Importance of Tooth Brushing in Pediatrics Assignment

Discriminative Stimuli

The behavior that I engage in regularly is brushing my teeth. For good oral hygiene, it is recommended that people brush their teeth at least twice a day (Stuti, 2018). On my side, I usually brush my teeth after every meal. According to Stuti (2018), after eating, food particles are left stuck on the teeth, which can cause dental cavities. Dental cavities result from bacteria that accumulate over time. So, to avoid getting dental cavities, I engage in the behavior of brushing my teeth after every meal.  Importance of Tooth Brushing in Pediatrics Assignment

A discriminative stimulus is defined as the thing that causes a response in an organism. In this case, the urge for oral hygiene and avoiding dental cavities are the discriminative stimulus for brushing my teeth after every meal (Madangopal et al., 2019). Whenever my mouth is clean, I feel good and confident to speak and even smile without fear of embarrassing myself for having food stuck between my teeth. A reinforcer is defined as the thing that increases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated (Riemer et al., 2018). In this case, brushing my teeth after every meal maintains my oral hygiene and prevents dental cavities.

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The theory of operant conditioning is how an individual learns to associate particular behaviors with positive or negative consequences (Madangopal et al., 2019). In this case, brushing my teeth after every meal is associated with avoiding pain and discomfort from not having clean teeth. This has helped me to maintain this behavior for over a year. I believe everyone should have the above discriminative stimuli as they can avoid dental problems caused by not brushing their teeth after every meal. Importance of Tooth Brushing in Pediatrics Assignment

References

Madangopal, R., Tunstall, B. J., Komer, L. E., Weber, S. J., Hoots, J. K., Lennon, V. A., … & Hope, B. T. (2019). Discriminative stimuli are sufficient for the incubation of cocaine craving. Elife, 8, e44427.

Riemer, S., Ellis, S. L., Thompson, H., & Burman, O. H. (2018). Reinforcer effectiveness in dogs—The influence of quantity and quality. Applied animal behavior science, 206, 87-93.

Identify a behavior in which you engage on a fairly regular basis (i.e., at least every day or every other day).
Define the behavior in such a way that anyone could recognize the behavior by your definition.
Identify the discriminative stimulus (sD) for this behavior and the reinforcer that maintains this behavior.
Be sure to support your Assignment with specific references to behavior-analytic theory and research. Importance of Tooth Brushing in Pediatrics Assignment