Nesrhtens…..

The use of paraprofessionals is probably a common practice in all countries, but the training and supervision of these paraprofessionals is a challenge and data on effective practices are sparse. And as most professionals will agree on is that the skills and understanding of behavior analysis is a vital factor of programs efficacy.

Hall, Grundon, Pope and Romero (2010) have in this issue of Behavioral Interventions published a study providing more data on this issue. In this study they included six paraprofessionals working with children with ASD or at risk of ASD. Providing a workshop and performance feedback by their supervising educators, results showed that even if paraprofessionals learned behavior analytic skills at the workshop there were little or no transfer to the environment their where working with the children. But when performance feedback was given systematically the use of the behavior analytic skills increased.

Even if this study have few participants, and lac data on child progress, it is interesting as it investigates a procedure and format that easily can be implemented in typical homes and regular educational environments.

Day one of the ABAI´s autism conference included many interesting speakers providing useful information. But as all presenters provided usefull information, som of them caught my interest more than others.

The first speaker of the day, was dr. Remmington providing some really interesting information on family factors and EIBI. He showed from both his own reserach and others how families are affected by doing EIBI. This surely will inspire to take more of the family factors into consideration in service provision.

Dr. Lerman highlighted some useful aspects of data collection in Discrete-Trail Teaching, focusing on differences on using continuous and discontinuous data collection. She showed interesting examples on difference on several aspects with the two data-collection methods. She summarized by recommending continuous data collection if you have the time and ease…..

And the talk Dr. Gregory Hanley gave on identifying effective and preferred behavior-change programs was great. Giving some wake-up calls on social validity and preference assessment of interventions. He presented some really interesting and important research, that should help professionals to assess social validity with the receivers of intervention.

Day two also held some interesting presentations. For me dr. Saunders talk on discrete trail teaching was interesting. It’s always nice to get updates on some of the basic research. And even if not so related to my practice the talks on feeding problems and health conditions in relation to problem behaviors were good ones as well.

As I am in Chicago for the ABAI Autism conference, I was lucky to be able to make a visit to the Chicago Educational Project (CEP). CEP is a non-public special education facility, using ABA and VB as the foundation for their teaching.

It was a really interesting visit, and I really liked the work they are doing. They made the point of designing individualized teaching based on the analysis of behavior, and had some really nice data-collection ideas.

It is always great to be able to visit and discuss the application of behavior analysis with other professionals, and as with CEP openly shared their ideas and practices, this will surely help in developing practices. I would really hope all doing ABA will be as open and welcoming as CEP. Thanks!

Be sure to check out their web-site: www.chicagoeducationproject.org!

On my way to Chicago to attend the autism conference, I am preparing by looking av the second poster session and picking what posters to surly visit. And so far this is the one I´m going to stop by:

Matching to Receptive Skill Transfer by Kelly Stone, Echoic to Mand Transfer by Dana Pallegrino, Echoic to Mand Transfer by Josef Shane, Using Errorless Learning to Evaluate the Rate of Skill Acquisition in Teaching Children With Autism by Hanna Wolde, Training Yes-No Responses to Children with Autism: A Systematic Replication by Melissa Otto, Using Video Modeling to Teach Children with Autism to Respond to Facial Expressions by Judah Axe, Increasing Functional Play Skills in Children Diagnosed with Autism Using Stereotypy as Reinforcement by Jaqueline Potter, The Effects of Reinforcement Rate on the Spontaneous Request in a Child With Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Analysis by Behavior Momentum by Kosuke Takahashi, and Improving the Implementation of Discrete Trial Teaching Maximizes Learning Opportunities in Children with Autism by Audrey Alberstadt. These poster seems to be interesting in relation to my daily work implementing EIBI-program for children with ASD.

Using Mobile Phone Technology to Teach Children With Autism to Seek Assistance When Lost by Nicola Hardy, A Comparison of Written and iPod-delivered Schedules for Increasing Independent Task Initiation and Completion by Tori Van Laarhoven, and The Effectiveness of Using an iPod Touch to Teach Cleaning Skills: Fading from Video to Picture/Audio prompts by Justin Olson. These most because I´m interesting in the use of technology in treatment and education for children with autism.

I´m looking forward to it….

The Association of Behavior Analysis Internationals 2010 autism conference is apporaching, and as I have quite a travel to get there, there is a total flight time of 11 hours, I weel be in Chicago for 1 week  - heading for the windy city in a week. Preparing for the conference I have been looking at the program, starting to single out the posters I am going to visit, and for the first day I am at least going to visit these posters:

Reducing Stereotypy by Improving Teacher’s Implementation of Discrete Trial Teaching: A Systematic Replication by LUCY VANESSA MARINEZ , Jennifer Bush, Lauren Fouts & Carlos F. Aparicio and The Role of Continuous and Discontinuous Measurement in the Discrete-Trial Teaching Procedure by HEATHER M. CHANDLER  as much of my daily work involve supervision on Discrete Trail Teaching.

Sprouts: An Intensive Early Intervention Program by MANDI K MARTINEZ-DICK, Rachel Miller & Karla J. Doepke, IBI Changes in Child Abilities Have a Positive Impact on Family Activities: Initial Data From the Family Well Being Checklist, a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Ccale of Family Functioning by JOHN HOCH, Nancy G. Schussler & Erin M. Cote Holton, Play as a Developmental Domain: Guidelines for Assessment and Intervention by SUZANNE FOSTER-SANDA, Ellen McClure, Caley Arzamarski, Jacquelyn Briesch, Sarah Wertheim, Rachel Horvitz & Karin Lifter, Investigation of Web-Based Curriculum Builder on Treatment Integrity in Parent Implementation of Behavior Analytic Intervention by Sherry A. Oldenburg, JOSHUA K. PRITCHARD, Brent A. Askvig & Megan J. Doerr, A Treatment Provision Model For Behavior Analytic Services To Underserved Geographical Regions by Molly L. Dubuque, COURTNEY H. BAKER & Joshua K. Pritchard, Predictors of Adaptive Behaviour Outcomes Following 12 Months of Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) in Children With ASD and Severe Intellectual Disabilities by JO-ANN M. REITZEL, Jane Summers, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, Peter Szatmari, Daniel Lee, Julia Frei, Stelios Georgiades & Eric Duku , An Update of the Data on the Developmental Patterns of Specific Language and Learning Skills of Typically Developing Children as Measured by the ABLLS-R by JAMES W. PARTINGTON, Joshua K. Pritchard, Megan J. Doerr & Melissa Nosik, Demonstrating Program Effectiveness in a Parent-Mediated Infant Toddler Program using the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills -Revised (BLLS-R) by JAMIE HUGHES & Karen E. Flotkoetter. All of these relating to provision of EIBI and some of them seems really interesting on assessment and measurement. I am really looking forward to it!