| During the 1950s and '60s behavioral approaches | | | | measurement techniques. |
| in psychotherapy, counseling, education, and | | | | "Time out was the term for extinction used in |
| parent training became widely used. "Time out" | | | | teaching and training children. It refers to time out |
| derives from the operant conditioning literature | | | | from positive reinforcement. It was believed that |
| expanded and popularized to a large degree by | | | | many inappropriate behaviors of children are |
| Harvard psychologist B. F. Skinner. Experimenrts | | | | learned as attention-getting strategies. Tangible |
| with animals revealed two major types of | | | | rewards often were replaced by praise and |
| learning. Classical conditioning originated from the | | | | recognition. Social reinforcement can be as |
| work of Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, at the | | | | powerful or even more powerful that tangible |
| turn of the century, and involves the pairing of | | | | rewards. The use of the procedure was never |
| two stimuli. An unconditioned stimulus is one that | | | | meant to be a punishment. It is applied |
| elicits some behavioral response, much like a | | | | consistently by removing the child from whatever |
| reflex. | | | | conditions are rewarding the behavior for a short |
| A conditioned stimulus, originally having no power | | | | period of time. Ideally, the "time out room" is |
| to elicit that response, paired predictably with the | | | | devoid of positively stimulating objects. In certain |
| unconditioned stimulus acquires the power to elicit | | | | hospitals and institutions for the mentally |
| that same response. Psychologists believed for | | | | challenged this was inappropriately applied to |
| many years that this was the basis for emotional | | | | padded cells used for long periods of time for |
| learning but not the learning of most behavioral | | | | dangerous behaviors. |
| habits. Skinner established many of the | | | | Parents using time out should be aware of the |
| parameters of learning that occurs on the basis | | | | psychological basis for the procedure. A child |
| of the consequences of that behavior. A rat | | | | should not be placed in a room with access to |
| learns to press a bar when the bar press leads to | | | | TV, videogames, ipods and the like. The reason |
| reward with a pellet of food. Any outcome that | | | | for the time out should be explained clearly but |
| increases the likelihood of a response is termed a | | | | briefly. There whould be no discussion. A one-time |
| "reinforcement" A learned response will be | | | | warning should be given before time out is |
| "extinguished"over time when it no longer leads to | | | | instiituted. After a brief time out interval-perhaps |
| the reinforcement. | | | | five minutes, the child should be returned to what |
| Students of Skinner and other psychologists | | | | he was doing. Suggestions for more appropriate |
| began to apply operant conditioning procedures to | | | | ways he could have handled his frustration may |
| human learning. Teachers and parents had a long | | | | be given,. Should the negative behavior continue |
| history of awarding stars and stickers to children | | | | the time out can be re-instituted. |
| for good performance. Now there was a solid | | | | It is sometimes necessary to physically place the |
| empirical basis for such procedures which were | | | | child in time out. The procedure, therefore, is not |
| seen as having potential for changing behaviors in | | | | appropriate for older children and adolescents. |
| schools, psychiatric hospitals treatment centers, | | | | Older children and adolescents may be sent to |
| even prisons. Educators began using operant | | | | their rooms but this is not time out and usually |
| conditioning in classrooms. Therapists used it for | | | | not as effective. The best approach is to teach a |
| toilet training, and for teaching language, dressing | | | | more socially positive behavior incompatible with |
| skills, and a wide variety of social skills. Psychiatric | | | | the negative behavior she was using. Operant |
| settings were often structured as with "token | | | | conditioning procedures for changing human |
| reward" systems for training pro-social behaviors. | | | | behavior today are combined with cognitive |
| The difference from earlier approaches was that | | | | approaches designed to restructure irrational and |
| the reinforcement procedures were now being | | | | self-defeating ideas that lead to the undesirable |
| applied systematically and often with precise | | | | behavior. |