinforced (Miltenberger, 2012).”
Jackie could be taught relaxation exercises. That way whenever she is in the presence of a dog, she could start gaining control over her emotions. Breathing exercises should also be incorporated as part of the relaxation exercises. Then Jackie could be put in a room with cute and safe puppies until she became comfortable with them. Over a short period of time, those puppies could be exchanged for a little more aggressively natured dog, but still small in size. After a period, that dog could be exchanged for a larger, but gentle dog until Jackie became more comfortable with