Category Archives: autism

How Parents Can Fit ABA Into Their Busy Schedules

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“Dear Behavior BFF, I have followed your posts for a while now. The problem I see is that in order for me to be successful as a parent, I have to follow ABA 100% of the time. In order to be effective, do I need to enroll in graduate classes and learn everything I can about ABA? Do I need to become a BCBA to manage my own kids’ behavior better? Feeling overwhelmed over here…”

Thank you for learning about ABA as a parent. The science of behavior can help us SO much with our own kids. But does that mean you need to know every technical definition and fact before you can use some behavior strategies in your own home? NO! Heck no!

You are a busy parent. I am a busy parent. Most people reading this are busy parents (at least that’s the intended audience).  Do you have time to complete a master’s degree in behavior analysis just to help you be a more efficient parent who capitalizes on the science of behavior? Ummm…no. You don’t have that kind of time. So does that mean you should give up on using behavior analysis as a parent? Also no.

Behavior analysis teaches us to focus on the behavior itself. It teaches us to manipulate the environment to help our kids engage in desired and proactive behaviors. It helps us find ways to increase positive reinforcement, increase positive interactions, and teach our kids to effectively communicate their wants and needs.

The good news is we can do all of those things within the constraints of our busy family schedules! You can use positive reinforcement effectively without knowing the difference between differential reinforcement of incompatible or alternative behaviors.

And more good news: when you need to get technical, there are Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) to do that with you! We like talking behavior science. We are ABA nerds. Let us do that part for you. If you want to join us, then enroll in that ABA graduate program. If you don’t want a new career- then learn what you can as a parent in the time that you have.

So where do you start in order to not be overwhelmed and get the benefit of decades of behavioral research? You’re in the right place. Peruse these non-academic articles offered at bSci21 that help make the science easier to digest. Learn about positive reinforcement and how to use it effectively.

Start by providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors. Decide what you want your child to do more of, then reward them for doing it! Start small with one behavior strategy at a time, then continue to learn and add another positive behavior support as you go.

You don’t have to become a behavior expert in order to effectively use behavior analysis to save your sanity as a parent. Start small, build a little at a time. Celebrate your successes. Reward your child(ren) for their successes. Shape your own behavior by building on with baby steps. Every step in the right direction is a success. Make it work for you and your family in the time that you have. You CAN do this!

About The Author 

Leanne Page, MEd, BCBA, is the author of Parenting with Science: Behavior Analysis Saves Mom’s Sanity. As a Behavior Analyst and a mom of two little girls, she wanted to share behavior analysis with a population who could really use it- parents!

Leanne’s writing can be found in Parenting with Science and Parenting with ABA as well as a few other sites. She is a monthly contributor to bSci21.com , guest host for the Dr. Kim Live show, and has contributed to other websites as well.

Leanne has worked with children with disabilities for over 10 years. She earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Texas A&M University.  She also completed ABA coursework through the University of North Texas before earning her BCBA certification in 2011. Leanne has worked as a special educator of both elementary and high school self-contained, inclusion, general education, and resource settings.

Leanne also has managed a center providing ABA services to children in 1:1 and small group settings. She has  extensive experience in school and teacher training, therapist training, parent training, and providing direct services to children and families in a center-based or in-home therapy setting.

Leanne is now located in Dallas, Texas and is available for: distance BCBA and BCaBA supervision, parent training, speaking opportunities, and consultation. She can be reached via Facebook or at Lpagebcba@gmail.com.

Qualifications of Practitioners/Consultants who Practice ABA

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This month’s ASAT feature comes to us from Sabrina Freeman, PhD, ASAT’s Consumer Corner Coordinator. To learn more about ASAT, please visit their website at www.asatonline.org. You can also sign up for ASAT’s free newsletter, Science in Autism Treatment, and like them on Facebook!

It’s crucial to be a savvy consumer when it comes to one of the most important decisions you will make for your loved one with autism – choosing an ABA treatment provider for your child. Those of us who have already walked in your shoes know that all treatment providers are not the same. To the uninitiated, these professionals all look marvelous. From the slick websites, to the large numbers of associations of which these professionals are members, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between mediocre and outstanding treatment providers. Furthermore, publication of research in high quality journals is not synonymous with clinical expertise.

Fortunately, in this issue of Consumer Corner, we present a summary of consumer guidelines created by the Autism Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Association of Behavior Analysis International to help you make an informed choice when searching for ABA professionals to design, run and maintain your child’s program. A complete copy of the SIG guidelines are available here: https://3lvvdfmmeol12qpvw2c75ch6-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Final-Autism-Sig-Guidelines-Parent-Version-May-2018.pdf It is important to remember that your child’s future depends on highly quality consulting. Good luck!

