So, most everyone has heard of time-out before. A 4-year old girl hits her brother, and mom puts her in a chair and tells her that she must stay there for 2 minutes. This is the only type of time-out that I had heard of before beginning by adventure with ABA. However, who knew there were multiple types?
1. Exclusion: The child is completely REMOVED from the environment.
2. Nonexclusion: The child may move around the area, but they are not completely removed from the environment.
Types of Exclusion Time-Outs
1. Time-Out Room: This is when you take the child out of their environment into a separate room, but it is important that the room is not locked. Make sure that all toys and potential reinforcers are removed from the room and minimal furniture is in the room for safety reasons.
2. Partition Time-Out: The child stays in the room/setting, but you can use some sort of partition to block them off. Something like this can be used.
3. Hallway Time-Out: This is your typical scenario. Student yells in classroom or bothers other students, and the teacher says "Get in the hallway". The problem with this type of time-out is that a) the student is able to talk to people in the hall/get other types of reinforcement, b) the student can easily escape, and c) the student is potentially escaping work (you could be reinforcing their behavior by allowing them to escape school work)
Types of Nonexclusion Time-Outs
1. Planned Ignoring: This is a very quick method of time-out because it just involves ignoring the child for a certain amount of time. For example, every time a child yells at his mother to help him find a toy, the mom is going to "ignore" the child for 1 minute. (Please note- in this scenario, an FCT response should be taught to teach the child an appropriate alternative to yelling. Example: "Mom, can you help me?" in an inside voice)
2. Contingent Observation: This is when the child is no longer able to participate in the desired activity, but they are able to watch the activities that are still going on. Example: The child is jumping with friends at the trampoline park. The child hits a friend, and the mom makes him sit on a bench next to the trampolines for a certain amount of time. The child is still able to watch all of his friends jump, but he is not able to jump himself.
3. Time-Out Ribbon: This is best explained with an example. Sally wears a yellow ribbon around her wrist at all times. She is able to access any reinforcers while she has the yellow ribbon on her wrist. However, when she calls her friend "stupid" while playing legos, the yellow ribbon is removed from her wrist, and this is a signal that no reinforcement is available to her. When the ribbon is removed all social interaction, tangibles, and other reinforcers are withheld, and Sally is not able to earn reinforcers until the yellow ribbon is back on her wrist after a certain amount of time. She is not able to play legos or talk to her friend, or anything else during this time.
4. Withdrawal of a specific positive reinforcer: This is when a reinforcer that is already present is removed for a certain period of time. For example, Billy is watching tv. He yells at his sister, and mom takes away Billy's tv for a certain amount of time. You can also use this with a class. For example, the entire class is watching a movie on Friday afternoon. You constantly tell them to use their inside voices, but they continue to scream. You can turn off the movie for a certain amount of time and the entire class is not allowed to watch the movie.
Resources: Cooper J.O, Heron T.E, Heward W.L. Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson; 2007.
