Part 2: Now That I Know the Function, What Do I Do With It?

Once you decide what you think the function of the behavior is... either strengthen it or weaken it! Sometimes, as parents, we're tempted to use "blanket punishment"... sitting in "time out" or in the corner for offenses we "don't like" or even raising our voices or worse, spanking in order to "get rid" of a behavior. Or, when we see something we like, we fail to acknowledge it, believing that the desired behavior will always continue. When we know the function of the behavior, what is maintaining it, we can tailor our response to it, specifically.

Before "intervening", we need to do what we can to make sure that there are not "other" reasons for the behavior to be occurring.

If a child is instructed to sit down so his shoes can be put on and he runs away, and you determine he is avoiding putting his shoes on (if that is indeed the case... remember to look for patterns. It could be that he is running to get something. It could be that he likes the attention required to "chase" him. And so on...), you may first want to examine the situation and the shoes... Is it possible that he is running because there is something in his shoes and it hurts to have them on? Fix that, then re-evaluate. If you still determine that the little guy is still "avoiding" putting his shoes on, putting him in "time out" will most likely "strengthen" the behavior because he is still avoiding the task. However, if you believe that he is avoiding the task and you decide to follow through by helping him put his shoes on, then the behavior becomes fruitless. The child will stop running when he learns that it does him no good... the behavior is no longer functional.

If we determine that a child is hitting in order to gain access to something, we can stop the behavior by making it "useless". We make sure that when a child hits, he/she is unable to gain access to the item he wants. It may take a little time, but soon he/she will determine that the behavior "doesn't work" and the hitting to gain access to things will stop.

Very often, behaviors that we, as parents, are not that happy with are maintained by our attention to them. Whining, screaming (for no apparent reason :)), making noise as we try to read, crossing the imaginary "line" in the car and "touching" their sibling are common childhood behaviors sometimes maintained by attention. If we discover that a behavior is a result of attention and the behavior is not a safety hazard or likely to damage property... quickly determine whether or not you can stop paying attention to it. Literally ignore the behavior. It may seem silly, but as long as you react to attention-seeking behavior, it is likely to continue and even get "worse"!

REMEMBER, when implementing any intervention, CONSISTENCY is key! Look at it this way, if you only follow your planned intervention intermittently, your child will not have the opportunity to LEARN what you are trying to teach her. Instead, she will learn something else. She may learn to be more persistent with her own methods, knowing that "sometimes" you will reward her, making her less desirable behaviors functional ... even if only sometimes you don't (when you are implementing your intervention).


This, of course, simplifies the process of identifying/defining troubling behaviors, determining their function, and determining a plan to reduce them. Here are some terrific resources for more information:
Books
The Power of Positive Parenting by Glenn Latham
Behavior Analysis of Child Development by Sidney W. Bijou

Websites
Video of Glenn Latham talking about teenagers.
Free online course materials for Glenn Latham's class on the Power of Positive Parenting at Utah State University.

No more whines now, I mean it! (Does anyone know the next line?)

Ah, the many, many joys of parenting preschoolers! On most days, I absolutely love it! They are so talkative and inquisitive and talkative. And did I mention that I love hearing them talk?

One thing we are tackling in my home is kind of like talking... usually it involves some kind of request... lately, I would call those requests: WHINING!

When Mia was 2-3, she started whining. We corrected her for a day or two, modeling how we wanted her requests to sound. She repeated us and then we "reinforced" the pleasant voice by listening attentively. After a couple of days, we started ignoring the whining all together. She usually started out whining, then self-corrected, making a request with a pleasant-to-listen-to voice. At that point we happily engaged with her. That procedure pretty much took care of whining... until now.

I know that as the whining has crept back into my home, my husband and I have not been as attentive to it as we were in the past. We "fell out of practice" and the whining bloomed into a new-found, steady form of communication... AND it was effective. First they whined quietly, then it got louder and louder until we responded. We have returned to what we know works. I've put a sign on our refrigerator to remind us to refrain from reacting to the whines and we are hopeful, if not sure that this will take care of the problem. Of course, this remains to be seen... again. I'll keep you posted. :)

How Young is Too Young?

I have to admit, I was a "behavior analyst" long before I became a parent. When I started using ABA to teach children with autism in 1996 it just "made sense" to me. The data analysis, adjusting teaching based on performance, shaping, prompting, fading, all of it just made sense to me. I couldn't imagine teaching any other way. I earned my BCBA certification in 2002 and became a parent in 2003.

