Clearing Up Some Common Misconceptions about Applied Behavior Analysis

Posted on September 27, 2011 by yjveverka

So far in starting this blog, my posts have been focused on how to use behavioral principles to make your day to day life easier. However, today I have to make an exception and write about something that has been on my mind. Lately, I have heard a lot of misconceptions about what ABA is that I would like to try to clear up, so here it goes:

1. ABA creates robotic children: A practitioner who is actually using ABA should be training loosely. This means teaching and accepting multiple answers. For example, if you are teaching a 3 year old child to respond to the question, “What’s your name?” and only teach and reinforce the response, “My name is Joey Smith,” of course the child is going to sound robotic! That is going to sound completely unnatural when Joey’s peer asks him his name on the playground and will cause him to stand out. Practitioners that practice ABA correctly will teach a variety of responses. For example, Joey might be taught to say, “Joey,” and “I’m Joey,” and “My name’s Joey.”

2. ABA takes away from other teaching and instructional methods: ABA is a strategy that can and should be used alongside any teaching or parenting method. The basic principles of reinforcement, prompting, extinction, etc. that I have discussed in previous posts do not have to take away from anything. They should be used to enhance other tools and make them more effective and beneficial. If somebody wants to challenge this sentiment, please do so – I would love to see this from another perspective.

3. ABA is only used to treat autism spectrum disorders: First of all, the focus of ABA is on behavior. To say that it is an autism treatment is misleading. It does not treat autism as a whole, but is a method for decreasing undesirable behaviors and increasing desirable behaviors. ABA is a way to explain day to day occurrences in any individual and modify behavior. It can explain simple behaviors such as why my cats hide at the sight of the vacuum cleaner to complex behaviors such as why I procrastinated in writing this post today.

4. “Doing ABA” means doing Discrete Trial Teaching (DTT): Somehow, these terms have become synonymous. DTT is just one of many methods used in ABA. In fact, in the 700+ page book that Board Certified Behavior Analysts study from for the board exam, only one paragraph is dedicated to the use of discrete trials. A practitioner using ABA correctly should choose DTT only if it fits the individual child’s needs.

5. ABA is only used for behavioral problems: People often choose not to use an ABA service provider because their child has “no behavior.” Everything we do in our day to day lives is behavior. ABA is just as commonly used to increase desirable behaviors as it is to deal with challenging behaviors. For example, ABA principles can be used to teach employable skills by applying  shaping and chaining procedures. Or, task analysis, a common method in ABA can be used to teach a child how to tie his shoe or do a math problem. Modeling and imitation principles can be used to teach a young adult how to answer questions in an interview. The possibilities are endless.

I have attempted to describe common misconceptions of what ABA is not. So, what is ABA?

Applied Behavior Analysis is a multi-method strategy used to do the following:

1. Observe behaviors

2. Target behaviors for increase or decrease

3. Implement research-based interventions

4. Collect data on interventions

5. Modify interventions on an on-going basis

The overall goal of ABA is to increase desirable behaviors while decreasing undesirable behavior.

I urge you to be cautious when you hear someone say “I do ABA,” or “I have done ABA in the past.” ABA is not something you just “do.” Have you ever heard anyone say, “I do science?” ABA is a discipline which consists of many strategies that can be applied to a variety of situations. Incorrect applications of ABA are causing the above misconceptions. These misconceptions, in turn, are turning people away from interventions that have been shown effective by research.

As always, please feel free to ask questions, post arguments, or otherwise comment on the post!

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Why stop the stim?

Posted on September 19, 2011 by yjveverka

As promised in my last post, I am going to answer the following commonly asked question: If it doesn’t hurt anyone, why do we need to change it?

For this post, I am going to use the words “stim” and “stimming.” These are the common terms for what I have referred to previously as automatically reinforced behavior.

This is such a tough question. If the behavior makes the child feel good and isn’t harmful, many people think that it is unnecessary to take it away. I was one of those people for years until I realized the following things:

1. The goal is to help the child gain reinforcement naturally from his environment. If the child is in the corner of the classroom hand flapping and spinning while other children are playing cars, the child won’t be approachable and will have no chance to be reinforced naturally.

2. We all have our “stims.” They may just not be as pronounced as what we think of with individuals with autism. Here are mine: I click my pens repeatedly, chew on my pens, twirl my hair, and crack my knuckles. And those are just the ones I am aware of because they’ve been nicely pointed out to me. I would much rather it be pointed out to me than be “the weird pen clicking girl” that nobody wants to sit next to in a meeting. I think of us replacing the automatically reinforced behaviors of individuals with autism in the same way.

