Introducing Modified Instructions for Roll & Play

Posted on by

We’re excited to bring you the third installment in our new series of Modified Instructions, created by Sam Blanco, BCBA.  Sam’s Modified Instructions present 3-4 additional ways to play a mainstream game to make it most useful and accessible for our students with special needs.  These alternative instructions break down each adapted game by:

  • Age/Skill Level
  • Number of Players
  • Object
  • Skills Required
  • Materials Needed
  • Prep
  • Instructions
  • Considerations

We’re thrilled to introduce Modified Instructions for Roll & Play, one of our favorite games. This game helps reinforce patterning skills, creativity, and gross motor skill development in your student.

Roll & Play gently introduces young learners to play patterns and rules of a game through interactive activities that encourage creativity and active play. Roll the big, plush cube and identify which colored side faces up. Then, choose a matching color card and perform the simple activity shown. Players will be asked to “Make a happy face,” “Moo like a cow,” and “Find something red.” Activity cards in this game cover 6 categories related to early development: Emotions, Counting, Body Parts, Colors, Animal Sounds, and Actions. Included with the plush cube are 48 cards, 8 in each category, and 1 Parent’s Guide.

Don’t forget to download our free Modified Instructions for Roll & Play today!

Pick of the Week: The Incredible Flexible You Preschool Curriculum

Posted on by

Help your young  learners develop the skills they need to be flexible social thinkers and problem solvers with the brand new Incredible Flexible You Curriculum: A Social Thinking Curriculum for the Preschool and Early Elementary Years. Because Social Thinking is a thought-based approach that is explicitly taught through describing and demonstrating concrete concepts through structured play, it is best utilized with students who have the capacity to learn through language. To help you get started on the Social Thinking curriculum with your early learner, we are offering a 15% discount* on your next order of The Incredible Flexible You Curriculum set. Just use promo code DRLTIFY1 at checkout!

In this curriculum, the authors describe the social development process in easy-to-understand terms. Students will learn about the social mind, social expectations, their own thinking, and that of others, to help them make better decisions. Better yet, teachers and caregivers will learn how to explain these abstract concepts to them.

Detailed instructional lesson plans, complete with Teaching Moment specifics, motivating in-classroom structured activities, educational plan goals, and learn-at-home family letters give educators and parents the knowledge and tools they need to help young children develop better social skills.

The set consists of a 200-page curriculum manual, 5 story books, a CD, and tote bag. This curriculum is specifically for use with children ages 4-7, as it combines a social learning framework used in schools with music and dramatic play activities that appeal to early learners. Play is the learning environment of young children, and this curriculum capitalizes on this idea.

Don’t forget – you can save 15%* on your set of The Incredible Flexible You Curriculum by applying our promotional code DRLTIFY1 at checkout!

*Offer is not valid on previous purchases or with any other offer. Promo code expires on April 1, 2014 at 11:59pm EST. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at checkout!

Tip of the Week: Choose When to Battle

Posted on by

Instead of choosing your battles, choose when to battle.

Recently at a workshop I was providing, a parent shared a difficult behavior that her 8 year old son with autism was exhibiting. When it was time to play with trains, he wanted a specific train. He would scream and cry until his mom found the specific train he wanted, and sometimes she was unable to find it at all. The screaming often lasted 30-60 minutes. She said this frequent behavior was stressful for both her, her son, and her other two children.

My suggestion to her was to tell her son “wait quietly,” and that she not search for the train while he was screaming or crying. As long as he was quiet, she would search, but when he started screaming or crying she would stop searching. We talked about the importance of just asking one time to “wait quietly,” and whether or not her son would benefit from a textual prompt (such as a paper that said “Wait quietly. I’m looking.”) As we discussed this, the parent said, “I just know I can’t do that all the time. I have to pick my battles.”

It’s important to note here that I have very different expectations for teachers and parents when it comes to implementing interventions. A teacher’s sole purpose when they’re with your child is to teach in a way to meet their unique needs. Teachers should be implementing an intervention 100% of the time.

