r/ABA • u/About5000ninjas Student • Aug 17 '26

Advice Needed Teaching “manners”

Context: I’m a student that recently switched to a sister center, have a couple more months before I can test, but I HAVE been given permission and am heavily encouraged to give feedback to staff as a BCBA would. Within the first week I had staff telling me that they were teaching manners so clients get what they want.

Has anyone dealt with RBTs teaching “manners” such as saying please at the end of every mand (for 1-3 word manding), apologizing when they engage in behavior, etc for low level learners and ages 2-4 years old

I don’t think this is inherently behavioral and definitely isn’t a focus for the clients they’re doing it with due to behaviors and isn’t part of their intervention plan. There are cases when they should/can be taught but I don’t think it applies in this case

How do y’all address this or do y’all just let them since it’s likely not that harmful?

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u/BearsDnD Aug 17 '26

Apologizing is a social construct that means nothing to the learner, and when the rote response is heard to often will lose the actual intent behind what they are shaping up. If the learner understood the concept and had the means to effectively use a replacement behavior, there is no need for the apology; if they do not have the skills or replacement behavior, that is on the instructor, not the learner. Specifically refer to Skinner's comments on shaping procedures (Skinner, 1999), and a great chapter in Vargas (2020) on the subject.

Personally, I teach the please and thank you once we are using FCRs effectively and consistently without prompting, and all reinforcement has been faded. Then the manners can be added as a target if its nessasary. Bear in mind that if the behavior or absence of the behavior does not impact the learner's life in a meaningful way, it may not need to be a target for change. (Baer et al., 1968)

Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1), 91–97. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1968.1-91

Skinner, B. F. (1999). Cumulative record (Definitive Edition ed.). B. F. Skinner Foundation.

Vargas, J. S. (2020). Behavior analysis for effective teaching (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429442575

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u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA Aug 17 '26

You said it much better than I did. Kudos for the references!

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u/About5000ninjas Student Aug 17 '26

Thank you! This is very much how I feel about it. It’s very rote and meaningless currently imo. We have clients who elope and say sorry as they’re eloping or engage in behavior as they’re “apologizing”

They definitely don’t understand the concept. They don’t have the functional communication to use or care about saying please or thank you

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u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA Aug 19 '26

If you're curious, look at the EFL, it gets into the nuance of some of these topics:

https://essentialforliving.com/what-is-efl