Category Archives: Sam’s Tips

Focus on Reinforcement

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Teaching can be incredibly overwhelming, especially in a special education classroom. Between paperwork, lesson planning, updating bulletin boards, and actually teaching, the day can get pretty hairy. Sometimes, that stress leads to a short temper, which can lead to a punitive classroom environment.

If things seem to be going in the wrong direction in your classroom, the first thing you should do is focus on reinforcement. Here are a few steps to consider:

  1. Identify 1-3 behaviors you would like to see your students exhibiting. For instance, maybe you’d like to see an increase in hand-raising (as opposed to calling out.) Clearly define the behaviors you want to see.
  2. Set up a contingency for increasing those behaviors. Maybe you’ll wear a MotivAider to give yourself a reminder throughout the day to provide verbal praise to students exhibiting the target behavior. Maybe you’ll have students earn points that they can exchange for other things, such as a homework pass or lunch with the teacher. Maybe you’ll encourage students to recognize each other when they engage in the target behavior.
  3. Teach the students about the target behavior(s). Introduce the goals to the students. It’s helpful to create a sign or other visual to remind students about the new goals.

While these are simple steps, providing more verbal praise and other reinforcement can turn around a classroom with too much time spent on reprimands and punishments.

It’s also helpful to remember (especially for new teachers) that you can make changes at any time. One of my mentors in my first year of teaching told me to tell my class we had gotten off track, so we were having a brand new first day of school. (I was teaching fourth and fifth grade students with emotional behavioral disorders.) It was shocking how well that new first day of school went over. The students were excited about the idea of a “fresh start” in the middle of the school year, and it helped me get back on track with creating a more positive learning environment.

Ultimately, the goal is to teach students about appropriate behavior by spending more time showing them what they’re doing right than focusing on what they’re doing wrong.

 

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

 

A Guide To The SupervisorABA

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We’re so excited to present SupervisorABA, one of my favorite new resources available to both supervisors and individuals pursuing Board Certification in Behavior Analysis. I was very excited to have the opportunity to ask its creators, Dana Reinecke and Cheryl Davis, about their process in creating it and how it can help improve training of behavior analysts. Dana is a BCBA-D working New York, and Cheryl is a BCBA working in Massachusetts.

A Guide To The SupervisorABA

NOTE: The article refers frequently to BCBAs. A BCBA is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. You can learn more about that by referring to this previous post or visit www.bacb.com.

 

Sam: What inspired you to create this resource?

Dana and Cheryl: Our mission is to help supervisors “build better BCBAs” by providing effective supervision with task-oriented activities that align with the current BACB task list. We both have a desire to help behavior analysts to be as effective as possible, and have encountered BCBAs who do not seem to have all of the necessary skills.  Supervision is the place to make sure that these skills are well-developed, but it can be tricky to manage time and get all of the skill areas covered within the course of supervision.  We wanted to help supervisors to structure supervision so that they can cover each and every task list item over the course of supervision.  As such, our mission is to assist BCBA candidates and their supervisors in the development of behavior analytic skills through applied experiences and contact with the research literature. Creating better behavior analysts will ensure quality services are provided to all members of society.

 

Sam: Can you summarize the services provided by SupervisorABA?

Dana and Cheryl: In a nutshell, we have developed 2-5 activities for each item on the task list.   These activities vary and include applied activities with clients, video-based activities, reading and discussing journal articles, and downloadable worksheets.  We wanted to offer choices within each activity so that supervisors can tailor the content to what the supervisee would most benefit from. We have also included reading lists for each content area, and other resources like a YouTube channel for video content.  Subscribers are able to access all of the activities, reading lists, and resources through an interactive website that generates a downloadable, printable supervision form based on the BACB supervision form, that can be used to document supervision activities.  The website also keeps track of which task list items have been completed and shows a percentage of completion for each content area.

 

Sam: You mentioned your YouTube channel with videos for training purposes. Why did you feel that was important, and how do you go about selecting videos?

