work, criteria have to be specified and clear. A staff member giving tokens to a client just because they judge them to be behaving positively is not part of a token economy because it is not done in a systematic way. Sometimes client manuals have specifications how many tokens can be earned by each target behavior. For instance, if making the bed is a target behavior, staff and clients have to know how a well-made bed looks like. However, often these specifications are hard to make: behavior such as eating politely and positive cooperation are hard to specify. While planning how many tokens can be earned by each target behavior some factors have to be considered: on the one hand clients should be able to earn a minimal amount of tokens for a minimal effort, and on the other hand clients should not earn too much too soon, making more effort useless. Sometimes the possibility of punishment by token loss is included, technically called 'response cost': disruptive behavior can be fined with the loss of tokens. This is also clearly specified before the application starts. Clients can be involved in the specifying of the contingencies. Other features Besides the three basic requirements, other features are often present: social reinforcement, shaping, immediacy of reinforcement, forward planning, and consistency. Social reinforcement Token reinforcement is always accompanied by social reinforcement. Tokens are intended to make reinforcement explicit and immediate, and to strengthen behavior, but in the end social reinforcement should be sufficient to maintain what's been learned. Shaping Shaping implies clients aren't expected to do everything perfectly at once; behavior can be acquired in steps. Initially clients can be reinforced for behavior that approaches the target. If the target behavior is keeping attention during a 30 minutes session, clients can initially already get (perhaps smaller) reinforcement for 5 minutes of attention. Immediacy of reinforcement Reinforcement is more likely to influence behavior if given shortly after the response is emitted. The longer people have to wait for a reward, the less effect and the less they will learn. This is the principle of delay discounting. Immediate token reinforcement can bridge later reinforcement. Saving Sometimes clients can earn larger rewards like the permission to spend a weekend at home, going to a movie, or having a class excursion. When such rewards would be given at once for one instance of a target behavior, the scarce