 

  1. Certification:

Treatment professionals must all have advanced degrees, e.g., a Master’s Degree or a Doctorate in a relevant field of study, and be certified either by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), or a board that has equal or higher level requirements than the BACB. To look up your consultant, visit: www.bacb.com and click on “Find A Certificant.” If the potential consultant is not on this list, ask where he/she became credentialed, and trained so that you can verify licensure and experience to determine whether it is equal to/or surpasses the standards of the BACB. If this individual responds to your inquiry in a defensive manner, then you may consider looking elsewhere as you are well within your right to seek clarification about certification status.

Find & Contact Certificants

  1. Extensive Hands-On Supervised Training:

Consultants are required to have extensive hands-on training treating children with autism in which they have worked at least one full year (1500 clock independent supervised hours or 1000 hours if taking a university practicum and 750 hours if taking an intensive practicum) under the supervision of a credentialed BCBA Certificant. In addition, they need to prove competency in many areas that cover the design and implementation of both individualized ABA interventions, and comprehensive ABA treatment programs. The partial list below was created by the Autism Special Interest Group (SIG) below. Your consultant should be competent in all the following areas:

  1. a) Design and implement individualized ABA Interventions
  • community living skills
  • functional communication skills (vocal and non-vocal)
  • “learning to learn” skills (e.g., looking, listening, following instructions, imitating)
  • motor skills
  • personal safety skills
  • play and leisure skills
  • pre-academic and academic skills
  • reduction of behaviors that jeopardize health and safety and impede successful functioning (e.g., stereotypic, obsessive, ritualistic, aggressive, self-injurious, disruptive, and other behaviors often described as “challenging”).
  • school readiness skills
  • self-care skills
  • self- management skills
  • social interaction skills
  • vocational
  1. b) Design and implement both comprehensive ABA intervention programs (using multiple ABA procedures to address multiple intervention targets) and focused interventions (using one or more ABA procedures to address a small number of intervention targets).
  2. c) Delivering ABA interventions directly to at least 8 individuals with autism who present with a range of repertoires, levels of functioning, and ages.
  3. d) Implementing the full range of scientifically validated behavior analytic procedures, including but not limited to:
  • reinforcement (including differential reinforcement)
  • extinction
  • discrete-trial procedures
  • modeling (including video modeling)
  • incidental teaching and other “naturalistic” methods
  • activity-embedded intervention
  • task analysis
  • chaining
  • activity schedules
  • scripts and script fading
  • prompting and prompt-fading
  • errorless training
  • error correction
  • motivating operations
  • stimulus control
  • preference assessments
  • choice
  • augmentative and alternative communication training procedures.
  1. Continuing Education:

Not only do behavioral consultants need to be trained as above, in order to maintain their certification, practitioners must also pursue continuing education in a variety of areas that may include, but are not limited to, Applied Behavior Analysis.

Red Flag

These practitioners should not be working collaboratively with professionals who implement an eclectic mix of interventions that are untested, discredited or experimental in nature. If the consultant you use endorses an eclectic approach, understand that this practice is inconsistent with the BACB Guidelines for Responsible Conduct for Behavior Analysis. This red flag is a particularly helpful way to be forewarned about a consultant who is not a good choice to design and maintain your child’s program!

 

Common Mistakes In Implementing Reinforcement

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Over the years, I’ve seen several behavior intervention plans written and implemented. Typically, these plans include reinforcement for the desirable behavior, but I see the same mistakes crop up again and again. Here are a few common mistakes in implementing reinforcement to look out for:

Fail to identify individual reinforcers. Hands down, the most common error I see is identifying specific activities or items as reinforcing. For instance, many people love gummy bears, but they make me want to puke. Presenting me with a gummy bear would not increase my future likelihood of engaging in the appropriate behavior! You must account for individual differences and conduct a preference assessment of your learner, then make a plan based on his or her preferences.

Fade reinforcement too quickly. Let’s say you’re working with a child named Harold who draws on the walls with crayon. You implement a reinforcement plan in which he earns praise and attention from his parent each time he draws on paper. The first few days it’s implemented, Harold’s rate of drawing on the wall greatly decreases. Everyone claims that his behavior is “fixed” and suddenly the plan for reinforcement is removed… and Harold begins drawing on the wall once more. I see this sort of pattern frequently (and have even caught myself doing it from time to time). After all, it can be easy to forget to reinforce positive behavior. To address this issue, make a clear plan for fading reinforcement, and use tools such as the MotivAider to help remind you to provide reinforcement for appropriate behavior.

