Some educators who is not familiar with Applied Behavior Analysis might think that food, toys other preferred items and social praise are given to a child after every mass trial is bribery. Well, it is some sort of bribery, which would find disgusting(probably not an appropriate adjective to describe), but if it open learning opportunities for a child, then so be it.
I remembered my supervisor saying that she would rather teach a hundred kids with ADHD than a kid with no reinforcer at hand. Being in the business of treating autism, reinforcers are very powerful tool that can open the floodgates of behavioral, academic, social and developmental skills for the child.
If you want the child to comply with you, you offer him a value dear to him in form of food, toy, tickle or social praise if he first does what being tasked of him. In the early stage of treatment, reinforcers that are tangible are heavily used. Eventually, when you a child has attained great progress to the point where he enjoys social praises, then you can start to fade it to intangible reinforcers in the form of social praises such as “Good job!”,”Well done!”,etc.
If you know the value of reinforcer in teaching a child, by all means use it to its fullest extent and you will see the changes of the child unfold right before your very eyes.
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