Dana and Cheryl: We think it’s important because it adds diversity to supervision.  The videos can enhance the supervisee’s ability to apply task list mastery to scenarios different than those they encounter daily in their practice.  We enjoy spending time finding videos we think will be useful to supervision so supervisors do not need to spend time trying to find their own videos – making supervision time more efficient!  At this time, videos are curated from what is publicly available on YouTube.  Some of them were made to explain and demonstrate behavioral concepts, but some are just really interesting naturally-occurring examples of principles that supervisees can view, discuss, or use to practice data collection and analysis.  We’ll be updating the YouTube channel regularly.  Subscription to the channel is free and open to anyone, and playlists are organized according to task-list item so it’s easy to find what you might need.

 

Sam: One of the things I love about SupervisorABA is how I can easily customize it to meet the individual needs of the people I supervise. Your service is dedicated to helping provide effective supervision. How is the customization important to your mission?

Dana and Cheryl: This was especially important to us as the supervisees’ experience settings vary greatly.  On the one hand, it’s important to make sure that supervision matches the supervisee’s needs in her or his current setting, but we wanted to make sure that supervision covered areas outside of the fieldwork experience so future BCBAs would have a breadth of knowledge on how behavior analytic skills can be applied across setting, clients and the like!

 

Sam: The website is quite easy to use. What was the process for designing it to help meet the needs of users?

Dana and Cheryl: We really wanted a user friendly website that was easy to navigate and did not require time on the supervisor’s part to learn the process.  Using our background in online teaching, we teamed up with a great web design company that helped us make an easy to navigate system.  We have received great feedback from customers on ways to enhance the website and already have some upgrades in progress, such as adding multiple activities to one form!

 

Sam: Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

We hope that people use our product to enhance supervision.  As stated before, our goal is to help supervisors build better behavior analysts by making supervision more productive while ensuring each item on the task list is covered in a meaningful way.  We really want to help people provide quality services provided to anyone in need of behavior analytic services!

You can take a peek at SupervisorABA yourself at or follow them on Facebook. 

 

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Building Variability Into The Routine

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Several years ago, I was working with a 6-year-old boy we’ll call Terrence. Terrence was diagnosed with autism. He was a very playful child who was generally good-tempered, enjoyed playing with trains and watching TV, and posed few difficult behavior issues for his parents…until the day there was construction on their walk from the grocery store to their apartment and they decided to take a different route home. What happened next is what most people would call a full-blown meltdown: Terrence dropped to the ground, screaming and crying, and refused to move.

 

Many of the parents I work with have a similar story when it comes to their child with autism and an unexpected change in the routine. The change varies: the favorite flavor of fruit snacks is out of stock at the store or the babysitter greeted the child at the bus instead of the parent or they grew out of the coat they wore the past two winters… In fact, it can be difficult to anticipate exactly what specific routine may be a trigger for your learner. This is precisely why building variability into the routine can be helpful.

Here are a few things to consider:

  • First, think about the routines that are the most likely to be interrupted. Make a list of these so you can begin thinking about how to address those issues.
  • Second, work with your team (whether that means family or practitioners that work with your learner) to select 2-3 routines to focus on first.
  • Discuss how those routines would most likely be interrupted. For instance, a favorite TV show may be interrupted during election season or you may have a family function when the TV show is aired. In teaching your learner to be flexible with changes in routine, you will contrive changes that are likely to occur to give your learner quality practice.
  • Plan to vary the routine. Essentially, you are setting up the change in routine, but you will be prepared in advance to help your learner behave appropriately. (You’re much more likely to experience some success in this scenario than you would be if a change in routine occurs unexpectedly and/or last minute.)
  • Give your learner a vocabulary for what is happening. I teach many of my students the term “flexible.” I might say, “I appreciate how you’re being flexible right now” or “Sometimes when plans change we have to be flexible. This means…”
  • Reinforce appropriate behaviors related to flexibility! You want to be clear when they’ve made an appropriate, flexible response. In the planning phase, you can discuss what appropriate reinforcers might be for the routines you are targeting.

