1. A Token Economy System for a male First Grade Student in a Public School
Ting Ting Chen

2. Statement of Problem
People with ADHD are hard to focus on specific tasks. ADHD has three subtypes: inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and a combination of both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive. People with the inattentive type ADHD often have difficulty paying attention, and can get distracted easily. People with the impulsive type ADHD fidget and talk a lot, interrupt others or speak inappropriately sometimes. People with the combined type ADHD have a combination symptom of inattentive and impulsive types (Nakaya, 2009). Most people have either the inattentive or combined types of ADHD (Farrar, 2011).

3. Review of Related Literature
The prevalence of a ADHD current diagnosis was three times lower among girls (3% or 11,000) than among boys (9% or 11,000) (Wunsch-Hitzig et al., 2013).
The percentage of children ever diagnosed with ADHD has increased from 7% to 9% from through in the United States based on the data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Akinbami et al., 2011).
In the 19th century token reinforcement is a popular behavior modification method in England and the United States (Stilitz,2009).
A token economy system is a reinforcement program which helps build and maintain appropriate classroom performance and behavior (Flick, 2010). Token reinforcement system has been successfully used for behavior management (Hackenberg, 2009).

4. Research Hypothesis
Using the token economy system with immediate reward every day for 60 minutes in the morning (8A.M. – 12P.M.)over a 4 month period will motivate one first-grade male student with ADHD symptoms to sit still for at least 20 consecutive minutes during a 45 minute ELA class as measured by a personal behavior checklist. ABAB design. No control group.

5. Methods School: A public school in Brooklyn, New York.
Instruments:
Consent forms to the principle and the parents.
Survey
Tokens (pom poms)
Behavior chart
Popcorn box
Immediate rewards (the student needs to randomly pick from a price bin)
School: A public school in Brooklyn, New York.
Duration: February-May 2016
Participants: 1 First Male Grader
Observations: 45minutes observations in the morning (8A.M.- 12P.M.) from ELA (reading or wrting classes) (three times a week) for 4 weeks ABAB desgin
Procedure: For every 5 minutes, if no disruptive behavior, leaving his seat, the participant receives a pom pom token (1 point) in his popcorn box. If he gets 4 pom poms continuously, the participant can randomly choose immediate reward, such as playing educational games on the computer, bringing a stuffed friend, or wearing a cool hat etc. The number of tokens received was logged on a behavior chart.

6. Survey Questions
Results:
Strongly agree
Math, focus more in the afternoon, like to exercise
Strongly disagree
ELA, focus more in the morning, like to sit, behave well to get rewards, believe rewards is important
Habit:
Playing video games,
Watching movies.
15. I like to sit down. 1.Strongly Disagree 2. Disagree 3. Agree 4. Strongly Agree 20. I like reading or writing. 21. I focus more in the morning. 33. I like to behave well in the classroom in order to get rewards.

7. Threats to Internal Validity & External Validity
Ecological validity: The success of the intervention may be not carried to different environments.
Generalizable conditions: I may get the same results based on the student’s perofrmance during the intervention.
Selection-treatment interaction: There are nonrandom of participants in my research. I have my targeted student.
Multiple treatments: My participant is receiving other realted services based on his IEP.
History: There are many ouside events or experiences of the student which I amy not realize.
Maturation: There are always natural, physcial and emotional changes in one individual
Testing/Pre-testing sensitation: My data will be collected by observation. No texting or pre-testing.
Instrumentation : Parents and teachers may not be honest in answering the questions.
(O’Connor-Petruso, 2010).

8. Baseline Observation 1 Intervention Observation 1

9. Baseline Observation 2 Intervention Observation 2

10. Graphic
Upon examining the student frequencies of standing up based on the observation data.
The frequencies of standing up drops in the second intervention observation. Even though the student did sit 20 minutes, it does not support the hypothesis based on the observation data.
Stable baseline data.

11. Discussion and Implications
Results support studies mentioned in the literature review stating that token economy is an effective approach to minimizing a student’s disruptive behavior. However, it does not support my hypothesis since the student can not sit 20 consecutive minutes during a 45 minute ELA class even though his frenquenc. He only meets the goal once in the second Intervention Observation.
However, the result is not strong enough.
The targeted student plays a lot of video games based on the
The classroom teacher does not implement her own classroom reward system.
The researcher should ask the participant to keep the data record.
The targeted student’s paraprofessional reaction to the student, such as leaving the classroom, working with another student(s,) or playing his phone.
Student may not feel quite interested in the pom pom tokens.
The classroom teacher does not teach ELA every morning of the week.
Further study or observation

12. References
Farrar, A. (2011). USA TODAY Health Reports: Diseases and Disorders ADHD.
Nakaya, C. A. (2009). ADHD. SabDiego, CA: Reference Point Press.
Minnrspolid, MN: A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
O’Connor-Petruso, S. (2010). Descriptive Statistics Threats to Validity [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
Taylor, F., J. (2006). Kids with ADHD. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing.