Both autism professionals and parents report that their number one challenge by far hands
down is the reduction of problem behaviors.
So in today's video blog, I am pulling out a short excerpt from podcast number six which
is all about reducing problem behaviors.
Hi, I'm doctor Mary Barbera, autism mom board certified behavior analyst and bestselling
author of the verbal behavior approach.
Each week I provide you with some guidance on turning autism around.
So if you haven't subscribed to my youtube channel, you can do that.
Now, as many of you know, I have started a podcast and some of the video blogs that I'm
going to show you, including this one, are going to be short excerpts, but they're going
to be videos of something that I said on the podcast to listen to the entire podcast.
You can go to Mary barbera.com borage last six and I hope you enjoy it.
First I want to tell you about a little boy named, well, I'll call him Tony.
That wasn't his real name.
He was about six years old.
He was in first grade in a verbal behavior project classroom.
He was, we used to do the BB map assessment and he was a pretty much a level one BB map
learner.
And he could talk a little bit, didn't have major problem behaviors that I could remember
from the classroom.
And the Tony's mom asked if she could come in and meet with me.
She was very stressed and she reported that Tony was a major problem, had major problem
behaviors in stores.
He would clear shelves when she was at the grocery stores were to the point where she
couldn't take him out.
So I was asking some questions trying to get a bigger picture of what Tony was like.
And one of the questions was, you know, describe his eating.
Some kids drink out of a bottle or use a pacifier.
Even older kids like six.
So I, I always kind of ask like, what are they drinking from, what are they eating?
Um, and a lot of kids, including the boy that used to use the straw, very picky eaters and
have problem behaviors around food.
So the first step is absolutely in assessment and the lot of behavior analysts, they kind
of jumped right away to assessing the problem behavior and try to develop the function and
all that.
Um, but what I like to do is step back and take a look at generally what is the child
like?
Do they have a diagnosis?
What kind of school programming are they receiving?
What kind of therapy are they receiving?
Do they have any siblings?
Do they sleep through the night in their own bed?
Do they, how do they eat?
Are they addicted to a bottle or a pacifier or something like that?
Did they have any allergies after this general assessments done?
Then I look more closely at language through preferably I use the VB map assessment and
that's what I recommend for non conversational kids.
The assessment part is actually never done.
You're, you're always constantly assessing what is going on.
Why is he having problem behaviors?
Is it related to a skill deficit?
Is it related to a medical issue?
Is it related to intermittent reinforcement across all different people in all different
settings?
You know, we just really need to constantly assess at some point too, we need to start
making a plan and intervening.
So assessment is number one and then the number two step is to make a plan.
So what you want to do is you want to plan and prioritize.
Your first order of business is to try to get pro major problem behaviors that being
self injurious behavior, aggression and property destruction.
You're going to want to get those down to near zero levels.
And in the end it really does come back to those skills.
We need to break things down to pair up the learning environment to um, incrementally
desensitized to, to problems like a bath tub.
So the child might have a problem.
He may not like the bathtub, he may not like the water temperature.
The water temperature varies.
So could we keep the water temperature, um, warmer than colder?
Could we take the temperature of the water to make sure it's at a consistent temperature
that he likes?
Can we pair the bathtub up with Foamy soap or alphabet letters that he can stick to the
sides of the walls?
Could we have him just practice getting in the bathtub fully clothed without water and,
and give strong reinforcement.
Maybe it's just the hair wash part.
That's the problem.
So with any activity where there's problem behavior, we need to kind of be the Monday
morning quarterback, step back and look at how we can repair that, the um, the task,
make it more appealing, teach the skills, teach your prerequisites and give very strong
reinforcement.
Step three is your intervention.
And like I said all along throughout this podcast, I'm not going to be really able to
give you any specific guidance, but just in general, I think if you see problem behaviors
that demands are too high and or reinforcement is too low.
As I said, one of the activities that I have in my book is, uh, if I give you, gave you
$1,000 for your child or client, have a good day with little to no problem behavior, what
would you do?
And when I do this in front of live audiences, people generally get, get the answers pretty
quickly.
And it's basically like, let the child do what they want.
So if they want to eat five pieces of candy, that's fine.
If they want to run around without shoes on, that's fine.
If they want to, um, spinning circles or script or play with a straw, that's fine.
And so give them a lot of reinforcement and don't make them do anything.
Limit your demands.
So, um, that's how you're going to get that thousand dollars a day.
You're going to, you know, okay, I'm not going to teach how to teach you anything.
I'm not going to require that you keep your shoes on.
I'm not going to require you keep your clothes on.
But as parents and teachers and behavioral analysts, we know that letting a child do
whatever they want and not requiring anything is not very realistic.
Children have to stay dressed when they go out in public.
They have to keep their shoes on at school and at recess, they can't eat, you know, loads
of candy or sit there spinning in circles all day.
Teachers and the education system have IEP goals in the United States.
I mean we want our children to be as functional as possible.
But what this thousand dollar activity really teaches us, I think is that while we can't
eliminate all demands, we're going to have to have some demands.
We want to lower the demands and increased the reinforcement.
We want to be the spoiling grandmother when the child is engaging in good behavior.
We want to be very, um, reinforcing.
We, we want to limit our demands.
So if the child is not able to, you know, sit in a 20 minute circle time without problem
behaviors, part of the plan and the intervention might be too, we'll have them join circle
time for the last five minutes when we do the goodbye song, which is really the only
part of circle time that the child likes the rest of the circle time they'll actually be
working on one to one skills, um, which they really need to catch their language.
This, this breaking down things and being super reinforcing and um, teaching incrementally
systematically is one of the reasons I'm such a big believer in errorless teaching and gradually
fading in demands.
We know that schools have a lot on their plates and so I'm just giving you permission to say,
you know what, let's look at this.
Maybe we can break this down.
If the child is pounding on the desk during math instruction, let's really look at oh
double digit addition.
Well they're not really fluent with single digit addition, so let's go back.
Let's make the reinforcement higher, let's make the math instruction lower and let's
see how we can help this child not have problem behaviors.
The final step after we get through with assessment planning and intervention is that we want
to keep data, and this might sound scary to a lot of parents out there and even some professionals
might be a little leery about data collection.
I developed a system where parents and professionals could keep easy data on a calendar and I've
outlined that in a free video blog@marybarbera.com.
Forward slash video 45.
Um, I also have a nine page free guide, uh, that's called turn autism around and it is
available for free@marybarbera.com.
Forward slash join in this free guide is that one page assessment I told you about.
There's a one page planning form and there's more information about how you can keep data
on calendar, whether you're a parent or professional.
I hope you enjoyed that little short excerpt from podcast number six and I hope that you
will check out the show notes@marybarbera.com forward slash six where you can also listen
to the entire podcast and I hope you'll join me on my mission to turn autism around for
2 million by 2020 by subscribing and receiving a free nine page three step guide, including
that free assessment, the planning sheet, and more details about how you can do your
own calendar.
For more information about that, go to Mary barbera.com forward slash join and I'll see
you next week.