As you've probably heard (or learned from experience), children don't come with instruction manuals. I'd heard this many times before we brought our newborn home from the hospital but it still surprised me. We came home with a baby and literally no instruction AT ALL! I did what I knew how to do. We fed her, changed her and recorded everything! We wrote down when she drank every bottle, how much she drank, when she slept, and every diaper change. This just lasted for the first few days, I think (maybe the first week... or two?).  We got the hang of things. However, I didn't really know how to be around her without feeling like I needed to teach her. The only way I knew to teach was with ABA! No, I didn't take data on every nursery rhyme I taught her or when she started independently doing the actions with them. Though, I did keep track of all of her baby signs and every vocal mand/tact.  I taught her how to mand, with full sentences, purposefully, a step at a time. (Her first 3 word mand was, "I want [marsh]mellow!".  We quickly added, "please".) I remember thinking that maybe all parents didn't teach "that way" but I didn't really know how to do it differently. I started teaching her how to read at around age 3. I used a programmed reading primer developed by graduate students at the University of Kansas (Go Jayhawks!) decades ago. We then used Programmed Reading until she started reading chapter books sometime in first grade.

The thing is, once she entered school, I started having more contact with other parents and with teachers.  Parents were pretty interesting. They said things like, "Oh, it's so silly when parents start teaching their kids to read so young! Wasted time! They all end up about the same in elementary school, anyway!"   Teachers said things like, "Don't worry, by the end of first grade, her peers will catch up to her." Right, just what I wanted to hear.  But it all did make me think. Was I pushing her (and eventually my son, as well) to do more than she was "supposed" to do?  Was I more rigid than most parents? We didn't have set times to read or "learn language". It was just built into every day.  But was I making it too important? Should we have just "played" more? I can't imagine we didn't play and sing and dance enough. We did a lot of that! And I have no voice and no moves!  I just wonder if they would have been the same or different either way? I happened to stumble upon the coolest, most fun, and scientific way of teaching children when I was 19 years old. What would have happened if I didn't? Would it have mattered? If teaching them early learning skills while they were "so young" was wrong, what was I supposed to do instead? What do other parents do?

Understand that I don't believe I did the wrong thing. I cannot parent another way because I don't know any other way to parent. But I tend to be pretty open to ideas from others and not very outspoken. I'm not a fan of conflict and would most of the time rather not respond when I feel another parent has a strong opinion about something. (This is not true in my "work" as a behavior analyst, however.) My kids read well. Math comes easily to them. I don't feel like it was wasted time.  But is there such a thing as teaching academics to children who are too young? It seems a bit relevant. I came across this movie, Nursery University on Netflix the other day. Does this seem too extreme? Would you feel differently depending on the teaching methods that are used to teach?  What about this story from NPR? Lots of parents are comfortable with "Baby Einstein". Why?  What's the difference between the Nursery University crowd and the Baby Einstein-ers?  What do you think about "teaching" babies?

Teaching Skills: Task A-What?

"In or Out" Program Update: The kids are remembering to take off their shoes AND to shut the doors on the way in or out of the house! Score one for the momma! We still need some work coming in or out when they are talking to someone in or out of the house (not standing in an open doorway). My husband and I will shape this up by making sure that if they are talking to us, we will gesture to the door and not address their question until they are either in or out. :) If they are talking to someone else (and this might be the "hold-out" behavior that takes the longest to "fix") it will likely require the husband or I to give them a little nudge (physical prompt) in or out of the house to finish the conversation.

Task Analyses
Frequently we want our children to gain independence in tasks that have multiple steps such as washing hands, getting dressed, or tying shoes. I frequently target each of these tasks with children that I work with. The goal when I teach any skill is to teach it efficiently and in such a way that the child WANTS to continue learning from me. One way of teaching skills with multiple steps is to write, then follow a "task analysis". A task analysis of a skill basically breaks the skill down into small, discrete, manageable steps; for example, opening a door. I bet you thought opening a door just involved one step, "Open door", right?  Well, for some kids, in order to master the "whole task" of opening the door, you might need to break it down into smaller steps. A task analysis of opening a door with a knob might be: 1. Put hand on door knob. 2. Grasp knob. 3. Turn knob. 4. Pull door open.  Voila!
Now that we have a task analysis of opening a door, we can decide how we want to teach it. We can "forward chain" the task or "backward chain". Typically, I recommend backward chaining. This means that I might physically prompt a child through the whole task, from the first step to the last (hand on knob, grasp, turn, pull).  When the child is following all of my prompts reliably, I start to fade the prompts at the end of the task. In the case of opening a door, I would physically help the child put his/her hand on the door, then grasp it, then turn it, then pull. When he/she is completing all of these steps (with help) reliably, I would ease up on my prompts of pulling the door. Instead of physically prompting the "pull", maybe I would just tap her fingers once we had turned the knob. When the door opens, I would praise her for opening the door.  The next time we practiced opening the door, maybe I would fade the prompts even more. Maybe I would prompt through the first 3 steps, then wait for her to "pull" the door open. Wow! She just completed the last step of the task analysis independently! Reinforce like crazy!  Maybe after a few more successes, I'd target the next step in the task analysis, turning the knob (see where the "backward" in backward chaining comes from?). I would fully physically prompt putting her hand on the door knob and grasping it, but prompt only half of her turning the knob, allowing her to complete the step.   See where I'm going with this?
Eventually, she would complete the whole task herself but along the way, she'd get lots of descriptive praise and reinforcement for completing the baby steps leading up to the "whole task".