3. There is a time and a place where stims are ok. We don’t have to completely take away these behaviors that fulfill a sensory need. For example, the child can be give a time and place (after school in his bedroom) to be allowed to engage in those behaviors and fulfill those sensory needs.

Whenever you are feeling unsure about changing a stimming behavior, ask yourself, “Would I want someone to point it out to me if I were doing something socially unacceptable?”

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What is Automatically Reinforced Behavior?

Posted on September 18, 2011 by yjveverka

What is automatically reinforced behavior? This is behavior that isn’t maintained by social consequences such as attention or escape. It is behavior that happens across a variety of antecedents and consequences and often referred to as “stimming.” Examples include hand flapping, spinning objects, licking items, squealing, etc. These behaviors typically satisfy a sensory/biological need and are the most difficult to decrease. So, I am going to discuss two approaches that have been shown to successfully decrease automatically reinforced behavior.

Replace

Although it may be more difficult to replace automatically reinforced behaviors with behaviors that have the same function, it is still possible to appropriately replace these behaviors. Here are some examples:

Replace….

 

 With….
Hand flapping when excited Clapping

 
Squealing when excited Saying, “yay!”

 
Spinning the wheel on a car Rolling a car

Or

Spinning a top

 
Throwing toys Throwing a ball

 
Rocking back and forth Going on the swings

 

When the child engages in the appropriate alternative behavior, make sure to highly reinforce!

Redirect

There are behaviors that simply cannot be appropriate replaced. Some examples are hair pulling, head banging, playing with the blinds, etc. These behaviors need to be redirected to a different, appropriate behavior. For example, if a child is sitting on the floor pulling her hair, you can redirect her to look at a book or do a puzzle. However, a word of caution: make sure you are not redirecting to highly preferred activities or bringing a lot of attention to the behavior. Automatically reinforced behavior can quickly switch functions. Take this story, for example:

I worked with a child once who engaged in spinning behavior. He would spin in circles constantly. I put a plan into place in which we used redirection to an appropriate activity. However, the data showed that his spinning behavior increased. Because he had a therapist come physically redirect him every time he engaged in the spinning behavior, this child learned that it was a good way to get attention.

If you notice that the behavior begins to increase, take some ABC data to determine if the function has changed.

Replacement and Redirection are both reactive approaches, and as some of you may already know, I prefer to use proactive approaches. So, here are a couple ideas for being proactive to avoid automatically reinforced behaviors altogether:

Once you have identified the child’s behaviors and their appropriate replacements, be proactive about engaging in the replacement behaviors before the child has a chance to engage in the undesirable behaviors. For example, if the child typically spins the wheels on cars, prompt appropriate playing with the cars immediately when the child reaches for them  and reinforce the desired behavior.

Consult with an Occupational Therapist about what sensory needs the child is seeking and how you can provide those throughout the natural environment. For example, if the child constantly bites on his shirt, have a variety of chew tubes available for him so he has other options.

For my next post, I will discuss why it is important to decrease these behaviors, as that is a common question.

Thanks!

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I’m back! (with a word on Errorless Teaching)

Posted on August 21, 2011 by yjveverka

Hi everyone,

I am finally back after quite some time out of town and hope to be consistent with my blog posts again. Thank you for your patience!

Today, I want to write a post about Errorless Teaching, a method that will keep your child successful and reduce frustration.

Errorless Teaching is an instructional method that ensures that the child never makes a mistake.  Whenever I explain Errorless Teaching, someone typically asks, “but don’t children learn from their mistakes? Isn’t that a natural part of the learning process?” In children with autism spectrum disorders, the answer to that question is usually “no.” In fact, for children both on and off the spectrum, making a mistake may serve as a punisher and prevent the child from even trying to respond in the future for fear of making a mistake again. This is why using Errorless Teaching from the beginning can show the child that learning is fun, not frustrating.

So, how do you use the Errorless Teaching method? Prompt, prompt, prompt! Prompting is any assistance you provide the child to ensure a correct response. It could be as simple as a head nod to indicate the correct response or it may be using a hand over hand technique to complete the response for the child. You will know what kind of prompt your child will need based on previous learning history, difficulty of the task, etc.

To keep your child from making a mistake, prompt the correct response immediately after presenting a new instruction. Some examples:

You tell your child, “put your dishes in the sink,” and immediately put his hands on his plate and lead him over to the sink. Reinforce the correct behavior immediately! (“Great job putting your dishes in the sink!”)

