Praise as a Reinforcer: Pairing with a Preferred Stimulus to Produce Similar Sensory Responses of a Given Modality

This study aimed to explore whether praise alone could serve as a conditioned reinforcer after being paired with a preferred stimulus assumed to produce analogous sensory consequences of a given modality. Two children (5 years old) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) received praise as a neutral stimulus with a toy as a reinforcement element. Toys were selected as tools that could deliver the same putative sensory outcomes of stereotypical behaviors. One participant was seated at a desk, and the other could move freely around the test room where other competing reinforcement objects were available. Praise was successfully established as a conditioned reinforcer for the seated participant but not for the other. The percentage of 10-s intervals with competing reinforcer interaction was higher in the baseline and praise periods than during the pairing period. Results suggest that practitioners should consider pairing praise with toys (assumed as having the same sensory results as stereotypy) while the child remains stationary, thus promoting praise as a conditioned reinforcer.