To establish a neutral stimulus like praise as a conditioned reinforcer it must be consistently paired with an established reinforcer like strawberries This process is known as reinforcer pairing Option D describes the most effective method for pairing delivering the neutral stimulus praise and the established reinforcer strawberry simultaneously and contingently upon the desired behavior By doing so the reinforcing properties of the strawberry are transferred to the praise Option A is incorrect because avoiding praise prevents any opportunity for pairing Option B is generally ineffective simply providing a neutral stimulus repeatedly is unlikely to make it reinforcing if it lacks inherent reinforcing properties or isnt paired Option C involves presenting the stimuli before the correct response and separately strawberry then praise which makes the pairing less contingent on the target behavior and potentially less effective for establishing praise as a reinforcer for the response itself compared to the simultaneous contingent pairing in Option D The goal is to make praise itself a reinforcer and pairing it directly with an existing reinforcer when the target behavior occurs is the most robust way