Description of the Strategy

As parents have the greatest amount of contact with their children, home-based reinforcement is often the treatment of choice for increasing desirable child behaviors. A key requirement for home-based reinforcement is that the target behavior be both observable and precisely defined. The behavior must be observable so that the parent can directly monitor it, and it must be precisely defined so the parent and child know exactly what behaviors will lead to reinforcement.

An essential component of home-based reinforcement is measurement of the target behavior. Before the intervention begins, measuring the frequency of the desired behavior provides a baseline. Once reinforcement is begun, continuous measurement of the frequency of the target can be used to gauge the success of ...