Diminishing Returns
Many teachers encounter demanding phases. That’s especially tricky in the early stages when you should be responding positively to all your learner’s presses.
Here we explain a technique to try if your learner is spamming buttons or pressing them so often you can’t reasonably give them their favourite thing every time!
We’re going to be talking about food words primarily, but this can happen with any word that’s very motivating to your learner and variations on this technique can be applied in lots of situations.
Before you start
Work this technique in line with your learner’s diet and dietary requirements. Be careful not to overfeed your learner, and introduce any new foods or treats slowly.
Use food or treats that are suitable for your learner and their dietary requirements - the examples here are just an illustration.
If you’re applying this to activity-based requests, plan out your approach to make sure you’re applying the technique safely, especially if your learner has any limitations through age of their health. If you have a puppy, don’t exceed their overall recommended activity level and build in appropriate naps.
Gear up!
If you don't have them already, get your a variety of food options ready that have different levels of appeal to your learner. Get a bunch of different foods and/or treats and lay out samples of different tidbits like a charcuterie board, and invite them to take what they want without any direction from you on what to take.
Take note of what they eat first, what they eat second, and what they eventually get around to. That’s your tier list. The ranking will be important.
Now think about the word you’re wanting to apply this approach to, and make sure you are only using items that are consistent with that concept in this exercise.
Don’t choose anything your learner doesn’t actually like, because that is not a treat! Make sure you’re still using the word correctly, so don’t include catnip in your list of treats if you have a separate button for catnip, for example. If you call any items like kongs, treat mice, lick mats or other puzzles “treats” then by all means include them in your responses to the Treat button, but if they’re all called “puzzles” then they’d only be relevant if you were tackling spamming of the Puzzle button.
Diminishing returns
We’ll work through an example using the word “Treats.”
For this example our dog, Fred, has this order of preference:
Jerky (he’s allowed one or two pieces a day at his weight)
Biscuit treat (he’s allowed 3-4 a day)
Baby carrots (he can have a few of these as they’re low calorie)
A type of kibble that’s not his regular food (he can have as much of this as he wants as long as we account for that at meal times so he isn’t overfed)
This is how we’d use diminishing returns when Fred spams “Treats”.
Fred hits the Treat button. We know he’s angling for a top tier treat, a big piece of jerky, so that’s what we’ll give him.
Fred finishes his jerky and presses “Treats” again. But this time he doesn't get another piece of jerky. Instead he gets a biscuit. He likes those too, they're mid-tier treats, but they aren't his absolute favourite, or what he’s angling for.
When he presses a third time, he can have another biscuit treat.
Fred presses a fourth time and we might move down the list so he gets a baby carrot.
The next time, and each time after for as long as you’re still feeling indulgent, he gets his ‘treat kibble’.
If Fred gets impatient with your shenanigans and presses “Treats” when he hasn’t finished his last baby carrot or kibble, trying to get you to move back up the scale, you just act stupid - he has a treat already! So you’ll point at it and say “Fred your Treat is here!”
Once your patience runs out (and even if it doesn’t it’s probably good to cap this at around 5 or 6 treats in one spamming session), then you can model “Treats All Done.”
It’s even better if you can pair that “All Done” with some redirection. “Treats All Done. Ball Now!” Then go play ball. That’s way more fun than another piece of kibble.
Now instead of saying “Yes” to jerky once and then “No/All Done” over and over after, you’ve said “Yes” 5-6 times then “No” once. And because you’ve made it clear that “Treats” isn’t the infinite jerky button, Fred is going to be much happier to accept being cut off.
There is no infinite jerky machine.
Other Applications
With some creative brainstorming you really can apply this method to lots of different kinds of button spam that have nothing to do with food. For instance, if a learner is spamming “Walk,” you can do the same kind of tier list. First press is a nice long walk through the park (or wherever you normally go). Second press maybe you just loop around the block. Third press you walk to the end of the street and then back. Fourth press you just go to the end of the driveway for a minute. Fifth press “Walk All Done.”
This All Sounds Really Annoying
Yeah, it is a bit. But if you plan for it mentally it won’t seem so bad. At the first press of “Treats,” instead of thinking “I’ll give him the jerky. That’s what he wants. Then I can go back to my Sudoku,” think “OK, for the next few minutes I’m going to go through the tier list, then I can get back to the Sudoku.” Also, pro tip, get good at sleight of hand. Then you can bring him jerky and have a biscuit and a carrot behind your back ready for the next presses and you won’t have to go back and forth as often.
And this won’t last forever. It usually takes some time for a new learner to figure out that they can use the buttons to get you to do what they want. Once that happens they get super excited and you get spam. It will take them a little additional time to figure out that, oh, the buttons aren’t actually a magical wish fulfillment device. They can ask, but you can say no. You’re still in charge. This exercise will greatly speed that process along.
It’s also pretty important that they understand that the meanings of the buttons aren’t rigid. If they understand that “treat” can mean multiple related things, that can help them make the leap to understanding that maybe other words are like that too. Maybe “Water” isn’t just related to their water bowl, maybe rain is also “water.”
Takeaway points
A tiered reward system for a highly motivating button will allow you to say “Yes” more often, reinforcing the meaning of the word while setting reasonable expectations (ie: there is no infinite jerky button).
Make sure your diminishing returns selections are consistent with your word choice.
Use redirection once the reward is sufficiently boring.
Plan ahead so you aren’t frustrated in the moment.
They can ask, but you can say no. You’re still in charge.
