Placement of the reinforcer is another way to get behavior to happen.

There is a gap in time between the click/tag and the delivery of reinforcement. Whatever happens during that period will inevitably be reinforced by the primary reinforcer.

It pays to be cognizant of this so that your training can go as smoothly as possible.

For example in the swimming lesson video Lear was coming back to the teacher for a treat each time. This gave the opportunity to reset so that he could have another chance to go back into the pool. If we gave him the Skittle in the pool we wouldn’t build up the behavioral momentum towards entering the pool.

The placement of the reinforcer can help to move behavior forward and can help set up a nice cycle where the learner gets many chances to practice a behavior with a high rate of reinforcement