You are a BCBA working in a local school. You have been obse…
You are a BCBA working in a local school. You have been observing a student who immediately yells “I know, I know” every time the teacher asks the class a question. This has become incredibly disruptive in class, so the teacher would like to decrease this behavior to zero levels. You conduct an FBA and the function is most likely attention. You create an intervention that gives the student a token for each expression of the replacement behavior (i.e., raising hand with a completely quiet mouth). The student responds, but the behavior only decreases to 50% over the next month. You know that you need to implement a negative punishment procedure that includes taking away a token every time the child speaks in response to the teacher asking a question without raising his hand first. Are these punishment procedures ethical?