Our behavior analyst says that it is difficult to not reinforce a learner’s challenging behavior because the staff members are being negatively reinforced for rewarding problem behavior. I’m confused by what he means.

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of an aversive event that is contingent on one’s production of a particular behavior. Some forms of problem behavior in which individuals engage can be somewhat embarrassing or even scary to those who work with a learner. For example, suppose that a learner is prepared to aggress when he does not get a cookie. If the learner does not get one and begins aggressing, the staff member may quickly learn that the easiest way to get the aggression to stop is to give the learner a cookie. In this example, staff produced the response to aggression of delivering a cookie that resulted in the termination of the aggression. The termination of aggression in this example is negative reinforcement. If this situation continues to play out the staff member may learn to deliver cookies because of the negative reinforcement that they obtain. Unfortunately, the staff members’ consequence will only strengthen the problem behavior making it even harder to decelerate.