BA440 Unit 5 Punishment and Ethics Paper Example

When an Uncle Suggests a Spanking: A BA440 Unit 5 Punishment and Ethics Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

BA440: Behavior Intervention

Unit 5 Punishment and Ethics Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the agency, the family and every figure are composite and illustrative; the articles cited are real.

A Dangerous Behavior

Mateo, five, sometimes runs from the front yard toward the street or from his mother in parking lots. Twice this fall he reached the curb before she caught him. His family is frightened, and at a Sunday dinner his uncle said what many relatives think: "One good spanking and he'll never do it again." His mother asked me, as his behavior technician, whether that was true.

The question deserved a careful answer. Running into traffic is the kind of behavior for which families and professionals feel pressure to stop it by any means, and it is also the kind of behavior for which mistakes are costly.

What Punishment Means

Behavior analysts define punishment by what it does: a consequence is punishment when the behavior it follows becomes less likely afterward. Positive punishment adds something, such as a reprimand; negative punishment removes something, such as access to a toy or to attention, as in time-out. Punishment is not defined by intent or by harshness. A reprimand that does not reduce behavior is not punishment, and a mild consequence that does is.

What the Research Says

Lerman and Vorndran (2002) reviewed the state of knowledge on punishment for treating behavior disorders. They found that punishment can reduce behavior rapidly and that its effectiveness depends on factors such as immediacy, consistency and the availability of reinforcement for alternative behavior. They also noted possible side effects, including emotional responses, aggression and avoidance of the person delivering punishment, and they found major gaps in what is known about maintaining and generalizing punishment effects. They concluded that more research was needed before practitioners could use punishment with confidence in everyday settings, and that punishment should be combined with reinforcement-based procedures.

Hagopian et al. (1998) pooled the results of treating 21 inpatients whose problem behavior was severe. Functional communication training alone rarely produced large reductions; combining it with extinction was effective for many cases, and adding a punishment component was needed for some of the remaining cases. Their findings suggest that punishment has a place in some severe cases, but after reinforcement and extinction have been tried with a function-based plan.

A spanking might stop Mateo at the curb once; it would not teach him to stop at the curb.

What Clients Are Owed

Van Houten et al. (1988) listed six rights for people receiving behavioral treatment. Their surroundings should be therapeutic, the services should put personal welfare first, a competent behavior analyst should provide them, programs should teach functional skills, assessment and evaluation should continue, and the most effective procedures available should be used. They argued that restrictiveness should be judged in light of effectiveness: a less restrictive procedure is not better if it fails while the person remains in danger, but restrictive procedures should be considered only after a careful assessment and with appropriate oversight.

For Mateo, those rights point in a clear direction. A spanking would not teach a skill, its side effects could include fear of the adults he needs to trust, and its effects might not hold when no adult is close by. And an effective, less restrictive plan had not yet been tried.

The Plan

My supervising behavior analyst's assessment suggested that running had become a chasing game: Mateo laughed when he ran, and the chase brought intense attention. The plan she designed had four parts. First, safety: an alarm on the front door, a latched gate, and a rule that Mateo holds an adult's hand or the cart in parking lots. Second, teaching: in the yard, with a fence as backup, I practice "stop" with Mateo, reinforcing stopping with a high five and a short game of tag in the safe back yard, so that the chase he enjoys follows stopping rather than running. Third, holding hands in parking lots earns a sticker toward a ride on the store's coin horse. Fourth, if he runs, adults move quickly and calmly to block and return him without laughing, chasing playfully or talking about the run, which removes the attention that maintained it.

The plan contains no added punisher. Blocking and returning him calmly may function partly as extinction and partly as mild punishment, which my supervisor noted in the plan and will monitor.

Talking With the Family

I told Mateo's mother what the research says and why the team recommended this plan, and my supervisor joined a call with the uncle, who had raised his own children with spankings and felt dismissed. She listened, agreed that the danger was real and explained that the goal was a child who stops at the curb even when no one is close enough to spank him. He agreed to try the stop game with Mateo on his visits.

Who Decides

As a technician, I do not choose or design procedures, including restrictive ones. Any plan containing punishment would need to be designed by a qualified behavior analyst, justified by assessment and by the failure of less restrictive procedures, approved with the family's informed consent, and monitored closely with data. My role is to carry out the plan as written, record data and report concerns.

Data and Review

The plan names what will be measured and when it will be reviewed. Each outing and each yard session, adults record whether Mateo ran, how far he got and whether he stopped on instruction. My supervisor reviews the data every two weeks. If running does not decline within six weeks, or if he reaches the street again, she will reassess before considering any change, including whether a more restrictive procedure is justified.

Results

In six weeks, Mateo stopped on the "stop" instruction in the yard in most trials, compared with almost none at the start. In parking lots, he held hands on most outings and earned his horse ride every week. He ran toward the street once, through an unlatched gate, and stopped when his mother called. The door alarm sounded twice, both times bringing an adult before he left the porch.

Conclusion

A spanking was the easy answer, but the research reviewed by Lerman and Vorndran shows that punishment has side effects and uncertain long-term effects, and Hagopian and colleagues' findings place it after reinforcement and extinction in severe cases. Van Houten and colleagues' right to effective treatment calls for safe, effective teaching. A plan built on safety measures, a reinforced stop response and calm blocking reduced Mateo's running without adding a punisher.

References

Hagopian, L. P., Fisher, W. W., Sullivan, M. T., Acquisto, J., & LeBlanc, L. A. (1998). Effectiveness of functional communication training with and without extinction and punishment: A summary of 21 inpatient cases. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 31(2), 211-235. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1998.31-211

Lerman, D. C., & Vorndran, C. M. (2002). On the status of knowledge for using punishment: Implications for treating behavior disorders. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35(4), 431-464. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2002.35-431

Van Houten, R., Axelrod, S., Bailey, J. S., Favell, J. E., Foxx, R. M., Iwata, B. A., & Lovaas, O. I. (1988). The right to effective behavioral treatment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 21(4), 381-384. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1988.21-381