You ask your child, “What does a cow say?” and immediately prompt the correct response, “Mooo.” As soon as your child responds, reinforce with “That is right! A cow does say ‘mooo!’“

Make sure you highly reinforce the behavior even though you are providing the entire correct response. This will pair reinforcement with the correct response and make the child motivated to respond in the future. Let’s look at the first example of the dish instruction given without any prompting:

You tell your child, “put your dishes in the sink,” and  wait for the child to respond. Your child doesn’t respond, so you give the instruction again, perhaps with some irritation in your voice. You repeat the instruction a few more times, maybe adding more language such as “you need to listen.” If your child happens to respond, you may be irritated and not provide any reinforcement. Chances are, though, that your child will not respond appropriately and may engage in some undesirable behaviors out of frustration. You may give up on getting him to respond and just put the dishes away yourself.

Now, both you and the child are frustrated and the instruction has become a negative thing. In the future, there will be no reason for your child to want to comply with that instruction. In fact, he will most likely engage in the same undesirable behaviors.

Providing the answer or help with the response right away is not cheating. It is establishing a pattern of reinforcement and success. It is a lot easier and more pleasant to fade out a prompt used right away than to reteach something that has become punishing.

Remember that your child needs a teacher more than anything. If you ever catch yourself about to say, “no, that’s not right,” or “try again,” stop yourself and give your child the answer and reinforce the success!

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Differential Reinforcement

Posted on July 8, 2011 by yjveverka

In my previous post, I promised I would describe how to use differential reinforcement to make extinction as effective as possible. The goal of differential reinforcement is to increase desirable behavior, while decreasing undesirable behavior. Here are some examples:

- Decrease biting for attention and increase saying, “Look at me, Mom!”

- Decrease hitting peers and increase asking nicely for a turn.

- Decrease yelling inside and increase using a quiet voice.

Whenever there is a replacement behavior, teach that behavior and reinforce it. This will make the extinction process faster and more effective.

There are times when behaviors cannot be replaced. In these cases, differential reinforcement can still be used. Instead of reinforcing an alternative behavior, you will essentially be reinforcing not engaging in the target behavior for a specific amount of time. For example, let’s say your child shrieks in a restaurant repeatedly. Choose a favorite treat or toy to use as a reinforcer. Make sure to withhold your chosen reinforcer at all other times to keep it motivating for your child.

Set a timer for a small amount, such as 30 seconds – 1 minute. When the timer goes off, if your child hasn’t shrieked for the entire period of time, reinforce them with the reinforcer you chose.  If you don’t want to use a timer, you can just reinforce various periods of not engaging in the target behavior. Gradually, you can increase the amount of time until your child is able to sit through the entire meal without the behavior.

Make sure that your reinforcement matches the behavior. For small amounts of time, keep the amount of reinforcement low. For example, sitting quietly for a minute should only equal a minute on the iPad, not an entire hour. Sitting quietly for half an hour shouldn’t be followed by just one minute on the iPad. Make your reinforcement worth it!

Some important things to remember about using differential reinforcement with extinction:

-  Be careful not to reinforce an entire chain of behavior. For example, if you are putting shouting for juice on extinction and differentially reinforcing asking nicely, you may run into the following scenario:

  1. Your child screams for juice.
  2. You remind him, “You need to ask nicely for juice.”
  3. Your child says, “May I have juice please?”
  4. You provide juice.

The next time your child wants juice, he may go through the entire sequence again of engaging in the inappropriate behavior, waiting for your prompt, and correcting his behavior.

This is a very hard chain to break. To avoid it, make sure you only correct your child’s inappropriate behavior reactively one or two times. Then, ignore the chain even if he corrects his own behavior and only reinforce engaging in the appropriate behavior the first time.

Try to be proactive about it. If you know a time is coming up when the behavior is likely to occur, remind him before the behavior (“Remember, when you get thirsty, you can say ‘I want some juice please.’”)

-  Do not label the negative behavior. Make sure you bring no attention to the inappropriate behavior that you are trying to extinguish. Don’t tell your child why they aren’t earning reinforcement. For example, if your child shrieks in the restaurant, do not say “Now you don’t get your skittles because you shrieked.”

-  Provide behavior specific praise for appropriate behaviors. For the shrieking in restaurants example, if your child does not shriek for the set amount of time, tell them, “I love how you are sitting quietly, you get to play on the iPad for a minute.” Label the appropriate behavior.