If you build in variations in routine and teach your learner some strategies for being flexible, you and your learner are much more likely to be successful in navigating unexpected changes.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer 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, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Simplifying the Science: Using SAFMEDS in Applied Behavior Analysis

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When I first heard about SAFMEDS, I wondered how they were different from standard use of flashcards. What I learned, in fact, is that the process is quite different, and it’s evidence-based! SAFMEDS is actually an acronym that means “Say All Fast Minute Each Day Shuffled.” (I know, I know…it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.) Created by Ogden Lindsley, SAFMEDS are focused specifically on fluency, or, in other words, speed and accuracy.

While there are some things that don’t require fluency, there are many things that do: such as simple multiplication or letter recognition. This means that some tasks I teach my students will require the use of fluency training, which is often completed through the use of SAFMEDS. Lindsley outlined results of his experiments using SAFMEDS with students and demonstrated that this process of instruction resulted in faster acquisition of fluency than other, similar flashcard procedures (Lindsley, 1996) with his work having been replicated many times over.

So, how do you implement SAFMEDS?

First, get your materials together. Create your flashcards. (I typically use index cards where I’ve written the problem on one side and the correct response on the back.) Be sure to get a timer.

From there, the procedure is pretty straight forward:

  • You will have ALL the flashcards available and the student will respond to as many as he/she can in one minute.
  • The student can run the activity on their own, and will likely go much faster if they are the one turning the cards (Lindsley, 1996). The student looks at the card, provides the response, then puts the card in the correct or incorrect pile.
  • The cards should be shuffled between each fluency drill so that the student won’t learn the answers in order.

I’ve used actual flashcards, but also created SAFMEDS sets using different apps and websites. If you’re interested in learning more about implementing this simple strategy for building fluency, you should take a look here for more information.

REFERENCES

Lindsley, O. R. (1996). The four free-operant freedoms. The Behavior Analyst, 19(2), 199.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Tip of the Week: 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:Common Mistakes in Implementing Reinforcement

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, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Tip of the Week: Using Economy of Language in Your Teaching

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Sometimes our learners don’t comply with instructions simply because they don’t fully understand what we are asking of them. At times, I find myself making the error of using too many words when I give directions, especially if I’m in a rush during a transition. For instance, I might say “Grab your shoes, put them on, and meet me by the door.” A few seconds later my learner meets me at the door, but with no shoes.

I may feel frustrated or irritated, but ultimately I realize my instructions are provided in a poor manner. I am at fault! It would have been more effective to point towards the shoes and say “Shoes on.” In his book Teach Like A Champion, Doug Lemov refers to this as Economy of Language, a phrase that essentially means the fewer words you use, the clearer your message. (It should be noted here that Teach Like A Champion is written for ALL teachers, not just special education teachers. This is a strategy that works across the board!) This is especially true when working with learners who struggle with listening comprehension, attention, or multi-step directions.

Here are a few suggestions to help you with economy of language:

Plan ahead. I actually write out instructions that I will be providing often and plan precisely how I will be giving them. I might plan a few variations, but, especially when working with young learners with autism, I want to provide lots of opportunities for success, then build to more complex instructions.
Consider hand signals. I often pair a hand signal with an instruction. For instance, one of my current students often sticks his fingers in his nose during instruction. I pair “Hands down” with a hand motion in which I move my hand from about shoulder-height to my lap (down). This is helpful because the learner also comprehends the signal, and I can begin providing the signal without the vocal statement. This allows me to provide instructions without interrupting the lesson.
One step at a time. Be aware of your learner’s listening comprehension and attending skills. If you notice that your learner is often only completing the first or the last thing you asked, this is a good indication that you provided too many instructions at the same time.
Avoid lengthy explanations. Sometimes I’ll hear an adult say something like “You need to hurry up and put your shoes on because your father is going to be here in a moment and we need to meet him outside and get in the car quickly so you’re not late for swim practice.” This is an easy trap to fall into, especially if vocalizing the explanation is helping you remember everything you need to do during a transition, but it may result in inaction from your learner.
Take a deep breath. If your learner is not responding correctly to instructions you’ve provided, step back, take a deep breath, and think about how to simplify the instruction.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Tip of the Week: Measure Group Behavior in the Classroom

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Many classroom teachers are required to take data on the behavior of their students. However, this can feel like a daunting task given the many things teachers are trying to do simultaneously throughout the day! PLACHECK is a simple way to measure group behavior in the classroom for engagement or attention.