Inconsistent with reinforcement plan. Harriet is writing consistently in a notebook, to the detriment of her interactions with peers. Her teachers implement a DRO, deciding to provide reinforcement for behavior other than the writing. However, the teachers didn’t notify all the adults working with her of the new plan, so Harriet’s behavior persists in certain environments, such as at recess, allowing her to miss multiple opportunities for more appropriate social interaction. To address this issue, make a clear outline of the environments in which the behavior is occurring and what adults are working in those environments. Ensure that all of the adults on that list are fully aware of the plan and kept abreast of any changes.

Don’t reinforce quickly enough. This one can be quite challenging, depending on the behavior and the environment. Let’s saying you’re working with a boy named Huck who curses often. You and your team devise a plan to reinforce appropriate language. You decide to offer him tokens that add up to free time at the end of the school day. However, sometimes as you are handing him a token for appropriate language, he curses again right before the token lands in his hand. Though it was unintentional, the cursing was actually reinforced here. Remember that reinforcement should be delivered as close to the desired behavior as possible. To address this issue, consider your environment and materials and make a plan to increase the speed of delivery.

Fail to make a plan to transfer to natural reinforcers. Ultimately, you don’t want any of these behaviors to change based solely on contrived reinforcement. Making a plan for reinforcement of appropriate behavior is essential, but your ultimate goal is to have the behavior be maintained by naturally occurring reinforcement. To address this issue, the first thing you need to do is identify what that naturally occurring reinforcement might be. For Harold, it might be having his artwork put up in a special place or sharing it with a show and tell. For Harriet it might be the interactions she has with peers on the playground. Once you have identified those reinforcers, you can create a plan for ensuring that the learner contacts those reinforcers over time. This might include pairing the naturally occurring reinforcers with the contrived reinforcers, then fading out the latter.

Ultimately, it’s important to remember that reinforcement is not as simple as it seems. Taking the time to plan on the front end will help with long-term outcomes.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, PhD, LBA, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for twelve years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. She is also an assistant professor in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Improving Time-Out Procedures

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Time-out is often a hotly-debated topic. Is it too punishing? Where should it take place? How long should it last? There are not easy answers to many of these questions. But there are some evidence-based suggestions that may improve a time out procedure should you decide to use one.

  • First, know the function of the behavior! If the child is engaging in the undesirable behavior for escape, then providing “time out” will likely increase the behavior. For instance, if a child gets sent out of the classroom each time he curses, this is effectively a time out from classwork. He may curse because in the past, cursing resulted in escaping from classwork. This is an instance when you would not want to use time out. A time-out may prove to be effective for behaviors that function for attention or access to tangibles. More on that next…
  • Consider a nonexclusion time-out procedure. In the past, we’ve discussed the time-out ribbon here. This is a useful tool for signaling to a learner that they have access to social or tangible reinforcers. If they engage in an inappropriate behavior, the ribbon is removed and they do not have access to social or tangible reinforcers, however they are still able to participate in the lesson or activity you have organized. It also allows them to practice more appropriate behaviors to earn the ribbon back. If the ribbon isn’t the best visual cue for your learner, you could make it anything this is visible for them and clearly delineates when they do and do not have access to reinforcement.
  • Consider the use of a release contingency. This means that a learner is unable to leave time out until a predetermined amount of time has passed without problem behavior. Perhaps if you’re working with a preschool child who has been kicking other children, the release contingency might be that they must sit with “quiet feet” or “feet on the floor” for one full minute before they can go back to play. Your other option is to put in a fixed time contingency, which is best done by setting some sort of timer so the learner can see how much time is remaining in time-out.
  • Combine time out with positive reinforcement procedures. Time-out by itself may result in decreases in behavior only when time out is a possibility. For instance, you may see a decrease in the problem behavior only when the child’s mother is at home, because the father doesn’t use time out. The goal is to decrease the problem behavior across all settings and activities. To that end, it’s helpful to teach appropriate replacement behaviors and reinforce the learner for engaging in those behaviors.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, PhD, LBA, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for twelve years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. She is also an assistant professor in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

How To Prepare To Reinforce Appropriate Behavior

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Often when we’re working with children with autism there are two areas we focus on: communication and play. However, due to the nature of your day or a specific activity, you may unintentionally punish spontaneous communication or play. So before we learn how to prepare to reinforce appropriate behavior, let’s consider a couple of examples:

Julie is a teacher in a first grade classroom with six children with autism. One of her students is Marcos, who rarely uses spontaneous language. While Julie is running the morning meeting, Marcos suddenly interrupts and says “I like elephants.” Julie says, “It’s quiet time, right now, Marcos.”

