Effectiveness of token economy in reducing temper tantrums among the intellectually disabled children

Abstract

Behavior is operationally defined as the response by an organism to the given stimuli. The stimulus factors could be the reason behind a behavior. Research studies on the behavioral analysis of the problem behavior of persons with Intellectual disability have indicated the following reasons such as Attention seeking Factors, Self stimulation, Escape and Tangible factors for the manifestations of problem behavior. The present research is undertaken to know the effectiveness of token economy in reducing the temper tantrums among children with intellectual disability. To study the same 100 children from various disabled school of Mysore city was screened for PBSS to know the level of Problem behavior. Among them 10 students with temper tantrums were randomly picked for experimental group, who received 12 intervention sessions (Earned tokens for minimizing their targeted behavior) and another 10 were assigned for control group who did not receive any intervention. The obtained ‘t’ scores before implementation of intervention technique indicated no significant difference between both the group. However the F ratio of both pre and post interventions indicated that, introduction of token economy had a positive effect in reducing the temper tantrums among the intellectually disabled children.