Spring 2013 #ABAchat Schedule

Announcing the Spring 2013 #ABAchat schedule.  As always, we welcome people from all areas of the field to join in a casual discussion on topics and issues relating to Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA).  For more information on what #ABAchat is and how to join, please read this.  

A small change to note: we’ll be starting at 9:30 p.m. EST (instead of our usual 9 p.m. EST)

Topics were suggested by #ABAchat participants; however, other topic suggestions and offers to moderate/host the chats by people other than myself are always welcome. I often moderate the chats but I am by no means an expert at the topics being discussed.  If you don’t see a topic that interests you, please offer to contribute to our #ABAchat community by hosting a chat, suggest articles to share etc.

Wednesday May 8, 2013 - Effectiveness of praise*

Wednesday May 15, 2013 - The use of apps for behaviour analysis.* Hosted by Kathy Murphy, SLP, BCBA and Summer Conway, Special Education Teacher 

*Please note that the topics for these dates may alternate as we’re waiting to confirm dates of our guest moderators!

Wednesday May 22, 2013 - no ABAchat this week!  We’ll pause as people will be preparing for, or travelling to #ABAI2013.  Follow the hashtag for #ABAI2013 to keep up with new ideas and presentations at this year’s conference!

Wednesday May 29, 2013 - Ethical Corner:  Balancing “least restrictive” with “most effective” - decision making tools and criteria

Wednesday June 5, 2013 - Assessment tools used in ABA: VB-MAPP, ABLLS, AFLS

Wednesday June 12, 2013 - Home-based ABA programs: ethics and parent involvement

Wednesday June 19, 2013 - Token economies - introduction of, application and monitoring, troubleshooting

Wednesday June 26, 2013 - Journal Club **send us your suggestions, articles you’d like to discuss with peers! 

Looking forward to our chats together!  Have a question or topic idea?  Find me on Twitter (@behaviouratplay) or drop me a line in my ‘ask’ box.

~Tricia-Lee

Reply to Barefoot Behavior

One of the behaviour analysts in my PLN (@BarefootBehvior) posted this question on his blog:  

“What 3 essentials skills (or group of skills) are necessary to be an effective parent or teacher of students with emotional behavior disorders?”

My response:

1) Maintain neutral game face when in the thick of a verbal outburst or behaviour escalation. Never take it personally!

2) Pair yourself with positive experiences and items the child enjoys. Don’t just be the person who lays down the law.

3) Differential reinforcement – learn it, use it, go with it!

What are your three?  Or four or five?  

#ABAchat Winter 2013 Schedule

It is time to get our #behavioranalysis PLN together over Twitter for weekly #ABAchat. We’re switching things up a bit to allow for more people to participate and fit #ABAchat into their schedules. Starting next week, chats will alternate weekly between Wednesday and Monday nights at 9 pm EST.   We had a number of requests for topics and formats including a “Journal Club”, “Ask the expert” and “Ethical corner”.  This is in addition to general topics related to Applied Behaviour Analysis.  The current schedule is:

Wednesday January 20, 2013 - Journal Club: Generalized instruction following with pictorial prompts.  (Article can be found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3297352/pdf/jaba-45-01-37.pdf)

Monday February 4, 2013 -   ASD symptomatology vs. learning history (led by @JHyfler) 

Wednesday February 13, 2013 - Transition planning

Monday February 18, 2013 -  The use of descriptive versus general praise (led by @JHyfler)

Wednesday February 27, 2013 - Ethical Corner: The endorsement and/or use of evidence-based practice vs. not evidence-based practice. Scenario here: http://www.apbahome.net/newsletter.php?nid=3&aid=160

Monday March 4, 2013 - open  *We invite others to volunteer to moderate on a topic of interest, be it research, applications or philosophy of behaviour analysis

Wednesday March 27, 2013 - Token economies

Be sure to follow the hashtag #ABAchat for information about upcoming chats.  In the days leading up to the chat, we will post related articles, resources and links for review.

As always, this is a PLN opportunity made by and for people interested in the field of behaviour analysis. We invite all those sharing this interest or curiosity to attend and participate.  This includes the option of leading/moderating a topic of choice.  We’re always looking for volunteers!  For more information, please click here.

Look forward to chatting, 

~Tricia-Lee

  

#ABAchat Fall Schedule

To stay connected to our colleagues involved in behaviour analysis a group of us meet over Twitter on Wednesday evenings for an #ABAchat.  A variety of topics are discussed and resources are shared.  New this fall is a Journal Club format where a specific article is read and reviewed.  Participants can earn Continuing Education units towards maintaining their BCBA or BCaBA certification by participating in the discussion facilitated by a BCBA and passing a test. For more information on #ABAchat, please check the following link: http://behaviouristatplay.tumblr.com/ABAchat

The schedule of topics for the coming months is below:

November 7, 2012 - Assessment and treatment of elopement

November 21, 2012* - Journal Club: Guercio, Johnson & Dixon (2012). Behavioral treatment for pathological gambling in persons with acquired brain injury.  Article available here.

December 5, 2012 - Behavioural Skills Training

December 19, 2012* - Journal Club: Trosclair-Lasserre et al. (2008). Reinforcement magnitude: An evaluation of preference and reinforcer efficacy.  Article available here.

