Abstract
The present study was conducted to determine whether the
child’s eating at mealtime could be improved with the
application of Positive Reinforcement in the form of
rewards. It was done by attempting to determine the
functions of the target behavior and decrease the behavioral
avoidance and increase the behavior of eating at meal times
from 3 bites to at least 6 bites per meal. The study was
conducted with a 3- year old girl in a home setting. The
study was divided into three phases; baseline, pre
intervention and post intervention pursued by follow up
observations. The total duration of the study was 45 days
with 60 minutes observation during mealtime (dinnertime)
per day. Results indicated noticeable improvement in eating
behavior of the subject during the intervention phase from
2.3 bites (baseline) per hour to 6.7 bites per hour. During the
post-intervention phase the behavior decreased slightly;
from 6.7 bites (intervention) to an average of 6.1 bites in an
hour. This was still significantly high compared to the
baseline phase. During the three follow-ups, the behavior
was displayed on an average of 7 bites per hour. Thus the
study’s results showed significant improvement of the
mealtime eating of a child with the positive reinforcement
principle based on applied behavior analysis.
Zainab Hussain Bhutto, Sousan Siddiqui. (2013) Application of Positive Reinforcement for Improving Mealtime Eating of a Child in Home Setting: A Case Study, Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Volume 23, Issue 1.
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