Traditionally I have been teaching imitation to early learners through Discrete Trails. But often I find that this requires a lot of prompting and that the trainers must have very precise prompting and prompt fading skills. They rarely do, as they are early learners as well as the child with autism. This makes the initial and very important teaching of learning skills takes more time than necessary.
Today I was visiting several early and young learners to supervise on the ABA-program, and I tried to implement the imitation training based on the children´s initiative, and providing the natural consequences as reinforcers. It worked like a charm, and all the children started imitation simple motor actions. One with object, one gross motor and even fine motor actions. But for some of the children I had to supplement with arbitrary reinforcers to uphold responding, even if the initiative came from the child…. But this may is to be faded, such as the prompts.
This was a great experience that I think will chance the way a start ABA-programs; it will be limited discrete trail teaching in the early periods of the ABA-program. But I will try to collect some data on the difference before I change all..
The downside of this as I see it, and experience it – it´s harder to teach new trainers to do applied behavior analysis based on the natural environment and the child´s initiative, than to teach them to do discrete trails…. It require more knowledge and understanding of behavior analysis, and the skills has to be fluent to take advantage of every situation to teach new skills! And the collection of data is even harder…
But maybe we should spend more time on preparing and teaching the staff before the program starts?
As I spend much of my time giving talks and doing workshops on ABA and autism, I try to use video examples to show what ABA looks like. Most of the time I use my own or colleague’s videos, but these are not always of top quality. I often we get into trouble if there are other children in the video; we don´t get permission to show them to a public. So I would like to have some commercial videos shoeing great ABA.
To my knowledge there are not many videos showing a variety for ABA strategies and all sides of a comprehensive ABA program produces since Lovaas´videoes. These videos shows many great examples, but of course they are getting old.
I have searched the Internet, and YouTube for videos of ABA intervention and autism. There are a great number of clips out there, but the quality of these clips vary a lot. And it´s a tremendous job to contact the owners to get permission to use them in commercial purpose. So I have now ordered two DVD´s that are made to be instructional films of the verbal behavior approach, and hoping I can use these.
But I´m afraid that this will be a search that will go on continuously….
Came across this short article at About.com:Autism describing that ABA therapy for autism is much more than discrete trail; Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in the Real World – ABA Therapy for Autism.
It´s a great little story based on interviews with some of today’s leading behavior analysts, and is a great reminder that one om the greatest challenges in designing effective behavior analytic programs for children with autism is the balance between Discrete Trail Teaching and other teaching strategies. Recommended reading.
There is a great and varied range of programs and services providing parent training or parent education to parents who have children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Many of these are based on research and empirical date, but there are still too many not having any empirical data to support the effect. Having a child with ASD is a task most parents are not prepare of, so it should be an obligation for service providers to offer services and education that has reasonably chance of enhance quality of life for the child with ASD and their family, based on good research and empirical data.
It should also be a range of parent services, as different problems and different ages gives different challenges in raising a child with ASD. In the early years and with children who are non-verbal or have very limited language, the service should teach parents to provide effective communication intervention in their daily life, and the families routines. Such as Pivotal response intervention or other well designed behavior analytic intervention.
As language skills increase and the child gets older, we often experience that parents meets new challenges. Many parents struggle with problem behavior and non-compliance. Not the most severe forms of problem behavior, but behavior that greatly influence their family life. As there are several programs for parents experiencing similar problems, as PMTO and The Incredible Years, these programs often exclude parents with a child with ASD.
So we are implementing a behavior analytic program teaching parents techniques to deal with this behavior, in a group format. It consist of some teaching, but mainly practical training through role-play and exercises. We provide the program to 6 pair of parents in a group and the program last for 12 weeks. The service is some what new, but the initial data indicates that children’s problem behavior decrease, the parents experience this behavior as not so intruding, and the parents are experience more confidence in their parent role.
We will collect more data on the effect, but so far it looks good…..
Found this article based on a Twitter tips, “Disabled children can learn imitation“. It´s an OK article about the effects of Applied Behavior Analysis and teaching learning skills to children with autism. It´s crucial for the field of behavior analysis to promote good practices and good stories in media, to inform the general public and governments of what ABA are, and what it can lead to.
In my country we struggle with some old prejudices regarding ABA, and I think this is the case other places to. These stories and good information is the only way to beat this prejudices.
As mentioned I picked up this article by a Twitter tips. Twitter and Identi.ca are great places to follow others with the same interests as you and get tips and discuss regarding autism and applied behavior analysis. Although there are not so many interested in ABA Twittering, not to my knowledge…..