Parents, on the other hand, are in a very different situation. Parents are frequently trying to implement the intervention while also cooking dinner, answering the phone, taking care of other children, etc. Unless the intervention is addressing a dangerous behavior, I don’t expect parents to be implementing the intervention 100% of the time. It’s unrealistic given the different environment the parent is working within.

But I’m not letting parents off the hook! Let’s go back to the example from the workshop.

My response to this parent was that picking your battles doesn’t necessarily mean choosing to address other, less stressful behaviors instead of this behavior. Instead of picking your battles, think of it as picking when to battle. For this parent, she would direct her son to “Wait quietly” when she knew she was ready to implement the intervention. When she knew she wouldn’t be able to implement the intervention (because she was excessively tired or she had the other two siblings with her and no other adult support) she would not say “Wait quietly.”

This may seem a bit silly at first, but over time, the child learns that when mom says “Wait quietly,” she means it. I also suggested that the first time she tries it, she should set herself up for success. Have her mother babysit the other two children, have a therapist or teacher come provide support or coaching if possible, and make sure she has enough time to follow through on implementing the intervention successfully the first time. While it takes some time and planning, the long term benefits can be powerful for the whole family.

I do not know if this particular parent tried out any of my suggestions after the workshop, but I have used this strategy with many other parents over the years. Two things tend to happen. One: the child figures out the parent means what he/she says. Two: As the child learns this and the parent experiences success, the parent uses the intervention more frequently creating a calmer, less stressful environment for both parents and children.

Sam Blanco, PhD, LBA, BCBA is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for sixteen 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, and she is the Senior Clinical Strategist at Chorus Software Solutions.

Pick of the Week: Snap Shots Critical Thinking Photo Cards

Posted on by

Promote higher-level thinking with these cards that combine critical thinking and visual literacy to teach students to look at the “big picture” as they investigate complex ideas and reach reason-based conclusions. Save 15% on your order of the Snap Shots Critical Thinking Photo Cards this week only by entering in our promotional code SNAPSH6 at checkout!

Sample

We have two beautiful sets of photo flashcards available for students in PreK and Grades 1 and up. The photos on these cards are all brain-teasing, eye-sharpening scenes that press students to look a little deeper as they develop complex ideas such as cause and effect, predicting, and making inferences. Each photo flashcard depicts a scene on the front and contains four accompanying questions on the back of each card. Over 150 prompts in each set encourage personal responses from students and help boost speaking, listening, and writing skills.

The PreK set contains photo cards that depict scenes of young children in various playtime, home, and classroom activities, such as cooking, reading, gardening, blowing out birthday candles, playing piano, and much more.

The photo cards in the Grade 1 set depict scenes of nature, as well as children and adults in various situations and settings, such as hitting a baseball, packing and moving, cooking, grocery shopping, and much more.

Remember – this week only, you can take 15%* off your purchase of one or more of the PreK and Grade 1 levels of the Snap Shots Critical Thinking Photo Cards by using code SNAPSH6 when you check out online.

*Valid through March 25, 2014 at 11:59pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in the code at checkout!

Prompting Behavior Change: A Guest Post by Steve Levinson, PhD, Inventor of the MotivAider

Posted on by

We’re thrilled to bring you this exclusive article written by Steve Levinson, PhD, Inventor of the incredible MotivAider. We’re all familiar with the incredible versatility of the MotivAider in facilitating behavior changes and here, Dr. Levinson explains how behavior modification works. We’re so grateful to Dr. Levinson for this fantastic article. You can find more exclusive articles from leading experts in the field in our new catalog.

Prompting Behavior Change by Steve Levinson, PhD

If you’re a parent or a teacher who’s trying to change a child’s behavior, you’re probably frustrated. It’s not easy to change a child’s behavior. But before you blame the child, consider this: It’s not all that easy to change your own behavior either! Even when you have a good reason to make a particular change, and you’re really serious about doing it, changing your own behavior is rarely a snap.

