Chapter 26 - Extinction

This chapter was based on the technique of extinction, which is a technique based on punishment that involves withholding reinforcements in order to reduce the frequency of a certain behavior. This can be more effective when combined with positive reinforcement of an alternative behavior. The case described in this book dealt with a 5 year old boy who frequently displayed tantrum behavior. The counselor used this technique in the form of “planned ignoring” of the child’s behavior. This technique can be used to deal with any situation where there is an undesirable behavior. As long as the counselor has control over the reinforcers of the target positive behavior before using this technique, then the outcome should be positive. Initially when I read this section of the book, I didn’t think that the best method of counseling would be methods that centered on some type of punishment. I didn’t see how this would be helpful to students. However, because this technique utilizes the concept of reinforcement of a positive alternative behavior to replace the undesirable behavior I can see how the results of using this technique could be positive when dealing with certain students. Because I do not really think that concept of “punishments” are the most effective methods of counseling students all the time, I am undecided whether I will use this technique in the future.