Natural Maintaining Contingencies

One of the most important aspects of generalization and maintainence is to help the student learn skills that they will receive reinforcement for in their natural environment. Over time, our students cannot (and should not) have someone behind them ready to reinforce them for demonstration of a skill. The skill itself has to be rewarding to them within their environment. For example, teaching a student how to socialize with his peers becomes reinforcing when performed correctly because he/she will get positive attention within that interaction. Alberto & Troutman (2006) state that "if behaviors can be generated that result in increased peer reinforcement, they are particularly likely to be maintained in the natural environment" (348). I still see this behavior principle in effect through my everyday actions, i.e. I buy clothes that I think flatter me so that people will think that I look nice. If I get a compliment for my efforts then I have been reinforced for making an effort in my clothing choices and will probably wear that particular item of clothing more frequently. Therefore, for our students, it is very important to work on behaviors that will receive reinforcement in their natural environment. This means getting to know the student's culture, lifestyle, home life, etc is vital so that you will know what behaviors those students' environments will maintain. It also means that it might be more useful for our student's with severe disabilities to be working on more functional skills, i.e. riding the bus, buying/paying for an item in a store, so that they will be able to interact more fluently in their environment.