Why it’s so hard to change behavior  So, what makes it so hard to change behavior? If you think it’s simply a matter of motivation, think again. Motivation is certainly important, but many behavior change attempts fail not because of insufficient motivation. They fail because of insufficient focus.

You can’t change your own behavior unless you can keep your attention focused on making the desired change. While it’s easy to do things the old way because the old way is automatic, doing things the new way requires focus.

Unfortunately, whether you’re a parent, a teacher or a child, it’s not easy to stay focused. That’s because, amazingly, the human mind has no built-in mechanism to keep our attention focused on making the changes we want to make. So it’s really no wonder that our good intentions keep getting lost in the shuffle.

If you’re not convinced that (1) focus is an essential ingredient in the recipe for behavior change and (2) we’re not well-equipped to stay focused on the changes we want to make, here’s an example that should help. Suppose you have a bad habit of slouching. You realize that slouching is not only bad for your back, it’s bad for your image. So you promise yourself that from now on that you’ll sit up straight and stand up tall. How hard could that be? Yet soon—very soon—after setting out to improve your posture, you’re right back to slouching.

So, what happened? Did you lose your motivation? No. You lost your focus! You failed to make a change you genuinely wanted to make because you simply couldn’t keep your attention focused on making it.Yes, it’s hard to change behavior because changing behavior requires focus, and none of us—not parents, not teachers and especially not children—are particularly well-equipped to stay focused.

So what can we do to stay more focused on the positive changes we want to make? And what can we do to help our children or our students stay focused on the positive changes they want to make?

Prompting: A simple way to facilitate behavior change  One solution is to use “prompting.” Prompting is a simple behavior change method that uses frequently repeated signals to keep your attention focused on making a desired change.

To illustrate how and why prompting works, let’s return to the posture example we used earlier. Only this time, after you promise yourself that you’ll sit up straight and stand up tall from now on, I’m going to follow you around and every few minutes—whether you’re slouching or not—tap you on the shoulder and whisper in your ear, “You’re no slouch.”

With me reminding you frequently, I guarantee that you’ll stay focused on improving your posture. What’s more, soon I’ll be able to stop whispering because just feeling the tap on your shoulder will be all it takes to send you the associated message, “Yes, I’m no slouch.” Sometimes when you feel the tap, you’ll find yourself slouching, and you’ll straighten up right away. Other times when you feel the tap, you’ll notice that your posture is already fine. It doesn’t matter whether you catch yourself slouching or you catch yourself with perfect posture. Either way, you’ll be making progress in replacing your bad posture habit with a good posture habit. Before long, you’ll automatically be sitting up straight and standing up tall.

Fortunately, there’s a more practical and even more effective way to use prompting. Instead of relying on a dedicated person to follow you around and keep tapping you on the shoulder, all you really need to implement basic prompting is a timer or other mechanical or electronic means that’s capable of sending you frequent private signals automatically. The process is simple. First, you devise a brief personal message that urges you to make the change you want to make. Then, you associate the personal message with the signal—the same way we associated “You’re no slouch” with a tap on the shoulder in the example above. The result is that whenever you receive the signal, you’ll focus your attention on making the change you want to make. And by making certain that you receive signals often enough, you’ll stay focused.

Prompting isn’t magic, but it can do amazing things. What’s more, because it allows us to overcome an obstacle that all of us—parents, teachers and children—share, it’s remarkably versatile. The same simple method that can be used to help a young child do a better job of staying on task can also be used to help parents and teachers consistently stick to an effective technique they forget to use when they’re busy or frustrated. The same simple method that can be used to help a child make a constructive keystone change in her social behavior can also be used to help parents and teachers stay cool, calm, collected, and constructive when interacting with a defiant child.

Pick of the Week: Circle Time Learning Activity

Posted on by

Teach math skills in an active way! Sharpen early math skills, along with shape, number, and color recognition through a variety of kinesthetic games with the All Around Learning Circle Time Activity Set. Gathering for circle time has never been so much fun. This week only, save 15% on your order of the All Around Learning Circle Time Activity Set by entering in promo code ALLCRC7 at checkout.