David is a teacher in a fourth grade inclusion classroom. Jaylene is a student with autism who rarely initiates interactions. He is speaking with another teacher when Jaylene approaches with a puppet, hands it to David, and says “puppet.” David tells her, “In just a minute, Jaylene.”

In both of these instances, the teacher has not done anything wrong. In fact, we have all done this from time to time in the midst of busy days in which we’re managing multiple tasks. But there’s an argument to be made here that both Marcos and Jaylene missed opportunities for reinforcement of the behaviors we most want them to exhibit.

One thing that can help is to prioritize your goals. If the primary goal for Marcos is to use spontaneous language, then when we start out we want to provide a continuous rate of reinforcement. This means that it will sometimes interrupt other tasks, but if it is the biggest priority, that’s okay! The long term gains of reinforcing Marcos’s spontaneous language likely outweigh the frustration of an interrupted lesson.

The second thing that can help is communicating the priorities to other adults and staff. If David lets other teachers and administrators know that Jaylene’s foremost goal is to initiate interactions related to play, then a brief interruption in a conversation should not be an issue. Again, the long term gains of reinforcing Jaylene’s initiation of play likely outweigh any issues around an interrupted conversation.

Finally, try to plan ahead. Think about instances in which the child is most likely to engage in the targeted behaviors and talk with staff about how to ensure reinforcement takes place. The last thing we want to do is to unintentionally punish the desired behaviors.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, PhD, LBA, BCBA
Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for twelve years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. She is also an assistant professor in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Running behaviors? Tips for Making Your Class & School Safe

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If you have a runner in your classroom, you don’t need a gym membership and have long ago put away those cute wedges. Every time the door opens you head jerks around to make sure it isn’t your little guy. The starbucks barista has your venti triple shot ready for you every morning before you get there. A lot of us have been there. From our kid’s perspective, running is effective. Whether it’s to get attention, escape a task, or find that keyboard in the music teachers room – it works most of the time. When looking at these behaviors, we of course want to analyze the function (or the why) behind the behavior when developing interventions. Interventions will definitely include teaching some type of replacement behavior. Today let’s also look at what else you can be doing while these interventions start to take shape.

Running is a scary behavior and potentially dangerous behavior because your student could get outside of the school. He could get lost, hit by a car, or walk into a stranger’s home. If your child or student has these types of behaviors, your mind has definitely gone to these worst case scenarios. I remember losing sleep regularly thinking about a student who had high frequency running behavior and stressing like crazy over what would happen if he ever got out of the school.

Keep them in your class. This is really the golden rule when it comes to runners. Do whatever you can to keep them in your room. Once that foot gets one inch outside your door, all bets are off. Once they are outside your room, you are chasing them and they are loving it. You’ve completely reinforced the inappropriate behavior but you had no choice. You had to keep them safe. Some schools may have systems set up with different staff at different spots in the hallway or building so you can avoid that. But unfortunately many of our classrooms don’t have that much staff to do that. The number one goal is keeping them safe, so do whatever you have to do to get them once they leave your room. But the goal is avoiding that. The goal is keeping them in your room where you can be teaching replacement behaviors.

In the effort to keep them in your room, think obstacles. Go through your student’s schedule and make sure that at every single point of the day there is not a direct pathway to the door. When I do behavior consults, the teacher and I literally do this together. We walk around the room and go to every single spot the student will be at. Sometimes you forget about a specific center or time of day when the student is very close to the door. You classroom may look like a maze. That’s okay. That’s actually good. A maze means it will take your student 4 seconds instead of 2 seconds to get to the door and the extra 2 seconds may be enough to prevent that escape. Use furniture and dividers to create zig zag pathways around your room. I know it’s tempting to do something potentially unsafe like put a lock on the door – but it’s majorly breaking fire code so steer clear of that. If you have two doors in your room, block one up completely so you only have to worry about one.

Have a super clear and straightforward schedule of who is in charge of this student at all times of day. Make sure the transition handoff is clear. Clarify with staff what they should do if they need to go to the bathroom or get up to get a pencil when working with this student. Make sure the goal is clear to everyone – keep him in the room.

