Views on this system at a special needs school?

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I have a thirteen year old brother who goes to a special needs school. He has bipolar but many of the kids there have Asperger's/HFA and ADHD. At the school they have a points-based rewards system. After every class, the teacher gives each student a certain number of points. 4 is perfect, 1 is terrible. At the end of the week they tally up all of their points and according to that, the students get placed into different levels- 4 being the best and 1 being the worst. Level 4's get more privileges, such as getting to go to the bathroom without an aid, getting to work alone on classroom, and more recess time. At the end of each month level 4's also get a huge pizza party during their lunch and recess period.

At any time, the students can go to the school "store" and trade in their points for rewards. These rewards include bicycles, ipods, video games, etc. My brother got an ipod last year and it took him a year of perfect behavior to save up for it.

Since a lot of people on this board are interested in psychology and may have gone to special needs schools, I was curious as to what you thought about this system. I personally can't stand it. I think that the good behavior takes too long to pay off and the rewards are too superficial and expensive. My brother is very aggressive and I think that it would help him more in the long run to get rewards and encouragement that show him the intrinsic value of being a good citizen. I also think that there is too big of a gap between the level 1's and 4's, and that this could cause a lot of the level 1's to feel bad about themselves and act out more. The points that they are able to receive are not individualized to the student, and therefore they cannot build up successes for a lot of the level 1 students that may need it. Behaving for 30 minutes may be realistic for some of the students, but for others 5 minutes may be an achievement.

So, anyway I'm just curious, especially seeing as many other special needs schools that my brother is looking at for high school implement the same system. It seems to be quite popular.

wow, just wow. that is a completely Idiotic system and sounds like the system should be brought up to the school board. i may not be a psychologist, but i do no that what they're dong there is bribing kids so that the teachers don't have to deal with "bad behavior". note that this is coming from a high school senior, so take it with a grain of salt.

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This is the first time I ever heard of such a system. At least they get a chance for rewards instead of the focus being on punishments.

It is an alright system. It is similar to what they do at Sylvan Learning Centre's, I think.

Generally, behavioral incentives are not favored or considered better than psychological incentives. It does work with some students though, they really need some incentive to get their work done. It may not be the best quality of work or learning either, but atleast the work gets done. In terms of life learning, you want students to be intrinsically motivated to get their work done so that they become altruistic, responsible and autonomous and I think some may argue that rewards systems do not provide students with this.

There are some problems with this system. For one, students will learn maladaptive behavior if they know that they are not going to get their reward. That is, if I know after 10 minutes that I am not going to get the points, I'm going to be a jerk on purpose to make you evener madder. Some students love taking advantage of teachers! They will learn how to do just enough to get the reward as well. The system does do a good job of setting expectations of behavior clear.

Also, the rewards have to be worth it. If I do 10 hours of good work, I want something better than a 1 cent candy. So, I can see where they get the ideas of ipods.

You also have to know where your kids are coming from. A reward can be a big incentive for someone who doesn't get any rewards at home. It provides some people with a sense of an accomplishment and allows for some people to help with setting their goals.

In general, I think it is a good system. With any group of students, you are going to find that some will succeed and some don't - it's really hard to get any system consistent with how diverse a group of people can be. It just depends on how it is implemented - as long as students are betting encouraged to set goals, be autonomous, be responsible and be moral (not benefitting from others mistakes), than it can be a good system.

I'd say a good system. So they're bribing others to do well in the long run - so what? At least it's teaching them that good behaviour lets you reap the benefits. I see so many people saying "I can't help but act bad, it's part of who I am" but no-one has made a bigger change than me. I went since Year 4 to half way through Year 6 getting bottom grades, being somewhat violent and swearing pretty much 24/7 in school hours. After being diagnosed half way through Year 6, I consciously decided to make a change. I got level 5's (highest grade) in my KS2 SATS at the end of year 6, stopped swearing completely by Year 7 and stopped all forms of Violence about a quarter of the way through Year 7. And that, good sirs and madams, is how the cookie crumbles. Everyone can make a difference if they try. Everyone.

EDIT:

Sorry, forgot to sum it all up in one final paragraph. So, as I was saying, excellent system as long as it works correctly. I can see, however, this system being abused by those who are smart enough to misbehave one lesson then behave like Angels the next - getting the most points for "behaving well" after a "bad day".

My son also has this system in place in his school. I think the concern is what if the behavior is involuntary? As in,"He won't sit still because he can"t". I know that my son's point system is used in his class with other HFA/AS kids. I don't think he is held to the same standard as the NT kids at his school. Some leeway is given to account for involuntary behavior.
Looks to me like the problem comes from the time it takes to accrue points to earn an award. If the child has to earn points for months at a time to trade them in on an Ipod, the child loses sight of the prize. I would make the rewards less spectacular (and less "expensive" in terms of points) in favor of far easily attainable goals.

They used to use this system in many EBD type classes when I was a child in school.

Sounds like it promotes pure hipocrisy. There has got to me a lot of these kids that rebel just to get 1 points for fun. or try to rat on other students so they lose theirs.
They just reward falske behavior.

This is certainly a problem.

The school giving out free ipods to students who behave generally are not spending enough money on education or are receiving too much money. Schools should NEVER spend money on luxuries, unless ALL students are past their age level in math and reading.