PLACHECK is short for Planned Activity Check. Let’s say that Ms. Esterman is using a partner activity for a math lesson for the first time in her fourth grade classroom. She wants to see if the kids remain engaged with the content during the partner activity. Here is how she can implement PLACHECK to collect data on engagement.

  1. Measure Group Behavior in the ClassroomSet a MotivAider for a predetermined interval (learn more about the MotivAider). The partner activity Ms. Esterman has organized will take a total of ten minutes. She decides to set the MotivAider for 2 minute intervals.
  2. At the start of the lesson, set the MotivAider to run and clip it to your waistband. For Ms. Esterman, the MotivAider will vibrate every two minutes to signal her to observe her students.
  3. When the MotivAider vibrates, collect tally data. Ms. Esterman feels the MotivAider vibrate, then quickly counts the number of students who are engaged in the partner activity.
  4. Continue to do this for each interval.
  5. Graph your data.

Ms. Esterman’s graph looks like this for her 24 students:

PLACHECK Graph 1

The next day, Ms. Esterman does a similar activity with her students, but uses an independent activity instead of a partner activity. She uses the same 5 steps to use PLACHECK to measure student engagement in the independent activity. Now she can easily compare engagement between the two types of activities. You can see both days graphed below:

PLACHECK Graph 2

When she compares the two days, she finds these results, and it allows her to make better decisions about what types of activities might work best for the individuals in her classroom. Here, it is clear that between these two activities, her students were more likely to be on task during partner work. However, Ms. Esterman would attain better results by taking more data.

PLACHECK is simple to implement. Ms. Esterman is able to collect this data in less than two minutes each day and can learn a lot from just that brief time.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, 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. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Tip of the Week: Considerations for Parents on Grounding Kids

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Many parents choose to “ground” their kids when they make poor decisions. Maybe they lose access to video games for a week, or can’t watch TV for a month. Grounding in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Here are a few considerations:

  • If you keep grounding your kid for the same behavior, then grounding is not changing the behavior. Sometimes grounding your child is a default response, but if it’s not working, you might want to consider some other options. You can take a look back at our series on
    differential reinforcement     or our post on noncontingent reinforcement.
  • When possible, the consequence should be connected to the behavior. If your child throws a controller, then not having access to video games makes great sense. However if video games are taken away for any infraction, it may not be the most logical punishment and over time, it may even backfire. If the child is losing video games for everything, then he/she might stop trying to earn video games at all.

Continue reading →

Tip of the Week: Things You Should Know About BCBAs

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Maybe you’ve never heard of Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs), or you’ve heard of them frequently but never been provided an explanation of how a BCBA differs from an ABA therapist. Here are a few things you should know:

  • BCBAs are required to take extensive coursework in applied behavior analysis and complete 1500 hours of supervised work. Furthermore, they are required to take a difficult comprehensive exam at the end of their coursework and supervision hours. Once they have completed the hours and passed the exam, they are officially a BCBA.
  • BCBAs must complete 32 units of continuing education every two years. There is a requirement that some of these hours pertain to ethics, but the rest can be focused on skills such as addressing verbal behavior, feeding issues, aggressive behaviors, and more.
  • BCBAs are required to utilize evidence-based practice. A BCBA should be aware of current research in the field and should be able to easily reference the literature when encountering a difficult problem or working on an intervention.
  • One of my favorite parts of the ethical code for BCBAs is that “clients have a right to effective treatment.” Your BCBA should be taking data and implementing interventions that are effective in creating behavior change for clients. If an intervention is not working, then adjustments should be made.

The goal of Behavior Analyst Certification Board is to ensure appropriate training and accountability for behavior analysts.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.