Target Behavior Modification Program

Contents:

1) Defining Target Behavior and Competing Behaviors 2
2) Goal Setting 3
3) Logistics 4
4) Functional Assessment 5
5) Choosing appropriate self-management strategies 8
6) Evaluating Change 12
7) Implementing Maintenance Strategies 16
8) Discussion and Limitations 18
9) Appendix
10) Bibliography

Defining
Fruit intake implies both quantity and quality, simple meaning that I have intended to eat more fruit but also of different kinds. The rationale behind it is to be more flexible in future terms after the program has ended, thus decreasing monotony and increasing the probability to eat fruit. I decided to choose such behavior modification mainly for health reasons. I mainly needed to decrease sugar intake and thus replacing glucose and other sugars that might rot the teeth and cause other major problems later in life such as diseases like Diabetes, with fructose. Formally stating my competing behaviors as being sugars and other unhealthy food that will potentially interfere with the program because I have noted that I tend to pursue a all- or- nothing response. This means that I either start my day feeling the urge to eat healthy or else head into a masochistic approach and torture my body with sugars and fats that have been reinforced with stressing periods throughout the years. So that is why in my diet I have emphasized breakfasts and have included it in my behavior modification
R.G. pp. 472). This type of strategy works both on the target behaviors and competing behaviors making it ideal in my case. Tokens act as a reinforcers once they become conditioned through backup reinforcers that could be exchanged afterwards. This increases practicality and effectiveness because tokens are portable and may be given immediately after the desired response is performed. This concept is well known as ‘contiguity’ of reinforcers. Fading then would be necessary to maintain the behavior once the whole treatment would stop, increasing generalizibilty to a natural environment. A fixed-ratio or varied-ratio schedule of exchange of tokens would aid to counteract the artificiality of tokens and simultaneously reinforce natural contingencies such as praise or less visits to the dentist. The problem to exhibit and exercise healthy behavior is that for one thing rewards are delayed substantially and secondly such behaviors act as preventive measure through which responses could not be compared with the latter outcomes. I could never say that if I had not engaged in that particular healthy behavior, right now I would be experiencing for example tooth ache because that would be the reason why I have engaged in that particular behavior in the