Question

A stroke victim rarely talks, and when she does she usually says something senseless. So each time she says something sensible, you smile, say a few kind words, and caress the victim. As a result, she says more and more sensible things. This illustrates which of the following?

a. positive reinforcement.
b. verbal reinstatement.
c. verbal behavioral establishment.
d. verbal conditioning.
e. principle of verbal reinforcer allocation.

Answer 1

a. Positive reinforcement.

Step-by-step explanation:

Positive reinforcement is the use of a positive response to a person's actions to further encourage future reactions or actions from that person. In other words, positive reinforcement is when an action of a person is met or received with a positive response that will help garner more actions from that person.

In this instance, giving a positive reaction to the senseless words of the stroke patient encourages the sick person to make more efforts to get the 'reward' of the smile or kind words. This will not only give the stroke patient encouragement but also will make him/her want to say or do more to get positive feedback or reaction for his/her actions. This will eventually help in the recovery or improvement of the stroke patient.

Thus, the correct answer is option a.