Shaping

Description of the Strategy

It is often desirable for clients to acquire new ways of responding, that is, to expand their behavioral repertoire. Shaping is a procedure for teaching children to do new things. When using the shaping procedure, new behaviors are constructed from the bottom up. The procedure starts with a response that the child is already able to do, and works step-by-step from this response to the goal behavior. Each small step along the way is reinforced, and once a step is accomplished, an additional small requirement is added. This gradual building process facilitates motivation and progress and continues until the goal is reached.

Technical Description

Shaping involves differentially reinforcing responses that successively approximate a terminal response class resulting in ...

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