Many school students carrying the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome exhibit challenges in the area of social interactions and social skills. These social difficulties are worrisome for parents and family members who look for supports to address these challenges. Struggles in the school setting often center on their child’s inability toContinue Reading
Reinforcement in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) focuses on the outcome of the behavior and increasing the likelihood of certain behaviors occurring in the future. There are two types of reinforcement: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is when a response is followed immediately by the presentation of a stimulus and, asContinue Reading
There is nothing amusing about “the meltdown”. It is reflective of a complete loss of control of the person with an autism spectrum disorder. It is often loud, risky at times, frustrating, and exhausting. Here is a video that explains meltdowns from the perspective of someone living with autism. FeelContinue Reading
Q: “I’ve heard that if my son (who is on the autism spectrum) is having a problem staying on task while in school that he should use the “keychain rules”. Would you please explain this term to me?” – Curious in Nashville, Tenn A: Keychain rules are short statements orContinue Reading
Mini-maps can be highly effective in dealing with work avoidance behaviors at school and at home. Let’s now take this same strategy and apply it in community settings. Remember, a mini-map takes an event or task and breaks it down into smaller, more doable steps.For a family that has difficulty withContinue Reading
While the word “punish” often conjures up bad thoughts for parents and professionals, punishment and reinforcement are key when looking at behavior change through ABA. Punishment in ABA decreases the chances that a particular behavior will occur again, as opposed to reinforcement which increases the likelihood of behavior. Let’s lookContinue Reading
A flip card is a quick and easy visual strategy that highlights one behavior, and clarifies through graphics and words when certain behaviors are acceptable, and when they are not. Place a visual that indicates that it is O.K. to engage in the target behavior on one side of theContinue Reading
Self-management techniques have been found to be more effective in managing student behavior than teacher-mediated interventions (Stage & Quiroz, 1997; Fitzpatrick & Knowlton, 2009). When self-management strategies are linked to functionally equivalent behavioral interventions, students increased the amount of time on-task, demonstrated more appropriate social behaviors, and completed more assignments.Continue Reading
If a student can express their inner feelings, then adults could help them prevent further escalation. This can be done by engaging the student in conversation about the problem, or beginning a calming activity. Often however, the student has difficulty expressing those feelings until it is too late. A feelingsContinue Reading
For some students, a simple checklist is all they need to get them started and keep them moving through academic activities. The following is an example of such a checklist: The checklist corresponds to the numbered folders. The student knows to complete the work in the four folders. After checkingContinue Reading
A T-Chart can be made by placing a line down the middle of a page and labeling the left and right side of the page according to acceptable and unacceptable behavior. The T-Chart is then used to clarify acceptable or desired behaviors versus unacceptable or undesired behaviors by listing thoseContinue Reading