If they do get out – minimize the attention component. Sometimes we are doing everything right, working on analyzing the function of the behavior, teaching a replacement response, added in loads of preventative interventions keep the student in your classroom – and life happens and you blink and your student is halfway down the hallway. As we talked about, yes you are going to run after him to get him because above everything safety is important. But minimize the attention that goes into this. Picture two scenarios: 1 – Johnny runs down the hallway. Three adults start running after him, one of them yelling. They catch up to him. One adult yells to the other, “got him.” Another adult, starts lecturing Johnny on we he shouldn’t be running. The three adults walk him back together talking amongst themselves about how fast they are getting. They re-enter the classroom and announce to everyone in the room loudly, “he one got to the end of the hallway.” Basically it’s a circus. I see this ALL the time. And it’s unintentional. None of those adults wake up thinking let’s turn Johnny’s behaviors into a parade today, but it happens. We get scared, adrenaline is rushing, and we don’t have a clear plan in place. Let’s rework this scenario. Johnny runs. One adult makes eye contact with another adult in the classroom and says, “I’m on it.” One adult runs after him, another waits in the doorway of the classroom to watch. When the adult gets him, she says nothing and walks him back to the classroom. He goes back to the exact task he was doing before without any eye contact or talking/lecturing. Attention was minimal. Attention may be a function for many of these behaviors so even though we have to give attention by chasing we can minimize the magnitude of the attention. 

Know where all the school exits are. Seems obvious but I worked in a school for ten years and honestly still didn’t know where all of the exits are. Really old buildings have a seemingly endless amount of hidden doors to the outside. I finally had the school engineer walk me around the basement so I could find them all. Once you know where the main exits are, you can divide and conquer with staff. If your student is running the direction of an exit, one staff member can run ahead to that door or go meet him where the door opens outside. #themoreyouknow

Have a plan with the security guards for the worst case scenario. You guys know I’m all about having an emergency plan in place and you likely already have one with your classroom staff (if you don’t – make one!). But take that emergency plan beyond just your classroom staff. Work with your school’s security guards to get them in the loop. If that horrible worst case scenario happens and your student does somehow get out of the building, what is the plan? We tend to avoid making a plan for this because we think it never will happen. Agreed, plan for it never happening. But just in case at the rare, rare, rare chance it does – you will be much better off with a plan in place.

Use Walkie Talkies with key people through the school. Walkie talkies can be your saving grace here. Many schools already have a system of walkie talkies in place and if you aren’t part of – get part of it. If you student has left the classroom, you will be much more efficient getting him back to the class if you can alert 8 people throughout the building of it versus doing it yourself. If you school doesn’t use walkie talkies, approach your admin about getting a set for your classroom staff and a few key people through the building (security guards, secretary, etc.).

This piece was originally posted at The Autism Helper. 

About The Author

Sasha Long, BCBA, M.A., is the founder and president of The Autism Helper, Inc. She is a board certified behavior analyst and certified special education teacher. After ten years of teaching in a self-contained special education classroom, Sasha now works full time as a consultant, writer, and behavior analyst. Sasha manages and writes The Autism Helper Blog, as a way to share easy to use and ready to implement strategies and ideas. Sasha also travels internationally as a speaker and consultant providing individualized training and feedback to parents, educators, therapists and administrators in the world of autism. She is currently an adjunct professor in the school of Applied Behavior Analysis at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Sasha received her undergraduate degree in Special Education from Miami University and has a Masters Degree in Applied Behavior Analysis from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Contact Sasha at sasha.theautismhelper@gmail.com.

Introducing B’zT T-Shirts!

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Experience the ultimate tracking solution with B’zT Tracker T-Shirt! This stylish and practical shirt allows your child the freedom to wander while keeping you informed of their whereabouts.

National Autism Conference 2018!

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Last week, Different Roads had the pleasure of being part of the National Autism Conference at Penn State. There were 1400 attendees from all over the country, from parents to educators and practicing behaviorists.

“The Autism Conference provides comprehensive, evidence-based information to assist educators, other professionals, and families in developing effective educational programming for all students with autism spectrum disorders”.

In other words, we were surrounded and embraced by the community that shares our commitment and mission.

We met so many wonderful people, from those who shared our exhibition room to those who ran the event. Thank you to Mike Miklos for his guidance and kindness. We were also delighted to see Vince Carbone and Katherine Croce among many other knowledgeable experts.

It was remarkable to be able to talk to people on the front lines of autism education, to hear their views, their challenges and their needs.

It touched us to see firsthand the dedication of the behaviorists and teachers working to help their students with language and behavior – you could see and hear their commitment to the autism community. We also witnessed parents raising their children with ASD with an upbeat sense of humor and great hope in bringing their children into the mainstream.

We were delighted to have been a part of this wonderful and educational event, and look forward to returning in 2019!