- Be proactive! Remind your child of the appropriate behaviors before the undesirable ones happen. Practice and highly reinforce appropriate behaviors.

Thanks for stopping by! As always, ask questions if you have them!

 

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Understanding Extinction

Posted on July 5, 2011 by yjveverka

In my previous post, I talked about the issues with using punishment procedures and why I don’t recommend them. In this post, I will talk about extinction, a research-based method for effectively decreasing and extinguishing behavior.

Extinction means withholding reinforcement from a previously reinforced behavior. For example, if you realized that you have reinforced your child’s hitting behavior by providing attention, putting the behavior on extinction would mean no longer providing any attention for the hitting behavior.  You are simply withholding whatever the reinforcer may be. This is where the ABC data comes in handy, as you will be withholding whatever is in the “C” column. For example, you might no longer provide a cookie when your child yells, “I want a cookie!” or ignore when your child spits for your attention.

Whenever you use extinction, it is important to remember that you might encounter an extinction burst. This means that the behavior will get worse before it gets better. Take this example of a vending machine:

You go to the same vending machine every day, put your coins in, press a button, and get a coke. Your behavior of putting coins in and pressing the button gets reinforced by the coke. One day, although your behavior is exactly the same, the coke doesn’t come out. Are you just going to say “oh well” and walk away? Most likely not. You may press the button a few more times with more intensity, put more coins in, or even hit or kick the machine. You may come back later that day, or the next day or next week. After trying a few things, you will finally come to terms with the fact that your behavior is no longer going to be reinforced and try something else. Perhaps you will bring a coke from home or find a different vending machine.

It is absolutely normal for a behavior to get worse before decreasing or for new behaviors to emerge. Be prepared for this and know that this means your intervention is working. Do not give up and inadvertently reinforce the more intense or new behaviors.

You should also be aware of the possibility of spontaneous recovery of the behavior. In the case of the vending machine example: after a month of bringing your coke from home, you decide to try the vending machine again. If it works (you are reinforced), your behavior of putting the coins in and pressing the button will increase again.  If it does not work, and you are not reinforced, you probably won’t come back to that vending machine for a longer stretch of time this time around. Be careful not to reinforce spontaneous recovery so you don’t have to start the extinction process all over again!

Make sure you are consistent when implementing extinction. If mom ignores the crying behavior, but dad says, “don’t cry,” the behavior will be maintained.

In the next post, I will discuss how to use differential reinforcement with extinction to make it more effective.

Need an example of how to put a specific behavior on extinction? Comment or go to the ask a question page! Thanks for stopping by!

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A Word on Punishment

Posted on June 25, 2011 by yjveverka

The most commonly asked question is “how do I get my child to stop ________?” Have you ever tried to “punish” a child’s behavior with no success? For a procedure to be considered punishment by definition, it must decrease the frequency of the behavior. Therefore, the reason for a lot of frustration with “punishment procedures” is that the behavior is actually being reinforced. I can’t stress enough how important it is to be aware of this! Next time you reprimand your child or put them on timeout, ask yourself if it is really working or did you just reinforce them with attention or escape?

I can’t remember the last time that I’ve had to put a punishment procedure in place. Here are some reasons punishment is not as effective as we would like to think.

1. It doesn’t provide a replacement behavior. By punishing behavior, you are simply telling your child what they can’t do without giving them the appropriate replacement.

2. Punishment is a temporary fix. It might work for that day, week, or month, but without a replacement, the results usually aren’t permanent. Often times, the child won’t know how to gain reinforcement in desirable ways and revert to the old behavior you were punishing.

3. The focus is on the bad. You are bringing attention to the negative behavior instead of reinforcing the positive. Punishment often causes emotional reactions such as stress, anxiety, embarrassment, etc.

Of course, there are times when punishment may be necessary. If a behavior is dangerous to the child or those around him (such as self-injurious behaviors), an immediate consequence may be your only choice. However, whenever possible, try to use reinforcement techniques discussed earlier to make behavior modification easier on everyone in your family!

In a future post, I will talk about effectively decreasing or extinguishing behavior using extinction techniques. Stay tuned!

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A video about the power of fun!

Posted on June 23, 2011 by yjveverka

Since I haven’t had much time to write lately, I just wanted to share this youtube video about the importance of increasing motivation. Remember to be proactive! Make tasks fun to increase motivation to comply and decrease motivation to escape.

Enjoy!

