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ABA basic principles – with our modifications

Skill acquisition is important to the overall function of the child in some settings.  It also provides the parents with something to measure as far as visible gains.  Unlike Neurodevelopment where the changes are happening but are not necessarily as obvious.

  • Reinforcement

  • Extinction

  • Habit reversal

  • Token Economy

  • Stimulus Control: Discrimination and Generalization

  • Shaping

  • Task Analysis

  • Respondent Conditioning

  • Shaping

  • Video Modeling

  • Prompt hierarchy and transfer of stimulus control

  • Promoting generalization

  • Antecedent control procedures

  • Prompt hierarchy and transfer of stimulus control

  • Chaining

  • Behavior skills training

  • Behavioral Contracts

  • Fear reduction procedures

  • Cognitive Behavior Modification

  • Self-management

Language development

Communication

One of the most important things in our world is the ability to communicate with others.  There are many aspects of communication we don't tend to think about and many of them need to be taught. 

cute

Important pieces to function well in society.

  

  • Initiating and offering appropriate greetings

  • Increasing eye contact with others when speaking

  • Increasing eye contact when others are talking

  • Perspective taking

  • Responding to on-topic conversational exchanges chosen by others

  • Transitioning to different topics of conversation

  • Initiating conversations and entering into a conversation

  • Maintaining conversations for increasing periods of time

  • Maintaining conversations with the opposite sex

  • Terminating conversations with friends

  • Powerful strategies for addressing bullying/rumors 

  • Discriminating between comical vs. serious language

  • Discriminating between formal vs. informal language

  • Discriminating between figurative vs. literal language

  • Sharing jokes and the role of humor across daily activities

  • Initiating and offering socially appropriate goodbyes

  • Socialization

  • How to choose friends

  • How not to be a conversation hog

  • What to do during a get together

  • Applying serious vs. comical language and situations in context

  • Discriminating and identifying emotions of others

  • Responding to the emotions of others 

  • Dispute resolution and how to deal with hurt feelings

  • Accepting the perspectives of others 

  • Sharing feelings and expressing empathy 

  • Identifying social cues

  • Responding to social cues

  • Permitting others to speak in the absence of interrupting

  • Initiating individual social cues

  • Presenting active listening skills

  • Tolerating the opinions of friends and agreeing to disagree with the opinions of friends

  • Sharing an opinion across contextually relevant situations

  • Initiating social questions with friends and peers

  • Discriminating people we know as acquaintances from people we do not know

  • Discriminating and responding to appropriate and/or inappropriate behaviors of strangers, acquaintances, peers, friends and family

  • Maintaining a social calendar, and how to initiate a get together

  • Extending and responding to social invitations

  • Calling friends, peers, elders and family by name

  • Initiating and responding to phone calls

  • Increase eye contact when responding to directives

  • Sharing opinions with Functional Communication Training

  • Socialization and Maintaining Friendships


Interpreting the body language of others

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  • Identifying social cues during ongoing conversations

  • Responding to social cues during ongoing conversations

  • Initiating individual social cues to others during ongoing conversations

  • Permitting others to speak without interrupting

  • Using and presenting active listening skills

  • Tolerating the opinions of friends

  • Sharing an opinion across contextually relevant situations

  • Presenting enthusiasm when agreeing or disagreeing with the opinion of a friend

  • Terminating conversations and walking away from friends

  • Initiating social questions with friends and others

  • Discriminating people we know from people acquaintances from people we do not know

  • Discriminating and responding to appropriate and/or inappropriate behaviors of strangers, acquaintances, peers, friends and family

  • Maintaining a social calendar

  • Extending and responding to social invitations

  • Calling friends, peers, elders and family by name

  • Initiating and responding to phone calls in contextually relevant situations across friends, peers, parents and other persons of authority

  • Initiating and responding to text messages in contextually relevant situations across friends, peers, parents and other persons of authority

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Haley

Play Skills

Play Skills don't often come naturally.  Here are some of the pieces we think are important in being successful in a play setting.

  • Asking others to play and/or join an activity

  • Permitting others go first

  • Taking turns

  • Engaging in functional play sequences with others

  • Engaging in imaginary or symbolic pretend play sequences with others

  • Entering into pretend play

  • Maintaining reciprocal play for up to 20 minutes

  • Following the rules of a game

  • Playing a game someone else has chosen

  • Joining play in progress

  • Introducing oneself to peers

  • Try a novel game or activity

  • Tolerating losing a game

  • Developing peer relationships

  • Sustaining peer relationships

  • Joining and sustaining group activities

  • Learning unspoken, contextually relevant social rules

  • Contributing and helping others while increasing community involvement

  • Addressing a social audience and maintaining affect to match the age, status and culturally relevant situations for the audience members

  • Addressing individualized social fears

  • Presenting appropriate behavior (e.g. birthdays, groups, clubs, celebrations)

  • Presenting following skills with friends and leading skills with friends

  • Parent Training

  • Providing social opportunities in the home and community

  • Learning modified ABA methodology and principles of reinforcement

  • Participating in role-plays as a priming technique

  • Fostering social inclusion 

  • Facilitating play 

fun

PLAY, PLAY, PLAY AND MORE PLAY!!

AND......Sometimes

you might even play dress up with a real

pet cat!!

meow

Close to 40% of school-age children have problems related to learning.  Many of these children have received a label.  There is always a reason when it comes to a child having problems with learning.  Often the underlying problem is a disorganized nervous system. The function is reflective of neurological organization.  The lack of function in those who have been labeled begins in the development of the brain and nervous system.  When there are developmental ineffiecienceis we see a lack of function which is just a symptom.  Theses symptoms are simply neurological disorganization.  As the neurological organization improves, development progresses and we see an improvement in function.  The symptoms simply disappear.  

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Developmental changes can be accomplished by appropriate stimulation.  That stimulation needs to be given with high intensity, high frequency, and short duration.  Spending a long time on teaching is not the way to get the information into the child.  Repeating things they have learned previously should only be done to retain the information, not to burden the child with continuing to do the things they have already acquired.  Learning builds on learning.  New information is very important, building on the information they have already learned.

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The parent/child relationship is the most important element in a child's development.  

Parent Participation and Social Coaching

Providing social opportunities in the home and community 
Learning our modified ABA methodology, Neurodevelopmental strategies/exercise and principles of appropriate reinforcement.

  • Participating in role plays as a priming technique, and side coaching during homework activities

  • Fostering social inclusion and lasting healthy friendships

  • Finding appropriate sources of friends and facilitating get togethers.

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