The <i>ACHIEVE!</i> program: A point and level system for reducing severe problem behavior
A school-wide token economy that rewards prosocial skills without punishment can correlate with fewer incidents of severe problem behavior in students with IDD.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Staff at a residential school created ACHIEVE!, a point and level system. Students earn points for prosocial skills like sharing materials or asking for help.
The study tracked how many points each student earned and how often severe problem behavior happened. All students had mild to moderate intellectual or developmental disabilities.
What they found
Students who earned more points also had fewer incidents of severe problem behavior. The relationship held across the whole school year.
No punishment steps were used. Rewards alone linked to safer classrooms.
How this fits with other research
Balboni et al. (2020) saw the opposite link in a different group: students with severe-profound ID plus multiple diagnoses showed more challenging behavior when their adaptive skills rose. ACHIEVE! did not include this complex group, so the two studies do not truly clash.
Perry et al. (2024) extended the same reinforcement idea into family homes. Parents learned to run function-based plans and saw similar drops in problem behavior, showing the approach travels beyond school walls.
Zhou et al. (2018) cut severe behavior with a simple DRL schedule in one-to-one sessions. ACHIEVE! shows a school-wide token economy can achieve the same goal in group settings.
Why it matters
You can run a positive-only point system across classrooms and still see fewer crises. Track points and behavior on the same sheet; share the data with students so they see the link. If you serve students with mild-moderate ID, try posting clear prosocial targets, deliver points fast, and let students trade for preferred items or activities at the end of each day.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Token economies are routinely used in residential programs for individuals with intellectual and other developmental disabilities (IDD), but research demonstrating the effectiveness of token economies has declined in recent years. Advocates of token economies argue that they provide children and young people with IDD a predictable structure that is effective in increasing prosocial behavior and reducing problem behavior. Critics have argued that they are too restrictive and not flexible enough to meet the needs of all individuals. We present a program description and correlational study of a variation of a token economy. It illustrates how a school‐wide points and level system that emphasizes and reinforces demonstration of important prosocial skills, without the use of punishment, can be inversely correlated with occurrences of severe problem behavior (i.e., aggression, harmful sexual behavior, and property damage) in students with IDD attending a residential program. Directions for future research on token economies is discussed.
Behavioral Interventions, 2018 · doi:10.1002/bin.1506