ABA: SHAPING

APPLIED BEHAVIOUR ANAYLYSIS: SHAPING

Shaping is a strategy used to develop certain target behaviour that an individual do not exhibit occasionally and encourage a behaviour to exist. Shaping is defined as the differential reinforcement of successive approximation of a target behaviour until the person exhibits the target behaviour (Miltenberger, 2008). Shaping is the process of steps being introduced in each level, starting from a starting behaviour that the subject exhibit sometimes, and reinforcing the behaviour, and stop reinforcing that behaviour, leading to extinction of a behaviour, and development of a new behaviour that leads on towards the target behaviour. The process is repeated until the individual exhibits the desired target behaviour. However, this strategy is also susceptible to some problems and produces undesirable results if it is not carried out precisely or if the target behaviour is not best suited to this method. To best describe the application and misapplication, two cases will be presented to show contrast between application and misapplication of shaping.

Application

We are presented with a scenario; imagine you live in a house with a backyard. The door to the backyard is in your family room. You let your dog Felix out into the backyard a few times a day. You decide you would like to teach Felix bump the back door with his nose before you let him outside. Currently, whenever Felix wants to go outside, he walks around the family room and often walks past the back door. In this scenario, shaping strategy is suitable to be carried out. The guideline to execute a shaping strategy requires us to, define the target behaviour, determine whether shaping is the most appropriate procedure, identifying the starting behaviour, choosing the shaping steps, choosing the reinforcer, differently reinforce each successive approximations, and moving through the shaping steps at a proper pace. Now, we determine that the target behaviour is for Felix to bump his nose on the back door before being allowed out into the backyard. One of the most important factors is determining the starting behaviour of Felix. In this scenario, Felix is said to walk around the family room and often walks past the back door. That can be determined as the starting behaviour of Felix prior to letting him out. Despite seeing Felix pacing about the family room and walking past the back door, we would like Felix to be specific about getting out into the yard, rather than just assuming that it wants to go out. Now that we have the important element of starting behaviour and target behaviour identified, we must now select a reinforcer to act as a reward each time a successive approximation is achieved by Felix. The use of a reinforcer is important as we want to encourage a desirable behaviour to increase in frequency. For this situation, the reinforcer could be a dog treat that Felix favours and likes. The reinforcer will be immediately applied when Felix behaves according to cue. The reinforcer of conditioned respond item must be administered a second interval of each respond. For example, if a clicker is used in this shaping process, a successive approximation followed by a click, and immediately fed with a treat. The conditioned response could also be in the form of verbal cue, such as “Felix, yard?” Depending on the wanted target behaviour, any conditioned response is open to the trainer. In this scenario, verbal cue would be the suitable natural reinforcer for little Felix. Now, I shall determine the steps for the successive behaviour to occur. Although, the steps may be altered through the shaping process, it does not necessarily have to be the exact step-by-step process. What matters most is that each successive approximation must be closed gap and the extinction of the previous behaviour must take place because my goal is to have Felix display the target behaviour, which is bumping its nose on the back door. The starting point for me should be, every time Felix walks about in the family room, I shall say “Felix, yard?” and give him a treat. The successive approximation would be Felix would be given a treat only when he approaches the back door. I would want the behaviour of walking about the room to be extinct and anyway other behaviour that follows the cue “Felix, yard?” would not be rewarded. Perhaps, now I would stand near the back door that leads to the yard. The process may take a while and continuously repeated till Felix comes straight to the back door every time “Felix, yard?” is called out. Treats are given immediately after a successful action is performed, right after natural reinforcer is spoken. Now that Felix knows to approach the back door, the goal of getting to its target behaviour is closer. The next successive approximation would be “Felix, yard?” on encourage bumping his nose to the door. This could be done by putting my hand with the treat at the door. This step is repeated several times till Felix is used to it. Occasionally, I put my hand on the door but no treat in it and immediately reward the behaviour after it bumped its nose on the door. The next successful approximation would be when hand gesture is removed and Felix is rewarded every time it bumps its nose on the door. The final successful approximation would be every bump on the door, the door is opened by me and Felix is rewarded. Throughout the whole process, the criteria for each successful approximation may change to suit Felix immediate behaviour as it may not be as straight forward and easy but, what is important is, that the target behaviour is achieved and behaviours that leads to each successful approximation be extinct. By the end, of the shaping process, Felix will now respond to the natural reinforcer, “Felix, yard?” by going straight to the door and bumps its nose on it.

Misapplication

We saw how effective shaping strategies can be successfully implemented in the previous scenario. However, shaping may also be maladaptive if it is implemented incorrectly to and may lead to negative feedback. Here’s a scenario to see how shaping can be misapplied:

Dr. Williams, a school psychologist, was working with an extremely socially withdrawn adolescent, Jenny. Dr. Williams decided to use shaping to help Jenny develop social skills. He identified the target behaviour as making eye contact, smiling, standing up straight, talking at a normal voice volume, and nodding and paraphrasing when the other person said something. Dr. Williams was going to reinforce successive approximations of this target behaviour in therapy sessions, in which he played the role of a classmate and engaged in conversation with Jenny. In each session, Dr. Williams and Jenny role-played four or five short conversations. Before each role-play session, Dr. Williams reminded Jenny which behaviours she should work on. As a reinforcer for exhibiting the correct behaviour in the role play sessions, Dr. Williams bought Jenny an ice cream cone in the school cafeteria once a week.

In this scenario, the shaping technique cannot be used successfully. Why? It is because under the shaping guidelines, is the starting behaviour. Jenny is naturally withdrawn and do not make any social gestures that suggest her effort to develop social skills. Shaping requires that the starting behaviour must already be occurring at least occasionally but if no particular target behaviour is exhibited at all, other strategies is required to generate such behaviour. In addition, Dr. William seeks too many target behaviours at one go and this will create too many criterion which would make it difficult for Jenny and confuses her in the process. The approximation successions may also have too long intervals in between the reinforcement which is the ice cream which is once a week. The long duration gap between reinforcer and successive approximation would cause the behaviour to extinct in that period. Another reason why shaping would be a problem is, whenever Dr. Williams reminded Jenny on behaviours that she needs to work on, it might create a negative reinforcement as shown in Skinner’s operant conditioning. A positive reinforcement would be getting ice cream and negative reinforcement would be acting out target behaviour to avoid social discomfort. Shaping strategy requires the person to willingly execute behaviours that leads to successful approximation and finally, to the target behaviour. In this particular scenario, strategies like prompting or chaining would be better suited.

In conclusion, shaping techniques can be beneficial and improve the lives of people. When used correctly, it will yield good benefits. Such as, in the case where Homer (1971) worked with Dennis, a 5 year old child with intellectual disability and had a spinal condition called spina bifida, in which the spinal cord is damaged before birth. Unable to walk, Dennis could only crawl. With two shaping procedures, Dennis learned how to use crutches successfully and made him independent and his quality of life was improved. We must also be wary that misapplication will create an undesired behaviour or even worse still, shaping problematic behaviours.