By: Michael Toto, M.S. Ed., BCBA, LBA-CT

We are faced with making choices and decisions across our entire day, from what clothes to put on to how we interact with others.  The outcomes of our decisions can, of course, be positive or negative.  A positive outcome would most likely drive us to make that same, or similar, decision again in the future.  After all, who doesn’t want more positive experiences?  A negative outcome, however, might lead us to make different decisions.  Now, imagine you are a child who, on a daily basis, struggles to make decisions.  It isn’t hard to imagine that such a world can be a very scary and uncomfortable place.

Children who may not have strong choice-making skills most likely have skill deficits in other related areas:  language comprehension, executive functioning skills, leisure, even healthy eating habits.  As a result, adults are placed in a position to both help children acquire new skills and help them learn from the choices they make.  But, when attempting to teach a child a new skill, there is some uncertainty surrounding the most effective time to offer a child a choice.  For instance, if you want your child to acquire the skill of cleaning their room, should you offer them a choice of reward before they start cleaning their room, or would it be more advantageous to offer them a choice of reward after they have cleaned their room?  

What some preliminary research tells us is that the rate of learning may actually be quicker when children are given a choice after they have engaged in a particular behavior (such as cleaning their room) as opposed to before.  For example, if you have asked your child to clean their room and they have successfully completed that task, you could immediately offer them a choice by saying, “You did such a wonderful job cleaning your room!  Would you like some ice cream, or would you like to play your video games for a while?”  You may even have success by leaving the question more open-ended: “Your room looks fantastic!  What really fun thing would you like to do now?”  Essentially, timing the presentation of your reward options could significantly impact how well your child develops new skills.  Capturing your child’s “momentary fluctuations in preference” may serve to be more influential than attempting to establish a potential reward before the task has started (Howell et al, 2019).

When considering a child’s overall skill repertoire, do not undercut the value of choice-making.  Providing a child with opportunities to demonstrate effective choice-making is an intervention that many of us can easily implement (Gureghian et al., 2019).  Non-intrusive interventions such as choice could speed up the acquisition of emerging skills, and even decrease the occurrence of problem behaviors (e.g. non-compliance).  

Sources:

Gureghian, D. L., Vladescu, J. C., Gashi, R., & Campanaro, A. (2019). Reinforcer choice as an antecedent versus consequence during skill acquisition. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 13(2), 462–466. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-019-00356-3

Howell, M., Dounavi, K., & Storey, C. (2019). To choose or not to choose?: a systematic literature review considering the effects of antecedent and consequence choice upon on-task and problem behaviour. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 6(1), 63–84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-018-00154-7

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