Token Economy

A token economy is a system that provides teachers with efficient ways to reinforce appropriate student behavior frequently and immediately without disruption to the classroom or school routine. Token economies have been effective in changing school behavior such as homework completion, noncompliance, aggression, tardies, talkouts, and completing functional skills routines such as food preparation. They are implemented similar to the way our monetary system is run. Students are given tokens for engaging in expected behavior (e.g., completing work, keeping hands and feet to self, using appropriate language, etc.) similar to the way individuals in our society are paid to complete work. These tokens can then be later exchanged for items the student desires such as free time, a piece of candy, extra recess, or other small rewards such as pencils or erasers.

Developing and Implementing a Token Economy

Developing and implementing a token economy system involves the following five steps. First, the behavior targeted for change should be well-defined in positive and observable terms. For example, if a student is noncompliant this could be further defined as “not following directions first time asked within 10 seconds.” In the second step, teachers decide what will be used as tokens. Tokens can be anything from points on a point card, fake money, poker chips, or marbles. The goal is for the tokens to be easy for the teacher to dispense and difficult for the students to copy or counterfeit. The third step in implementing a token economy is to develop a reinforcer menu (reinforcers included on the menu are sometimes referred to as “backup reinforcers”), which involves listing items students would like to earn and setting prices for those items. When setting the price of each item, [Page 571]teachers should take into account the amount of effort the student must engage in to earn the item, how much the student desires the item, the amount of time it takes to deliver the item, and whether the item costs money. Figure 1 contains a sample reinforcer menu.

Figure 1 Sample Reinforcer Menu for Mark—A Student With a Severe Disability

The fourth step involves determining when and how frequently tokens will be administered. Initially, tokens should be delivered immediately following the desired behavior, but over time teachers will need to reward behavior on a more intermittent basis. Teachers should always deliver tokens with social praise (e.g., “good job completing your assignment”) so that over time the tokens can be faded and more natural forms of reinforcement can serve as the reward. The fifth step in developing a token economy involves determining when students will be allowed to exchange their tokens for items on the reinforcer menu. Students who are younger, have severe disabilities, or who have emotional and behavior disabilities may need to exchange tokens more frequently (e.g., hourly or daily) than students with mild or no disabilities (who might exchange tokens daily or weekly).