Psychology Social Interaction - Click to get a Sample Solution

Question: Discuss about thePsychologyfor Social Interaction. Answer: Introduction Autism is a psychological or neurovascular disorder that is characterized by impaired social interaction, restricted and repeated behavior and impaired verbal and nonverbal communication. The disorder usually arises at a young age. Children with autism need special care and support for leading a normal life. In a learning environment, several kinds of literature have been found to identify a diverse range of issues, while handling autistic patients. The autistic children often show restricted behavior in class, hampering learning process and growth. Several strategies have been implemented for reducing restrictive behavior and cognitive issues of autistic children. They need a continuous support from the educator or care giver for coping with rest of the world. They are literal with who they live and learn, if they get adequate support, as opined by Syriopoulou-Delli et al. They may need support and assistance for social interactions. Based on the information regarding working with t he autistic children in childhood care setting, as a care worker. It has hypothesized that support and reinforcement will be helpful, but punishment will not, for autistic children," in a learning environment. This is the thesis statement and in the following paragraphs, this thesis statement will be focused along with arguments from different relevant kinds of literature, for analyzing the validity of the statement, based on other's opinion. Discussion In my position statement, I will say for the statement hypothesized previously, that, support and reinforcement are helpful, instead of punishment, while handling autistic children.' I am taking this side of the argument, as I have revealed several information for the statement, from the previous literature search, as well as, I have experienced the same, in the child care setting, I work for. I support the fact that educators and care givers experience a lot of difficulties, which can make them irritated and anxious and sometimes, they punish autistic children., especially, due to their restrictive or repetitive behavior, but it is not the correct way, as it makes them more restrictive and frightened Escobedo et al. Moreover, from my perspective, autistic kids are not scary or unlovable, they are just slightly different from the other kids, they need additional support and care, which can promote their cognitive development, instead of punishing them. In a case study by Lagattuta and Drika, mother of an autistic child revealed that punishment or threats of punishment lead to anxiety or related phenomenon, thereby inferring with the cognitive process. She revealed that her son would work towards a reward but will shut down if he fears punishment. Educating and disciplining autistic children are a very important aspect for autistic children. Reinforcement refers to strengthening some activity or argument, in case of behavior, reinforcement is referred to strengthening behavior. It has been revealed that positive reinforcement can promote a particular behavior. Providing reward is a positive reinforcement; for example, Mary usually takes mops the floor, when it is dirty. She observed that, when she cleans the floor, her mother praises her, for her good practice. Thus, in future, when the floor becomes dirty or stained, she takes the initiative to clean the floor, as she felt good when her mom praised her. It has been seen that social reward leads to strengthening Mary's behavior of cleaning the floor when it is dirty. Therefore, from this event, my position statement for the thesis statement is supported that the positive reinforcement is helpful while handling autistic children. In contrast, punishment is referred to delivering some consequences after an undesirable behavior that happens for it to be decreased and eliminated. It has been argued by Wing that positive punishment also has a good effect for making children disciplined, however, most of the evidence are arguing that for autism children love and respect is very important, which can be provided to them through the support and reinforcement, but not through punishments. However, many parents and educators have denied applying positive punishment for shaping their childs behavior, as it has been revealed that positive punishment does not serve for motivating children to correct their behavior. In contrast, negative punishment has been seen to modify a childs behavioral attributes, as the child modifies his or her behavior for gaining the reward. Most of the behaviorists are focusing towards reinforcement, instead of punishment, but punishment is not out of place while dealing with or teaching an autistic child. It has been claimed by Hall that negative punishment works good for autistic children, especially when it is implemented combined with the reinforcement and supportive strategies, because, sometimes it is important for the autistic children to experience harder and negative consequences in a situation; it is difficult to learn about the negative consequences, without going through a punishment. From my perspective, punishment can demotivate the child to adhere with the task given to him. Autistic children are more sensitive compared to normal children. While working at early childhood center, I have experienced a lot of issues with these autistic children, however, I have learned that they admire and follow the person, whoever shows them love and respect, once they feel humiliated, their progress in a task or learning is ceased or hampered. From the viewpoint of Kazdin, the positive behavior support is more than a correct political approach towards behavior management. The author claimed that punishment is ineffective for long run, which can increase aggressive behavior. The priority is to promote positive behavior in children, which cannot be promoted through