Kids paying attention: conditioning

[azurelunatic]

Conditioning Little Fayoumis to respond to his name immediately, with positive reinforcement. I say his name, he responds, "What?" and he gets a "Yayyyyy!" and applause.

This is directly on the heels of him not listening to marxdarx, of course. I heard the entire exchange.

"Little Fayoumis.
"Little Fayoumis, hello?
"Little Fayoumis, are you there?
"Are you listening?
"Little Fayoumis. Since you can't listen to me, leave the room. Now."
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

From marxdarx's report, this is a common exchange.

I asked him to move it to the couch and think about listening to marxdarx. After he calmed down, I was able to ascertain that he'd heard marxdarx talking to him, he'd just been singing, and hadn't been answering.

So, we worked on getting to answer to his name the first time.

"Little Fayoumis?"
"What?"
"Yaaaaaaay!!!" [applause]

"Little Fayoumis?"
"What?"
"Yaaaaaaay!" [applause]

So, that'll add to the list of things that we work on. He's doing better with Marx right now; he's responding to his name the first time.

Of course, when he's focusing on something, he's not quite so reactive.
"Little Fayoumis!"
No answer. Looking at fingers or something.
"Little Fayoumis!!" [wave my hand in his field of vision]
"What?"
"Since you didn't answer the first time, no 'yay'."