Circle Time Set

Learning through play will help encourage gross motor skill development and group cooperation skills, as well as increase self-esteem and positive attitudes in your students. This set includes: one lightweight, wipe-clean vinyl mat that measures 4 feet in diameter and folds easily for storage; five inflatable cubes (5 inches each); five canvas bean bags in red, orange, yellow, green, and blue (3 inches each); and an Activity Guide that offers suggestions for activities, such as Color Find, Circle Around the Colors, Number Line-Up, Number Toss, and more. This circle time mat is a wonderful addition to the classroom and in the home for more structured learning.

Don’t forget – this week only, you can take 15% off your order of the All Around Learning Circle Time Activity Set by using code ALLCRC7 when you check out!

Petition to Change Early Intervention Services in NY

Posted on by

This petition sponsored by the New York State Speech-Language-Hearing Association,
NY Physical Therapy Association, and NYS Occupational Therapy Association is trying to change Early Intervention laws in the state. According to the petition on change.org, as of April, 2013, NYS made significant administrative changes to the Early Intervention Program (a program for special needs children from birth to 3 yrs of age) making it extremely difficult for children born with developmental delays to continue to receive much-needed therapies that can compensate for their issues, allowing them to thrive and grow to their full potential. You can sign your name to the petition here.

Research has proven that the potential for change in a child’s nervous system within the first three years of life is greater than at any other time in development. Many developmental issues can be resolved with early therapy, resulting in children entering kindergarten with minimal or no need for extra support and eventually becoming contributing members of our adult workforce. Research has also proven that for every $1 spent on early intervention, $7 to $17 is saved in the future!

Passing proposed legislation, S6002/A8316, will assure that infants and toddlers with developmental issues continue to receive critical services from experienced providers in a timely manner. Specially trained pediatric speech-language pathologists, physical and occupational therapists, and special educators will be able to provide services free from the administrative chaos that is currently crippling the Early Intervention Program and forcing providers to leave. Half (49.5%) of the 96 surveyed agencies indicated that they are planning to reduce or close their EI programs.

Sign your name and ask that NY state Senators, Assembly Members and the Governor do what’s right for children by voting YES to pass bills S6002/A8316 without delay!

Know Your Apps when Working with Children with Autism

Posted on by

There are very different expectations for parents and teachers when using apps on a tablet or smartphone with your learner with autism. Parents have a lot more free range on what they allow their children to engage in. As a parent, there are moments when you will have breakfast cooking, the phone ringing, and a work meeting scheduled in twenty minutes. I completely understand why a parent hands a tablet to their child with autism and lets them watch YouTube.

Luca Sage/Getty Images

But, as a teacher, this is not acceptable, unless the child has been working hard, and YouTube is a strong reinforcer for them that will be used for a minute or two. But a teacher needs to be consistently pushing their learners towards independence and thinking about the function of the tasks they are presenting to their learners.

By the same token, a teacher should not be handing a tablet to a learner and trusting that an app is useful simply because it’s labelled as educational. Teachers don’t give a book to a learner without having read it themselves. Teachers don’t provide materials for a science experiment without having tested it out and fully read all directions. But teachers frequently hand a tablet to a learner without having a full understanding of how to use the tablet or how to use all aspects of the apps. This is a problem if the learner has a question the teacher can’t answer, and it’s a problem if the teacher hasn’t carefully chosen apps that meet the needs of his or her individual learner.

To avoid these problems, it is essential to take the time to fully explore an app that you have chosen. Below are questions you can ask yourself while going through the app to decide if it is appropriate for your particular learner.

Questions to ask when you’re exploring an app:

  • Does the game or activity get more or less difficult based on the user’s performance?
  • If the app is billed as an “interactive story,” in what ways it is interactive?
  • What specific skills does the app practice?
  • Is the user easily able to navigate the app? Is there a back button or clear organization about how to move from screen to screen?
  • Are you able to have more than one user for the app? Some apps only allow one user, which is not useful for a classroom environment.
  • What kind of noises does the app use? Some apps have sounds for incorrect answers that your learner may find highly reinforcing, which is counterproductive to say the least.
  • How long is the playing time for one round? Or how long is the story?
  • If the app is a game, is there a natural end to the game or would you have to stop it mid-game?
  • Does the app keep any data or records about the user’s performance? If so, are you able to easily view this information?

