As some of you may know, I've been a behavior analyst since 2003 and worked for the Pennsylvania
Verbal Behavior Project, which was a statewide grant from 2003 to 2010.
When I left the project, I began working in the early intervention field with very young
children through a contract with the birth to three provider in my county.
It was in 2010 when I started to develop my own step by step procedures to help kids who
were not talking or just talking a little bit and had what I call pop out words.
So today I want to share with you one of the procedures that I created, um, early on, starting
in around 2010 using a shoe box to get more language.
Hi, I'm doctor Mary Barbera from marybarbera.com and each week I provide parents and professionals
like you with some of my ideas about turning autism around.
So if you haven't subscribed to my youtube channel, you should do that now.
Back in January of 2019 I also started a weekly podcast called Turn Autism Around, so you
can check that out either on my website or by searching Turn Autism Around on iTunes.
Today I want to discuss this procedure using a shoe box that I created um when I started
working in the early intervention field with very young children, one, two and three year
olds who were either not saying any words or were saying some words, but I was having
trouble establishing what we behavior analysts call echoic control.
So echoic control is I say ball, you say ball.
And for many of our young children with and without autism, um, they might have words,
but if, unless you know how, know procedures to get those words out, it's really hard to
teach them.
And so developing the ability to get echoic control is always, um, the best, the best
situation because a lot of times with kids, especially with autism, the flood gates then
open and we get more and more language.
Way back some of my very first video blogs where with a little girl named Mia and you
can, um, look at those video blogs now.
And they were, I went out to Mia’s house and I consulted with her, um, and she was
talking, but it was, you know, months of intervention and, and the parents and professionals working
where they're still didn't have any echoic control.
She had these pop out words.
I was really kind of wondering what the best way to quickly gain instructional control
and get the ability to produce more, a lot more language.
Whether you know a lot about the analysis of verbal behavior or not.
We want to, when we can focus on the mand, which is, um, an operate, which means like
you have a word but you use it because you want something.
So if somebody says to me, my child has 10 words, so the word, what are the words?
Okay, cookie drink, banana out.
Um, mommy, Daddy, tree, Sun, you know, whatever the 10 words are.
Okay, great.
How does your child use those words?
Oh, well when they want to go outside, they say out and I open the door when they want
a banana, they say banana I give them a banana.
So those are both examples of mands of requests.
So they want something, they say the word and they get it.
But a lot of times the words like with Mia, I remember her mom would hold up a cup with
Dora the explorer characters on it and Mia would just say Dora boots, whatever the character's
names were.
And she would label them or tact them.
But when she wanted something she would cry.
So she had tacts but not mands.
And with early learner programming, what I found over the years was that it's really
hard to separate out the different operants when you're talking about early learners.
So a lot of my early learner programs that I recommend, like the shoe box, which I'm
going to talk about in a second, are actually a combination of, uh, the operants together.
So what I would recommend is you get a shoe box.
Now in Mia’s situation, we came up with the box idea and mom had a pasta box.
So we used the pasta box.
You can use any box.
I find that a shoe box with a lid that's attached is the best thing and you can cut a slit into
it.
Obviously this lid is just hacked with a scissor.
I had a client that was very exact and she wanted a perfect little slit.
Whatever you can do, then you can gather pictures of family members.
Um, but if you gather pictures of family members, make sure it's one person per picture.
So if it's mommy, it's just mommy.
It's not mommy holding a ball or mommy on a bicycle or mommy with a hat on because that
might be confusing.
So picture of just one person and the picture pretty close up so that the child can see
the face.
Um, but I'd also recommend that you go to the dollar store and get pictures of, you
know, uh, just various items.
So monkey for instance.
So monkey, two syllable word.
Lots of little kids know monkey.
Okay, we'll keep that.
Sun, yes, sun is, is a good one syllable word.
So when you start to think about like what words your child might come in contact with,
you know, sun would be one thing.
So now in this packet we're also going to have things like X-ray.
A two or three year old child that’s not talking, doesn't need to learn to X-ray because
it's an x and no.
So I would exclude that.
I might exclude flower because it has a blend.
Unless the child is really into flowers and exposed to a lot.
Kites that depends if they have any exposure, yes or no.
Turtle, kind of a little kid kind of word.
Um, so two syllables.
Okay.
We'll take it.
Lemon depends on the child.
Um, tent again, if they're not exposed to tents, then no.
Um, cake.
Yeah.
Everybody is unfortunately exposed to sugar and cake.
Um, fish.
Yes.
Okay.
So we have some words and maybe we have some pictures of family members too.
And we would want to sit diagonal from the child.
And then we would want to, um, say the words one at a time.
And we would say them if we can three times fish, fish, fish, we give it to the child.
We have the child all the child and has to do is put the fish in the box.
They don't have to say it, they don't, you know, they, we want to pair up the ability
for them to want to put it in the box.
So what happens then if a child, does echo cake or some part of cake, it is, they want
it to put it in the box because this will become a reinforcing activity.
So they want it so it's part mand, they're labeling it.
So it's part tact.
They're echoing you because I'm going to say cake.
So it's part of Echo.
Um, it's part receptive ability, you know, cause and effect following directions sitting
at the table with me.
So we're pairing up so many things, um, at the same time, but because it has a mand component
in place because they want it to put it in the box.
What I find is if we really focus on 10 or 20 words and we pair them that the child,
some children will pick up some words or partial start word approximations and this is extremely
exciting.
So that's why I feel a shoe box is one of the best tools in the house usually that you
can find and some pictures of family members that you hopefully have laying around that
you can use.
Um, and the dollar store cards to get language going.
And I also did a video blog a little while ago on the shoe box with a little bit more
explanation of the shoe box procedure.
I also have a free download, uh, explaining more step by step about how to do this shoe
box program at home.
One of the things I will say is if you are not engaging with a shoe box and the child
and the cards to actually have them not uh, laying around, that the child could get into
some weird stim behavior to put it up on a shelf and to engage a child when you are available.
Um, because I have found that sometimes when you let it be free access, it just, uh, kind
of loses it’s therapeutic value.
That's my little tip of the day.
You can use this in preschool settings and for even for older kids who are not yet talking,
you can use this for older kids as well, and you can certainly use this within homes and
to get engagement, going to get responding, going and hopefully to get some language going
as well.
So again, if you like this, leave me a comment, download the free six, I think six-step, a
guide about how to set up your own shoebox program.
I would love to see you here next week.