BUS209 Organizational Behavior

Discuss and provide examples of shaping, chaining, and other behavior analytic procedures that are used to help develop new behaviors

The term chaining in reference to developing new behaviours means a long chain of steps where each one prompts the next one. Completing each step will help in achieving the desired goal. Forward chaining includes teaching the sequence of the steps from the beginning till end. In this process the learner is aware of the final product and is motivated to learn the new skills. For example, teaching a child how to eat with spoon. The sequential steps include pick up spoon, put the spoon in the food bowl, scoop the food into the spoon, lift it and put the favourite food into the mouth.  Backward chaining is teaching the last step of the sequence first. This method is used when the learner is not clear about the end outcome and is resistant to develop the behaviour (Loovis, 2016). For example, teaching a child how to complete a six piece puzzle. The child can be asked to put the last piece first.

Shaping is the teaching method where a behaviour that is not in the person’s repertoire is added. This is conducted by reinforcing successive approximations to the target behaviour using verbal and physical prompts (Luciw et al., 2014). For example, teaching a shy student to speak in front of the classroom. The first step is to make him stand from his bench and reinforce to stand for 5 second followed by reinforcing again to say hello and so on. Fading is similar method but the difference is that the reinforcement (given in the right time and in right amount) is stopped once the child is consistently successful in the target behaviour (Schlichenmeyer et al., 2015).  For example stop giving skittle if a child with autism is successful in toileting.   

References

Loovis, E. M. (2016). Behavior management. Adapted Physical Education and Sport, 6E, 101.

Luciw, M., Kazerounian, S., Sandamirskaya, Y., Schöner, G., & Schmidhuber, J. (2014, July). Reinforcement-driven shaping of sequence learning in neural dynamics. In International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (pp. 198-209). Springer International Publishing.

Schlichenmeyer, K. J., Dube, W. V., & Vargas?Irwin, M. (2015). Stimulus Fading and Response Elaboration in Differential Reinforcement for Alternative Behavior. Behavioral Interventions, 30(1), 51-64.