The act of constantly blurting-out inappropriate comments during classroom instruction is a common behavior that can be very disruptive not only to the teacher and students, but to the educational process as a whole. Many teachers attempt to change these behaviors by punishing, threatening, blaming, and criticizing students, but these methods either do not work or work only on a short term basis (Brock, 1998). Often, when the punishments are removed, students will revert to their former inappropriate blurting out. Teachers are often unfamiliar with the methodology involved in creating and implementing successful interventions, and the need for the design of teacher friendly, effective, and enduring interventions to deal with disruptive classroom behavior is obvious (Kehle & Bray, 2000). One research proven intervention that is relatively easy to implement in a special education classroom is the token economy system with response cost.
The effectiveness of token economy systems is well documented. Token economies involve giving tokens to students for appropriate behaviors. Students collect the tokens and trade them in for items that they find reinforcing.
Abstract
The authors utilized Applied Behavior Analysis to examine the effects of using tokens with response cost (the Checkbook Management System) on decreasing the inappropriate speaking-out behaviors of a 14-year-old special education student. After functional behavior analysis indicated that the most likely function of the behavior was attention seeking, an intervention was designed to provide attention and tokens contingent upon the performance of the functional alternative behavior of hand-raising and waiting to be called on. Results showed a 67% decrease in the mean target behavior from baseline to intervention conditions.