Token Economies Have A Long History Of Being Identified As...

Token economies have a long history of being identified as evidence based practice (Simonsen, Fairbanks, Briesch, Myers, Sugai, 2008). Through the use of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, token economies function to manage student behaviors. Such economies are widely used in classrooms, especially in special education classrooms that tend to have students with more severe behavior problems. According to Cooper, Heron, and Heward (2007) significant research has demonstrated the effectiveness of the token economy as a means to change behavior. As previously stated, token economies rely on principles of positive reinforcement to increase the occurrence of target behaviors through the delivery of a token. Tokens can†¦show more content†¦The token economy was selected based on the fact that is uses many of the core principles of applied behavior analysis such as positive reinforcement. It was also selected based on its history of strong empirical evidence that s upports the effectiveness of such a behavior change system. A multiple stimuli without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment was conducted to identify tangible reinforcers to use as part of the token system as a means to reduce undesired student behavior. According to Daly, Wells, Swanger-Gagnà ©, Carr, Kunz, and Taylor (2009), multiple-stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessments are helpful for identifying preferred common classroom activities as reinforcers with children with behavioral disorders. Using an MSWO, Daly et al. (2009) identified and used high, medium, and low preferred stimulus contingent on the completion of math problems. The researchers reported a high correlation between the preference ranking and number of problems the students completed. For this study, the MSWO assessment will be conducted over the course of three consecutive days. For a selected item to be ranked as preferred, it must be selected in at least 80% of opportunities (Tarbox, Ghezzi, Wilson, 2006). Literature Review According to Matson and Boisjoli (2009), token economies have been commonly used to support the improvement of target behaviors such as attention seeking and task avoidance behaviors. Token