On 30 May 2003, Beth Benoit wrote: > For a baby of 18-20 months, I think our encouragement of drastic > measures like ammonia, lemon juice, etc., is drastic, unrealistic > and cruel.
Well, certainly, the revelation that the child is 18-20 months old gives a different picture, and makes one far more hesitant to use stronger aversives such as the one I suggested, a cold-water spray. Nevertheless, biting, even in a 1-2 year old, is not only very painful for the equally-young victims of such attacks, it's a definite health hazard and carries the risk of infection. So something must be done. One option is to remove the child from the school. That may be impossible for parents who depend on day care, and it does nothing to solve the problem of the child's dangerous behaviour in the presence of other children. It may be unethical to apply strong aversives but it may also be unethical to do nothing to help a child with a serious problem which makes it necessary to isolate her from other children. For a 1-2 year old, I still think that consistent, contingently- applied time-out in a high chair turned to the wall for 5-10 minutes on each occasion of biting should put a stop to it. But if that failed, I still wouldn't be opposed to the use of a cold-water spray, with staff and parental approval, cruel and heartless though that may make me. This is a classic debate, and it's an old one. On the one hand we have those in the TLC camp, who believe that giving them lots of love is sufficient to cure any problem. Another group, closely-related to those, diagnose some deep-seated inner problem, such as anger or rejection, and propose that solving that problem will lead to a resolution of the behavioural "acting-out". Then there are the behaviorists, who believe that aside from inadvertent attention or escape from demands as possible reinforcers of such inappropriate behaviour, we may never know the "real" cause. Nevertheless, the behavioural view is that the effective use of punishment to decrease the unwanted behaviour together with positive reinforcement to promote alternative acceptable behaviour is the only way to go. The difference is that the behavioural approach has volumes of careful published studies documenting its effectiveness while the TLC and inner-cause advocates have only an appeal to humanity and anecdote. To those people I'd say: great-- if it works. But there is scant evidence that it does. One interesting place this has played out is in treatment of self- injuring behaviour of children, who sometimes cause horrific damage to themselves. The TLCers, such as those advocating a kind of therapy called "gentle teaching", denounce in extreme language the use of behavioural techniques, including electric shock ( John McGee's calling it "a perfect technology for the culture of death", for example). Yet electric shock has been shown to work, and a device for automatic delivery of shock contingent on self-injuring responses called the "self-injuring behavior inhibiting system" (SIBIS) shows promise. The gentle teaching advocates instead make grandiose claims but what they call evidence is laughable. Stephen ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips _________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
