Positive vs. Negative Punishment in ABA Therapy

Elemy
Updated: January 14, 2021

Using punishment in applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy is a normal and effective way of teaching an autistic client that some behaviors are inappropriate. But it’s different than how you may traditionally think about punishment, and it should only be used as a last resort.

Negative punishment removes a stimulus, to encourage the client to perform positive behaviors to get it back. Positive punishment adds an unwanted stimulus, to encourage the client to perform better to have it taken away.

While neither form of punishment is inherently bad, the intervention must be used with care and consistency for it to be effective.

What Is Punishment in ABA Therapy?

In applied behavior analysis, “punishment” refers to the likelihood that an undesirable behavior has stopped or lessened as the result of an intervention that followed the behavior.

It is a familiar concept in general human psychology. People are less likely to do something again if what happened after that thing is unwanted.

Despite the connotations, punishment is neither intrinsically good nor bad. It simply describes the intervention to try and change the undesirable behavior.

Punishment should only be used when other reinforcement strategies have not worked. When it is used, it should always be used with other methods to encourage more appropriate behavior.

ABA therapy has two forms of punishment: positive punishment and negative punishment.

[optin-monster-inline slug=”pvnyscxu4wed6bsz8fd4″]

What Is Positive Punishment?

Positive punishment refers to adding a modifier after the behavior occurs, and the behavior then decreasing. In general terms, receiving a speeding ticket after driving too fast is a form of positive punishment. It should make the driver less inclined to drive faster and more likely to not break the speed limit again. In this example, the ticket is the positive punishment.

What does positive punishment look like in ABA therapy? If a child is engaging in off-task behavior, the therapist might lengthen the amount of time until the child gets their reward.

In this example, the positive punishment is the addition of time and the reduction in off-task behavior. Simply adding a consequence is not enough to meet the criteria for positive punishment. There has to be a successful reduction in unwanted behavior. The reward is reinforcement, meant to encourage the on-task behavior and completion of the task.

What Is Negative Punishment?

Negative punishment takes place when something is taken away, and the unwanted behavior changes. If an employee is docked their pay for unprofessional behavior but then changes their behavior to follow company policies, they received negative punishment.

In ABA therapy, negative punishment can be taking away a toy or reward from a child who is not staying on task, and the child then adhering to the task until they complete it.

Using Positive Punishment and Negative Punishment Properly

Positive punishment and negative punishment have a lot in common. Both are types of punishment found in operant conditioning, which is the understanding of how most people change their behavior in response to added and subtracted modifiers.

In order for punishment therapy to be properly used, the punishment (whether positive or negative) has to be applied consistently, so the client learns the connection between their off-task behavior, the application of the punishment, and the reinforcement for staying on task after the punishment

Any deviation from this paradigm runs the risk of the client not understanding why they are being punished, which will greatly reduce the effectiveness of the punishment.

Consistency in Punishment Interventions

In order to make sure that punishment therapy will be properly used, the therapist will have to determine, in tandem with the client’s treatment team, if the punishment methods (positive and negative) will properly communicate to the client that certain forms of inappropriate behavior should be changed. Will the punishment interventions actually help the client change their behavior in future situations? Have other interventions not been able to achieve these goals?

If it can be determined that the connection between the intervention and the expected change in behavior is too weak, it is a sign that the punishment intervention is likely not working. It should then be discontinued to minimize the distress it can cause to the client.

It is also possible that unwanted behavior can temporarily increase even after the imposition of negative or positive punishment. This is a normal phenomenon, the result of the client adjusting to the interventions.

If the intervention is applied consistently (and in conjunction with other methods), then the desired behavior will emerge as expected. This is why it is necessary that punishment is used consistently. It is equally important that if it becomes clear that the spike is problematic, and not just temporary, the therapist should be ready to scale down the punishment intervention and reassess the situation.

