Tue 11 Jul 2006
MANDS = 16
Today was an OK day for Tony… he still seemed frustrated throughout much of the day. Parker and I had do a lot of redirection today but Tony seemed to do better as the day wore on. We tried almost all of the new objectives for the new program so I felt it was a pretty productive day. Jay, this is a list of all the new ABLLS objectives you requested: R5, G16, F8, Q3, C8, B5, B4, B8, B11, D8, H8, H5. Tony did especially well with the motor imitation speed of an action. He wasn’t very receptive to the objective Q3, Receptive sounds of letters. Parker and I used a lot of prompting with this activity and delivered heavy reinforcement (tickles) for correct answers. He only got “T” right without prompts but this was only the first day of introduction.
Tony, Parker and I went on a walk outside. Before our walk, we went on a “bus ride” in the bus. We all put on our seat belts and pretended to go for a ride. We sang the “Wheels on the Bus” song while I pretended to steer. Parker and I motioned for wheels for the wheels part and tacted “horn” and “wipers” while we were singing.
After our magic bus ride, we got out the chalk to draw one of Tony’s favorite things, houses! Tony also did well with the objective asking “What’s missing?” On the first time, Parker drew a house and said “What’s missing?” and Tony responded immediately with “the roof!” Soon after the chalk activity, we continued our walk out back. Parker and I played a fun round of “Simon Says” (actually it was Whitney Says) followed up by Parker’s Follow the Leader. Tony really enjoyed these games and did well paying attention. We thought this would be a fun activity to work on establishing better stimulus control with Tony.
Tony was fairly tired after running around in the heat with us for so long. He manded for “house” and “Mom” so we headed back home. He then manded for “Elmo” as a show. Tony was happy sipping on his cup. Soon after Elmo came on, he sat in my lap and nodded off to night-night. I think today we finally got a jump-start on the new program. Hopefully tomorrow Tony will be ready for more to learn!
July 13th, 2006 at 2:36 am
Thanks for getting the ABLLS objectives nailed down, on paper, and quantified. Based on the gaps in the ABLLS, these appear to be appropriate to teach. Remember to mix in old (easy) objectives with new teaching objectives to maintain learned skills and decrease frustration with learning all new (difficult) things.
Also, within a behavior analytic framework, problem behaviors are a function of environment and work to obtain reinforcers, such as escape, attention, access to tangible items/activities. Assessing what maintaining factor is contributing to problem behaviors is essential in reducing the liklihood of future problem behaviors. When the function is identified, this reinforcing consequence can be applied to alternative, appropriate behaviors and withheld for problem behaviors (e.g., extinction). For example, if he is engaging in problem behaviors to obtain access to crayons, have him complete a brief task, then provide crayon as reinforcement (to increase task completion) and withold crayons and other reinforcers for tantrum or problem behavior. If crayons/markers (or other reinforcement) is provided immediately after (or during) problem behavior, an increase in problem behavior is probable.
Have a good day.
Jay