Some things to remember when chaining:
1. Ideally, the child will know how to complete each of the steps in the task analysis independent of the chain. In the case of opening a door, I'd want to make sure the child could "grasp" objects, could turn her wrist back and forth and "pull" before targeting the skills in a chain "opening the door".
2. Reinforce baby steps, initially. Reinforce independence. Ultimately, reinforce task completion. Once you get to the last teaching step, you want to be able to only reinforce the completed chain, not necessarily every step in-between... you don't want to teach a child not to move on to the next step of opening a door until you praise each tiny step that comes before the door being open... so reinforce like crazy but fade your reinforcement, too.
3. Don't be afraid to follow the child's lead a bit. If you've been working on a 10 step chain and you are only on step 3 but suddenly the child is indicating that he/she can complete 7 of the 10 steps independently, go with it! Just make sure you are there to prompt steps that still need to be taught until the whole chain is mastered.

I wrote about tasks analyses today because I want to post some basic self-help/independence programs such as brushing teeth, getting dressed, tying shoes, etc. This should help give you a general idea of the concept.  Are there other programs you'd like to see?  And, maybe it's too late but I just couldn't think of a clever way of saying "teaching skills" up in the heading. Any ideas? :)

Summer! and Shut the Front Door!

I know it has been a while since I posted last. I'm practically starting a new blog now! No, I know, I was fairly unreliable before so even I am wondering if I'll be able to keep this up. It's worth a shot though!
This summer I am staying home with my children. We now have 3, as we adopted another child a little over a year ago. She's the oldest, 10 years old. We also have a 9 year old girl and 7 year old boy. :)  People told us that going from 2 children to 3 would be huge but I'm not sure we realized how much. It's been interesting folks!
I think I'll have a lot to write about this summer as I'm tackling some target behaviors with each of the 3 and planning on working on academics with them each day. Shoot, I'll probably even work in some new chores!
I'm still (and always will be) a behavior analyst, specializing in *my own* children and children with Autism. I've worked in the field for nearly 17 years and it would be impossible for me to leave the field completely. I'll throw in some resources and program ideas for those little guys (and for MY little guys) throughout the summer. These programs will have steps of instruction but, as always, feel free to tailor them to your needs (or consult with a behavior analyst!).

The goal of today's program is to teach children to "come in or out". You see, when you have 3 kids coming in and out of the house all summer and the air conditioning is running, it can be pretty annoying to have the door open all of the time. Yes, I'm speaking from experience. My kids either come in or out without closing the door completely or they stand in the open doorway to talk to someone inside or outside.  Sigh. Here's my plan to take care of this...

I've already made it clear that I would like for them to close the doors when they come in or go out... that is, if you count me just "telling" them to do it as making it clear. This doesn't usually work, unless I tell them EVERY time they come in or out. So, I'm going to implement some positive reinforcement in the form of descriptive verbal praise ("Thanks for closing the door!") and occasionally a tattoo, sticker, popsicle, or whatever treat I've made that day (homemade cookies, granola bars, energy bites, etc.).  My kids have a pretty long history of responding in the presence of reinforcement so I think this will work pretty well, as long as I fade the schedule of reinforcement pretty gradually and make efforts to maintain the skill.

Fading reinforcement: As they get pretty reliable at closing the door, I'll fade how often I am reinforcing them. First I'll fade out the little treats, then I'll fade out the verbal praise. I've just started using this same procedure with having them take off their shoes when they come in the house and I have every confidence it will work, too. ;)

Of course, there will be times that they come in or out without closing the door. I find that physical or gesture prompts are WAAAAY easier to fade than verbal prompts, meaning that I can STOP reminding them to do what I want them to do WAAAAAY sooner when I've taught them using physical prompts (moving them) or gesture prompts (pointing things out, facial expressions) rather than when I'm telling them everything I want them to do. So, when they come in or out without closing the door, I will direct them back to the door by pointing towards the door and turning them in the right direction (if necessary) to make sure that they go back and "fix" the problem. If I don't catch it right away and they are already in the basement or upstairs, I'll call them down (or up) and point to the door. I'm sure they would much rather close it when they come in or out than have to come back to the door from whatever they are doing. If they are outside, they will be called back to shut the door. Gradually I'll fade the level of prompt when correcting them (maybe from a physical prompt, to a gesture to "the look" to nothing).