Filed under: Reinforcement | 3 Comments »

Chaining and Shaping – One Step At a Time

Posted on June 21, 2011 by yjveverka

Have you ever tried to teach a behavior with multiple components to no avail? Chaining and shaping are two behavioral methods that can help teach complex behaviors or break any behavior down into its smaller components. Here are some examples of behaviors that can be targeted through chaining or shaping:

- getting dressed

- chores such as emptying the dishwasher or sweeping

- cleaning up

- making polite requests

- making a sandwich

- playing nicely with a sibling

- many, many more!

Chaining refers to the process of linking behaviors together to achieve a final result. The first step is to conduct a task analysis to determine the different components of the sequence. This means breaking the behavior down into small parts. You can do this by watching the behavior, doing it yourself, or writing a list of components. For example, the task analysis for putting on a shirt could be:

1. Put the shirt down with the front facing down

2. Put head in

3. Pull shirt over head

4. Put one arm in

5. Put the other arm in

After you have broken the skill down, decide if you want to use forward chaining or backward chaining. In forward chaining, the child does the first step on their own and then you help with the remaining steps. Once the first step is mastered, the child should do the first and second step on their own. This will continue until the entire chain is mastered.

Backward chaining is the opposite. Start by helping the child with all steps except for the last one. Work your way down until the child has mastered the entire chain. I usually recommend using backward chaining because the child ends on independent success. Think of a puzzle: if you have the child put the first three pieces in, they still have an unfinished puzzle. However, if you have them put the last three pieces in, they see the final product – much more reinforcing!

In shaping, successive approximations are reinforced until the goal behavior is reached. Let’s take asking for a cookie as an example behavior. For a child that doesn’t talk, it would be unfair to only reinforce the full question “Can I have a cookie please?” right from the start. Instead, you would first reinforce any vocalization for the cookie. As the child successfully vocalizes when asking for a cookie, you would move to the next step of saying part of the word. For example, you may just accept the “coo” sound and reinforce it with a cookie.  When the child is independently saying “coo,” you would move on to “cookie’” then “cookie please” and gradually add more to the response until you have reached the target behavior.

With both chaining and shaping, remember to take it one step at a time. Celebrate every little success before adding onto the behavior. Need help conducting a task analysis or deciding which procedure to use for a specific behavior? Leave a comment or ask a question!

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Attention Seeking Behavior

Posted on June 20, 2011 by yjveverka

So, you’ve taken your ABC data and determined that your child’s behavior is functioning to gain attention. Now what? Of course, the best option would be to prevent the behavior, so let’s start by talking about the proactive approach:

Provide attention for desirable behavior. If the behavior happens at certain times, such as while you are cooking dinner, be prepared at those times. Set a timer as a reminder to catch your child being good. Start with a really small amount of time (30 seconds) and reinforce your child with attention before the behavior happens. Gradually increase the time as your child is successful. Label the good behavior so the child knows exactly what is being reinforced. For example, “I love how you are playing quietly while I cook dinner!”

Teach appropriate attention recruiting skills. Work with your child on how to appropriately recruit your attention before a low-attention condition. Give them specific phrases, signs, pictures, etc. that they can use to get your attention without engaging in the undesirable behavior. Respond to all appropriate attention recruiting until the undesirable behavior is extinguished. Then you can start to teach your child that they can’t always have your attention when they ask for it.

I wish I could tell you that you will always be able to be proactive and avoid attention seeking behavior, but none of us are perfect! So, here is the reactive approach:

- Do not provide attention! If you can completely remove yourself from the situation, that is preferable. Otherwise, do not look at your child, talk to your child, or react to your child to the best of your ability. The slightest sigh, eye roll, or groan can be enough to keep a behavior going for hours. It works well to just grab a book or magazine and pretend that you don’t even notice the behavior. Of course, there will be times where you have to physically move your child or say something to them – just make sure your interaction is minimal and you are not paying any attention to the actual behavior.

- Replace with desirable behavior when possible. Replace the behavior immediately by giving them an appropriate attention recruiting behavior. Be careful not to reinforce a chain of behavior.  For example, your child may learn that in order to get your attention, he must first engage in the inappropriate behavior, have you correct it, and then engage in appropriate behavior. Make sure to catch this early and stop replacing the behavior because behavior chains are difficult to break!

The most important thing to know when dealing with attention seeking behavior: it will get worse before it gets better! If the child has always received attention for their behavior in the past, they are going to try harder,  scream longer, try with other family members, and so on before they realize it won’t work for them. Stick with it – it will be worth it!!

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