Punishment in ABA therapy should only be used as a last resort. If not used properly, it can have some serious side effects. For example, clients who are inclined to respond aggressively to interventions could experience higher rates of aggression. This is also why punishment should not be used without other supporting interventions.

Punishment & Reinforcement

A similar concept in applied behavior analysis is reinforcement. In ABA therapy, punishment and reinforcement are similar but also very different.

In ABA therapy, positive reinforcement presents a stimulus that motivates or reinforces preferred behavior in the client after that preferred behavior is exhibited. This creates an association between the behavior and the positive punishment, making it more likely that the client will opt to carry out the preferred behavior in the future.

Examples of positive reinforcement include:

Praising a student for doing their homework.
Giving a child a reward for a good report card.
Treating a child for cleaning up their toys or performing some other on-task behavior.

Negative reinforcement takes place when an unwanted stimulus is removed after the client shows a particular behavior. The chances of the desired behavior increase because the unwanted stimulus is removed. For example, a child does a chore because they want their parents to stop telling them to do it (thereby removing the chastisement).

Using Reinforcement Properly

Negative reinforcement is not a punishment intervention. While negative reinforcement increases a desired behavior by removing an unwanted stimulus, punishment decreases a behavior by adding or removing an unwanted stimulus.

In both cases, the intervention can only be considered truly effective if done consistently and if it is successful in modifying the client’s behavior.

In ABA therapy, the goal of reinforcement is to try and increase a desired behavior, while punishment (either negative or positive) looks to decrease an undesirable behavior. Simply put, positive reinforcement is adding a positive stimulus to increase the chances of a response. Negative reinforcement is taking a negative stimulus away to increase the chances of the response.

Pros & Cons of Punishment

Punishment is widely used in ABA therapy to help clients, but it is not without some controversy.

An article in Psychology Today warns that if applied improperly or inconsistently, the client will not understand the connection between their behavior and the imposition of the punishment. Furthering the punishment at this point could be very traumatic for the client.

Additionally, while the concept of “punishment” has a very distinct meaning in psychology, that meaning is lost in translation when people outside the field hear the word. This can set a very inaccurate and misleading tone for the therapy, creating a significant barrier that some parents might not be willing to cross.

Pros & Cons of Reinforcement

Similarly, reinforcement has its own drawbacks. As with punishment interventions, if reinforcement is not used appropriately, it can manipulate clients to become more dependent on programmed reinforcement modifiers than natural modifiers. For example, a client may come to always expect the same kind of reinforcement for desirable behavior even outside a therapy setting. When they don’t get that kind of reinforcement, they may relapse into their pre-intervention behavior.

Like punishment, reinforcement has to be used consistently. Without it, the appropriate response that initially emerged can become weakened to the point where that behavior decreases or disappears entirely. This is a process in psychology known as extinction, in that the desired behavior becomes extinct.

Is Positive Punishment Better Than Negative Punishment?

The concept of punishment, in psychological terms, is not an inherently bad thing. It is how most of us learn not to do things.

In ABA therapy, positive punishment is not necessarily better than negative punishment, and vice versa. There will be times when clients respond better to a stimulus being added so that they learn not to engage in inappropriate behavior. There will be other times when the best course of action is to take a stimulus away, so the client can focus on staying on task.

What determines whether positive or negative punishment should be used in ABA therapy is whether the client can understand how the addition or removal of a stimulus is tied to their behavior.

For clients with severe cognitive impairments caused by autism, the punishment might seem overwhelming, traumatic, and even abusive. Indeed, this form of inappropriate application of punishment therapy has led to many cases of ethical malpractice and psychological damage done to the client. Clients with better cognitive awareness and presence might get the most out of this intervention.

Broadly speaking, positive punishment tends to be more effective to improve behavior than negative consequences, and most therapists will attempt positive interventions before resorting to negative ones. Again, this will depend on the client’s aptitude and how well they respond to the interventions in the context of the full array of their autism treatment.