Normally, I like to prompt BEFORE the mistake happens, meaning I will "remind" them with a prompt of some kind before they "practice" doing the wrong thing. However, in this case it's a little tricky as verbal reminders to close the door haven't taught them to do it (unless I remind them every time) and their backs are usually turned so I can't use other prompts (like gestures).

What do you think? Are there things you'd like to know how to teach? I have thoughts for future posts but I'm open for suggestions!

Data, data, data! And I've Identified Some NEW Targets!

In my first blog post, I detailed the intervention my husband and I are using to decrease the whining in our house. We have no reliable baseline data accounting for the number of whines we were experiencing during a given time in our home. I know, the best way to determine whether or not a behavior is changing (according to plan) is to take data on the target behavior before an intervention is introduced and take data during the intervention. As parents, it is often difficult to wait on baseline data before starting an intervention because... well, we get impatient!

Unfortunately, impatience typically has no reward. Even if the whining is decreasing, we have no definitive way of knowing "for sure". We are left with "feeling" like the behavior is decreasing when we've had "a good day" and being frustrated, thinking that there has been no change (or it's gotten worse) when we've had a "rough" day. It's a guess, at best. Our perception of everything around us changes depending on the variables present. Maybe it seemed the whining was practically non-existent today because we attended to other things and just didn't notice it or maybe it really did change. So data is a "MUST".

I've been looking around to try to determine what our next "target behavior" will be. Honestly, choosing one was a bit difficult! I realized that if I feel we have quite a bit to work on, I know there is one thing I should work on first: improving the ratio of "positive" interactions to one-sided, negative interactions. I read once in "Parenting with Love" by Dr. Glenn I. Latham, that parents should have no more than 1 negative interaction for every 8 positive interactions with each child in their family. In "The Power of Positive Parenting", written by the same author, he noted that he often recommended to families that they should strive for at least 20 positive interactions with their children every hour (when the children were exhibiting appropriate behavior). Of course, the interactions need to be short to fit them all in... usually around 10 words long (or less), or even just a wink or pat on the back letting them know that they are doing something right and you'd like to see more of it! Even better, be descriptive and precise about what you like. I know that my world is happier when I receive valid compliments and praise! AND I know how grumpy my world feels when I feel I am criticized and corrected in an unbalanced way. Can you imagine how kids would feel in the same situation? (Another way to insure to fit all of the positive interactions in is to IGNORE inconsequential behaviors that would typically elicit negative attention... but that post is for another day!)


Definitions of the behaviors. In order for us to track (data, data, data!) our interactions effectively, first we need to define what a "positive interaction" is and what a "negative interaction" is.
In our home, this is our working definition for a "Positive interaction": Verbal, gestural, or physical contact with child that is used to compliment, praise, or acknowledge the behavior they are currently exhibiting. It can also be the initiation or continuance of conversation that is not meant to redirect or address negative behaviors.
"Negative Interaction": Verbal, gestural, or physical contact in order to decrease or redirect an unappealing behavior.

About a year ago I made up a data sheet to keep track of such interactions. We can either write a brief note to describe the interactions or simply tally them. (Write a note in the comments section if you'd like me to email a version to you!) For now, we'll attempt to remind ourselves about "The Ratio" goal by keeping data sheets close by and with a few physical reminders in the house... a rubber band around my wrist, a special item in my pocket... maybe even a sticky note or two up on the wall (in strategic places). If I can, I'll figure out how to post a graph of our daily data soon. If not, you'll have to be satisfied with table (if I can get THAT to work:) ).

Unfortunately we won't have baseline data for the ratio of positive to negative interactions. However, we will have intervention data! While we are working on improving "The Ratio", I will begin baseline data on other behaviors that either we or their terrific babysitter have noted. They include, but are not limited to: physical fighting and/or aggression between the children, going outside without permission, and screaming/tantrumming. These behaviors have occurred enough for us to note them, but do not appear "dire". I'd like to take a little data to determine if they are isolated issues or if they need to be addressed. I'll be taking "ABC" data to help in determining the function of each of the behaviors, as well.