I recently did a podcast on the ten ways I believe my verbal behavior approach is
different and better for kids with autism so today in this short video blog
I want to give you the top three ways I believe my approach is different and
better and might be able to help you help your children or clients do better
too
hi I'm dr. Mary Barbera autism mom board certified behavior analyst and
best-selling author of the verbal behavioral approach each week I provide
you with some of my ideas about turning autism around so if you haven't
subscribed to my youtube channel you can do that now so I have in the past two
decades seen a lot of ABA programs and a lot of programs where people are telling
me that they're using a verbal behavior approach they're using a BB map they are
implementing some of the procedures in my book but sometimes when I look at
those programs or I look at the BB map and the treatment plan or I hear about
kids having problem behaviors I tend to think that professionals and parents
could be using my approach to help these children more and I know that might
sound a little egotistical that I think my program is is different and better
than everyone else's but I do think that there are wait there are reasons that I
believe that my approach might be able to help you turn things around even if
you haven't made a lot of progress in months or years with some of your
clients or children the first way I reason why I believe my
program is different is that I have a lot of experience with different hats I
fell into the autism world in 1999 when my firstborn son Lucas was diagnosed
with autism just one day before his third birthday at that point I was a
nurse I had a master's degree in nursing I was a nurse manager always working in
the neurology rehab field I worked with multidisciplinary teams created goals
multidisciplinary goals with pts OTS speech therapists parents or loved ones
of the patient so it really did prepare me I was a nurse manager had to deal
with a lot of the organizational behavior management I published actually
in the nursing field I published in the field of Nursing retention shift shift
report and time management all very behavioral things that I was studying
and without really ever hearing the term ABA or applied behavior analysis I also
in addition to being a parent being a nurse I became a behavior analyst in
2003 earned a PhD in 2011 became a doctoral level BCBA I worked for 7 years
as the lead behavior analyst for the Pennsylvania verbal behavior project
working with hundreds of kids all across the spectrum all ages all abilities I
also spent at least seven years or eight years as an early intervention provider
with first two three-year-olds and in schools and in homes after my book was
published in 2007 traveled the world and just four years ago began selling online
courses to both professionals and parents within the autism community so I
look at things with my many hats on I often can relate to parents I can relate
to behavior analysts I've worked with so many speech therapists who've done
incredible jobs in helping kids so I do think that in this case wearing many
hats does help me create programs and create step-by-step procedures that
actually are effective or effective with laypeople and parents new therapists as
well as seasoned professionals who may be very good at what they do but they're
having a hard time quickly training people without a lot of data the second
way I believe my approach is different is that I use a very common sense ABA
approach probably because of the different hats I wear my perspectives I
don't I know that parents are overwhelmed they can't be taking loads
of data or any data in many situations and I am very attuned to how people best
learn how they are trained my dissertation was on training people
so I do think that I use common sense approaches such as we all need a
positive step or negative I didn't create that when Lapham first taught me
that but I everything I do is very positive I have thought of if you see
problem behaviors demands are too high reinforcements too low we need to flip
that we need to spend a ninety-five percent of our time preventing problem
behaviors we need to avoid escaped extinction procedures so in addition to
wearing many hats using common sense strategies I also this is very related I
want to want to and want to encourage both professionals and parents to step
back look at the forest not the trees we don't just focus on language we don't
just focus on problem behaviors we focus on self-care leisure skills
pre-vocational skills academic skills we look at what the patient with the
parents value the age of the child the whether they have siblings whether you
know just a whole lot of variables and so I really don't like to go right in
and start what I call tit-for-tat programming I did a video blog on that
recently I like to step back and really focus on the major things that people
that kids need major being can they request their wants and needs do that do
they have major problem behaviors at or near zero how is their toileting can
they can they are with some supervision these are the things that I think are
really gonna make a difference in their lives and sometimes people jump too far
in and look at the trees and not the bar so throughout my courses I'm using my
approach which is different than anyone elses because of my background so if you
want to learn more about the ways my program is different you can listen to
the podcast which is episode number 15 and go on Mary Barbera comm 4/15 and if
you would like to learn more about joining my online course and community
that's really the best way for me to help you it's a long process to learn
how to shift your approach and do things
positively making more progress incorporating parents and professionals
together to help each child reach their fullest potential which is always my
goal do you want to do that I would love to have you at a free online workshop at
Mary Barbara come forward slash workshop if you like this video give me a thumbs
up leave me a comment and share this video with others I'll see you right
here next week