*This session of #ABAchat is CEU eligible.  For more information on earning CEUs, please follow and send a message to Zach Shoemaker, BCBA (@BehaviorMethods)

If you have topic suggestions for future #ABAchats or would like to offer to facilitate a discussion, please leave a message in the ‘Ask Me’ link on this blog or send me a tweet: @behaviouratplay.

Hope to see you around Twitter!

~Tricia-Lee 

Are there any journals or magazines that one could subscribe to that focus primarily on ABA?

olcrein

Hi @olcrein.  Yes, there is the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) available here: http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/ and the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior available here: http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/index.html.  Both are open access (except for the latest issue) and can be searched using key words.

These journals are also free:

Analysis of Verbal Behavior http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/609/

The Behavior Analyst http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/557/ 

Behavior Analyst Online http://www.baojournal.com/

There is also the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions but you need a subscription for that.

Hope this gives you a good starting point.  It’s great that many journals on behaviour analysis are openly available.  It’s how we’re getting our science out there.

Happy reading!

now to my question - I see you have experience with autism . Do you know much about RDI - I have found it very useful in implementing CPS and especially using a CPS framework ' in the moment ' and in day to day living and informal learning experiences - yours - Allan katz

Anonymous

Thank you Allan Katz for stopping by my blog.

A little background here: Allan and I both commented on another blog post that highlighted the use of Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS; Ross Greene) in a classroom and discussed the use or concept of consequences.  Since then, we’ve been reading each other’s blogs and have had some comments, questions for the other.  I have his consent to answer this question publicly.  I think it is a valuable thing for professionals to engage in this kind of discourse to understand what each of our respective fields have to say about our common goals such as educating others, addressing challenging behaviour, skill-building etc.

I am familiar with the Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) developed by Dr. Steven Gutstein and the type of programming or intervention that is recommended as part of it.  When I worked as an autism consultant, many parents inquired about the program and some even sought training in order to implement the program themselves.  I am not officially certified or trained in RDI.  Some of the activities suggested would find their way into social skill groups and/or my music and play groups that I ran.  

The philosophy of the program (as I understand it) is that intervention is family-centered, child-driven (i.e., uses the child exploration, motivation as the scene for intervention).  It can be play or activity based. It encourages interaction between a child and adult, targeting the core social-communication and emotional regulation challenges (or deficits).  I liken RDI to be similar to incidental teaching and pivotal response training (PRT) which are behaviour analytic in nature.  For example: the focus on declarative communication in RDI is similar to mand and tact training in the verbal behaviour approach or the shaping of joint attention used in PRT.  These skills are often the first ones behaviour analysts address.  Behaviour is communication.  If our learner does not know that her words/actions have meaning and result in getting others to interact, provide and share in something, then many other skills will continue to lag.

I also did some research on RDI and found a few studies that show promising results, but that it is yet to be established as an evidenced-based practice.  The program is fairly new, so more studies conducted by other practitioners/researchers (i.e., not Gutstein) are needed and may come in due time.

The thing for me with any of these intervention packages is to analyze its treatment components and know what is at play.  I see behaviour analytic components in many of these packages (including CPS) - we’re just calling them different things. For example, such phrases as “child-driven” or “using the motivation of the child” are similar to what I would refer to as having established MO (motivating operation).  If a child shows interest in something or is anticipating what will happen next, that is your reinforcer.

Treatments come in all sorts of packages.  Many “borrow” from what others are doing and call them something different - sometimes at the down-putting of behaviour analytic or behaviourist approach.  The presumption that behaviourism or ABA negates the relationships between people or simply relegates it to be about control is disheartening to a practitioner like me.  In my practice of ABA, the relationship between myself and the learner is absolutely important.  Our work together should be fun and reinforcing where we are both learning. We should both come out of it having benefiting from what the other had to offer. 

Three-term contingency of the day: That awful noise!

Antecedent: Eric is grinding our kitchen knives against the knife sharpener.

Behaviour: I cover my ears with my hands and sing to myself while chattering my teeth.

Consequence: The metal grinding noise is blocked (negative reinforcement).

I shutter even writing about this one. I hate the sound of metal rubbing on metal. It's horrific. It hurts. I can't even stand watching it because the anticipation of the sound I know it makes causes me to tense up. To ease that feeling, I have learned a repertoire of behaviours to block that noise out - covering my ears, leaving the space entirely, singing or humming to myself (although it's often a shrill "eeeeeeeeeeeeek" that gets the job done), sucking on my cheek or chattering my teeth together to create additional noise. I cannot sort cutlery without doing a combination of these things.

I work with individuals who have very real sound aversions. They might have aversions to the announcements over the PA system, the school bell ringing, the sound of large trucks going by, appliances when turned on etc. Even the pitch of someone's voice can be aversive. It may be common for them to cover their ears, but I am also finding many of the individuals create additional noises as perhaps another way to block the noise. If it is successful, they are going to do it again the next time that awful noise is present. It may seem insolent or that they are being disruptive on purpose, but I hope you now take time to consider what else is going on in the environment. Pay attention to the sounds going on around you. Any one of them could be the antecedent to their behaviour.