Providing Acknowledgement

Providing Rewards to Students

When providing high-frequency rewards (e.g., PBIS ticket, signature, etc) to students, it should be paired with natural or social praise. To provide praise along with a high-frequency reward, follow these steps:

Identify the expectation that the student is doing.
Provide behavior-specific praise.
Provide high-frequency reward. The reward is provided last by design because it will be faded out over time, thus linking a student's use of the expectations to natural/social praise.

Keep in mind

Students are eligible to earn rewards throughout the day, contingent on desired behavior
Staff maintains a high ratio of positive to negative statements (see Flora, 2000 reference below)
Staff also use non-verbal modes to acknowledge students
Rewards are not taken away once a student has earned them
Rewards are distributed “randomly” and are unpredictable
Students do not earn rewards if they ask for one directly

Ideas for Rewards

Elementary-Aged Students

Special passes (e.g., sit in teacher's chair for 30 minutes, Hat Day pass, Slippers pass, etc)
Job shadow a staff member (e.g., principal, custodian, etc)
10 extra minutes of recess or computer time
Use iPod/headphones for X amount of time
Earn an activity with a staff member and friends (e.g., croquet, yoga, kickball, etc)
Eat lunch with staff member

Secondary-Aged Students

Ideal/preferred parking spot for a week
First in line pass
Tickets for a school event
Coupons for discounted/free oil change
Homework help pass or homework late pass
Use iPod/headphones for X amount of time

Behavior-Specific Praise

Behavior-specific (BSP) praise is a form of praise that provides feedback on a specific behavior or action that a student performs.

BSP should:

specifically describe a behavior
be specific to a student or students
be provided contingent on a behavior
include a praise statement
be authentic and genuine

Examples and Non-Examples of BSP

Examples

"Paul, you walked over here quietly and without interrupting others. Thank you."

"Jill, thank you for raising your hand and waiting quietly."

"Great job everyone with taking turns and listening to others during discussion groups."

"Edgar, excellent use of our new vocabulary word in your writing!"

Non-Examples

"Way to go!"

"Awesome job!"

"Thank you for that."

"Stop. Don't do that."

References

Allday, R. A., et al. (2012). Training general educators to increase behavior-specific praise: Effects on students with EBD. Behavioral Disorders, 37(2), 87-

Flora, S. R. (2000). Praise's magic reinforcement ratio: Five to one gets the job done. The Behavior Analyst Today.

Jenkins, L. N., Floress, M. T., & Reinke, W. (2015). Rates and types of teacher praise: A review and future directions. Psychology in the Schools, 52(5), 463-476.

Rathel, J. M., Drasgow, E., Brown, W. H., & Marshall, K. J. (2014). Increasing induction-level teachers’ positive-to-negative communication ratio and use of behavior-specific praise through e-mailed performance feedback and its effect on students’ task engagement. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 16(4), 219-233.

Sutherland, K. S., Wehby, J. H., & Copeland, S. R. (2000). Effect of varying rates of behavior-specific praise on the on-task behavior of students with EBD. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 8(1), 2–8.

Tennessee Behavior Supports Project (2016). Behavior-specific praise in the classroom. Retrieved from https://vkc.vumc.org/assets/files/resources/psibehaviorspecpraise.pdf