An optical electrical model which studies the response of Si-based single photon counting arrays, specifically silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs), to scintillation light has been developed and validated with analytically derived and experimental data. The scintillator-photodetector response in terms of relative pulse height, 10%-90% rise/decay times to light stimuli of different rise times (ranging from 0.1 to 5 ns) and decay times (ranging from 1 to 50 ns), as well as for different decay times of the photodetector are compared in theory and simulation. A measured detector response is used as a reference to further validate the model and the results show a mean deviation of simulated over measured values of 1%.