So many times I get asked... "What do
you DO in your classroom??" I typically answer with "Well I use
Applied Behavior Analysis in my classroom to develop programs for my students
to develop their communication skills."... and I get a blank stare... no
one seems to know what I'm talking about, but to be honest if I were given that
answer 5 years ago my response would have been the same.
Since I entered the
Chambersburg Area School District, about 4 years ago, I have had the incredible
opportunity to be a part of the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Autism
Initiative. Through this initiative we are bringing Applied Behavior
Analysis (ABA) therapy to our students with Autism in public schools! I have
experienced so much success with this program and have seen my students grow
into confident, expressive individuals that enjoy coming to school each day and
are engaged in meaningful, individualized instruction.
But still we have the
overarching questions of What is ABA? and What do you do all day?!?! In this
post I am going to try my very best to explain a little bit about what we do in
our classroom and the principals that guide our instruction… this will most
likely leave people with more questions than we began with, but we have to start
somewhere so first let's just use this visual to clear up a few misconceptions
of what ABA is NOT...
Here is a link to the PaTTAN Autism Initiative's handbook to Applied Behavior Analysis to also help with this explanation.
Ok... so now that we have that we have
cleared that up... lets talk about what ABA IS... ABA is a science developed by
B.F. Skinner in his book Verbal Behavior (1957). ABA is a
systematic process of studying and modifying observable behavior through a
manipulation of the environment. The theory characterizes the components
of any behavior by an A-B-C model. The ‘A’ in this ABC model represents
an antecedent, or what occurs before behavior, ‘B’ represents the behavior or
action that occurs, and ‘C’ represents the consequence, what happens directly
after the behavior occurs, or the response to the behavior. Analysis of these
components can allow us to create a functional picture of a student’s behavior
and then develop a behavior modification program for the student.
The ABA verbal behavior approach is best used
with the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program
(VB-MAPP). Mark Sundberg’s (2008) VB-MAPP brings together the
procedures and teaching methodology of ABA and Skinner’s analysis of verbal
behavior in an effort to provide a behaviorally based language assessment
program for all children with language delays. In our classroom we assess
students with the VB-MAPP assessment twice each school year. In this
assessment we look at a broad picture of a students abilities related to the
verbal operants. We then develop specific and idividualaized programs for
each student based on their deficits within each operant. The
main verbal operants we typically target are the mand, tact,
intra-verbal, listener, echoic, and imitation.
And now for the explanation of the verbal operants:
And now for the explanation of the verbal operants:
A mand is a request. Mark Sunberg
describes the mand as “asking for reinforcers that you want. Asking for
shoes because you want your shoes to go outside”. A mand can be a request
for an item, action, information and even attention. Requests do not need to be
vocal; students can also request items by using sign language and even
pictures. The mand is the most critical of all verbal operants. The
mand is most important because it involves some level of motivation on the part
of the requestor. Mands are important since the item, attention or information
usually given after a mand serves as a direct reinforcer. If a child is
unable to ask for the things he or she wants, this most often causes problem
behavior. For all of these reasons, teaching children to mand needs to be
the highest priority. Mands are also important to teach initially
because this helps the student understand that communicating produces positive
results!
The tact is essentially labeling.
Usually, a tact is a label of a picture, but it can also be an action, sound,
smell, taste, or even attributes of an item. We will always teach Tacts of
items with multiple exemplars (ex. many pictures of a car) because we want
students to see any car and be able to label it as a car.
Intraverbal responding is the answering
of questions. Initially students will develop fun fill in responses such
where the stimulus will be “Peek a...” and the student responds with “boo”.
Later, more advanced responses are taught, including answering what, where,
who, and when questions.
Echoics are repeating what is
heard. Saying “shoes” after someone else says “shoes”. Imitation is
the copying of motor movements. Echoics and imitation are a critical
skill, and we often see that once we can get vocal children to echo or nonvocal
children to imitate sign language, the floodgates sometimes open and language
and learning skills improve dramatically.
Listener, or Listener Responding, is
following instructions or complying with the mands of others. For examples
getting one’s shoes when told, “Get your shoes”.
Once the VB-MAPP is completed, a
program is developed for a student, and intensive teaching trial (ITT) sessions are
conducted. During these ITT sessions we always intersperse easy and hard
demands. Typically the rule is 80% easy, or known skills, and 20% target,
or new skills. ABA also uses errorless teaching procedures. We
provide immediate and frequent prompts to help improve the student’s
communication. These prompts become less intrusive as quickly as possible,
until the student no longer needs prompting.
Another key component to our
instruction is Natural Environment Teaching or NET. During NET we help
our students transfer all of the skills they have learned in their ITT sessions to the Natural Environment, or everyday situations and settings. I will
elaborate on our NET sessions in another post.
Here is the video from the PaTTAN Autism Initiative Website that helps
to explain all of these opperants and teaching procedures with video examples. If
your head is spinning after everything I have just said I suggest you find the
time to watch this awesome resource! http://www.pattan.net/Videos/Browse/Single/?code_name=teaching_procedures_assembly.
WHEW! That was a lot of information to digest…. Check back later for a
post on our program organization (I’m pretty proud of my binders, so I’m a
little excited for that one), and as always feel free to contact me at Alison.huber@casdonline.org with
ANY and ALL questions you have! Thanks for reading friends!