Once I have determined if the app is good as a reinforcer, tool for generalization, or tool for introducing a concept, I make sure that I am fully able to use the app on my own. Then, I’m ready to introduce it to my learner!

Pick of the Week: “Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents”

Posted on by

Executive function in individuals with autism has become a hot topic, and this is the bestselling guide that helped put executive skills on the map for school-based clinicians and educators.  This week only, you can save 15% on your copy of the second edition of Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents.  Just use our promotional code EXECSK5 at checkout.

This manual explains how these critical cognitive processes develop and why they play such a key role in children’s behavior and school performance. Concise and practitioner-friendly, the manual provides step-by-step guidelines and practical tools to promote executive skill development by implementing environmental modifications, individualized instruction, coaching, and whole-class interventions.

Included in this book are sections on developing behavioral objectives and measuring intervention effectiveness, strategies to intervene at levels of the student and the environment, routines in getting ready to begin the day, collecting homework, writing papers, studying for tests, managing open-ended tasks, managing anxiety, and much more. With these strategies, you will be able to address executive skills such as task initiation, sustained attention, working memory, planning, organization, time management, emotional control, and response inhibition, among others. More than 24 reproducible checklists, questionnaires, planning sheets and assessment tools are also included to empower readers to immediately help teach executive skills.

We’ve also included a sample chapter on our site so you can have a sneak peek at this edition!  Don’t forget – take 15% off your order of Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention by using EXECSK5 at checkout this week!

Visual Schedule to Improve Independent Play Skills in Children with Autism

Posted on by

Parents, caregivers, therapists and teachers alike work so hard to teach a variety of play skills but what happens when your child or student doesn’t make that leap from facilitated play to independent play? Independent play is such an important skill that will allow him or her to better connect with their peers, build friendships, expand problem-solving skills and structure downtime.  A successful transition from demonstrating play skills with adult support to playing independently can be impacted by a myriad of variables.

Some of my students struggle with independent play because it is difficult to move from a thick schedule of reinforcement of 1:1 adult attention to a thinner one of just having an adult “check in” once in a while.  Other learners have impairments impacting executive function, specifically the organization and sequencing of steps for meaningful and reinforcing play as well as on-task behavior, task completion and working memory. Additionally, in some cases the skill of independent play is elusive because teachers struggle to find ways to fade out prompts or to successfully thin out the schedule of reinforcement.

Below is the visual schedule with data sheets for measuring acquisition and progress that I have created.  I have found it useful with learners with very different skill sets and abilities.  Click here for a comprehensive Task Analysis on teaching independent play using a visual schedule.

Keep in mind that this is for learners that:

  • Have successfully acquired a varied repertoire of play skills
  • Do not require visual schedules that break down every step of the play
  • Are able to complete activities with delayed reinforcement

In order to prepare this for use with the learner:

  • Set up a toy organizational system that has toys bins
  • Print the materials and laminate the schedule strip and the cut out shapes.
  • Attach Velcro dots to the bins, schedule strip and shapes and to the work surface if you like
  • Identify activities that are suitable for this schedule

Remember that any open-ended activities like building blocks or coloring can be turned into close-ended activities by limiting the number of pieces or by teaching the learner to use a timer.

As you would when teaching any schedule, use a most-to-least prompting strategy, only use verbal instruction for the initial direction or SD (e.g. “Go play.”), and prompt only from behind and out of view.

The schedule I have been using has a smiley face at the end of the schedule indicating a “free choice” time which all of my students understand.  However, if you are using this with a learner that requires a visual reminder of what they are working for, you could easily adapt this by putting a picture of the reward in the place of the smiley face.  Time to play!

*Don’t forget to download your free visual schedule and data sheets here!