punishment, as it does not show love toward the child. It is evident that children with autism develop challenging behaviors that become intense with time and difficult to handle and change. Considering this factor, Gena et al. stated that managing the behavioral issue involves the combination of several underlying mental and physical health concerns that needs to be addressed. Educational and behavioral supports are the best possible measures that can be made available to achieve the desirable results of teaching them the skills of self-regulation and replacement. Adoption of the effective strategies can bring out the best out of the child under consideration however, punishment can further degrade the situation (Perry and Andrea). The authors were in favor for the position statement that vouched for support and reinforcement for the autistic children instead of punishment and in this context, positive behavioral support can be the most effective and appropriate approach to the management of the autistic behavior. In response to this, a counter argument was raised by Everard where the author stated that the alternative to of support management of autistic behavior is punishment as it tends to decrease the behavior likelihood by removal of the objects of interest like a toy. The author believe that this will consequently decrease the unpleasant behavior of the autistic children like spanking and yelling. From the contrast of these two kinds of literature, I can make out that while punishment has quicker effects in immediate controlling the behavior of the autistic children, it has proved to be inefficient in the long run and has ultimately increased the hostile attitude of the autistic child. This has been supplemented with additional undesirable behaviors that can eventually strain the relationship that he has with the caregiver (Gebbie et al.). Therefore, it is evident that positive feedback and support can be beneficial in the long run as they have proved to be effective and aid in the maintenance of improvements. Considering the argument from the context of transition time, it is essential for all human beings to move successfully across various activities. It is difficult for the autistic children to shift attention to various activities and tasks or if there are changes in the routine. To explain the strategies to facilitate the successful shift of attention, Kylliinen et al. carried out a research work and demonstrated that the difficulty for the autistic children occurs because of greater requirement of predictability, difficulty in understanding of the forth coming activities and challenges in understanding disrupted behaviors. The authors believe that these difficulties of the autistic children have to be understood with compassion and punishment is not the desirable strategy to handle such difficulties of the autistic children. The authors have suggested transition strategies for supporting the autistic children without hampering their independence and ability for success. To carry on with the argument, Willis stated that punishments are the negative consequences that can let the child know that the behavior is disrupting and unacceptable. A visual timer can be set to measure the duration of effect of the applied punishment and this can set a rule that can be applied for different misbehaviors for better handling of the child. However, my standpoint out of the two kinds of literature is that although punishment can make the child aware of his misconduct, it cannot go deep and make him realize the importance of an appropriate behavior. Therefore, the child might learn what not to do but he will never learn why not to do out of punishment. Conclusion On a concluding note, it can be stated that several things can be done to overcome the challenges faced by the autistic children, however, punishment is not the solution for effective handling of the challenges. Better knowledge about the child can aid to provide better support to the children with autism and punishment can deteriorate the process of improvement and acceptance. References Escobedo, Lizbeth, et al. "MOSOCO: a mobile assistive tool to support children with autism practicing social skills in real-life situations." Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2012. Everard, Margaret P., ed.An Approach to Teaching Autistic Children: Pergamon International Library of Science, Technology, Engineering and Social Studies. Elsevier, 2014. Gebbie, Deborah H., et al. "The role of teacher efficacy in strengthening classroom support for preschool children with disabilities who exhibit challenging behaviors."Early Childhood Education Journal40.1 (2012): 35-46. Gena, Angeliki, et al. "Parent Training for Families With a Child With ASD: A Naturalistic Systemic Behavior Analytic Model."European Journal of Counselling Psychology4.1 (2016). Hall, Laura J. Autism spectrum disorders: From theory to practice. Pearson Higher Ed, 2012. Kazdin, Alan E. Behavior modification in applied settings. Waveland Press, 2012. Kylliinen, Anneli, et al. "Practical guidelines for studying young children with autism spectrum disorder in psychophysiological experiments."Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders1.4 (2014): 373-386. Lagattuta, Kristin Hansen, and Drika Weller. "Interrelations between theory of mind and morality."Handbook of Moral Development,(2014): 385-407. Perry, Ewan, and Andrea Flood. "Autism Spectrum Disorder And Attachment: A Clinicians Perspective.."Attachment in Intellectual and Developmental Disability: A Clinician's Guide to Practice and Research(2016): 79. Syriopoulou-Delli, Christine K., et al. "Teachers perceptions regarding the management of children with autism spectrum disorders." Journal of autism and developmental disorders 42.5 (2012): 755-768. Willis, Clarissa.Teaching young children with autism spectrum disorder. Gryphon House, Inc., 2015. Wing, Lorna. The Autistic Spectrum: Revised edition. Hachette UK, 2012.