Different Roads to Learning

This week's blog comes from Surinder Sharma, the CEO of our new partner, Smart Kidz Club. Learn more about this reading app here!

We live in an era of screens with no escape. Adults, teenagers, the elderly and young children all have easy access to screens. The usage of screens and technology has become increasingly unavoidable and rather essential to everyday efficiency and connectivity with the world. This has been further confirmed by the COVID-19 pandemic where all learning has become home-based and remote, requiring some form of screen time. Most schools and colleges are conducting online and virtual classes for even very young elementary school students. Dance, music, ballet, and karate lessons are also being provided virtually via screens using internet or mobile technology.

Up until recently there has been a general consensus that all screen time is harmful for children and not beneficial for learning. This is mostly because a majority of research on screen time was conducted with TV, which is not representative of all types of screens. Recent research has shown that not all screen time is harmful for children and screens/technology that provide feedback and positive social interaction can actually benefit children in their early learning. One example is research suggesting that toddlers can learn vocabulary words equally well from a virtual Skype session on a computer screen as they would have through an in-person interaction (Roseberry et al., 2014). Additionally, a 2016 study revealed that 4-6 year olds were able to apply logic puzzle strategies learned from a 2D app to a real life 3D model (Huber, 2016).

According to a 2015 article, apps designed to promote active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive learning—four "pillars" of learning—within the context of a supported learning goal are considered educational (Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy, et al, 2015). This article aims to guide researchers, educators, and designers in evidence-based app development along with setting a new standard for evaluating and selecting the most effective existing children's apps. Educational apps that are developed to keep in view these four pillars of learning are the ones that should be presented more actively to children during their screen time.

It is quite clear that adults need to take the time to choose the content as well as the technology for their children's screen time. In addition to parents choosing educational apps with high quality content, that is "just right" for children (Hutton, Dudley et al, 2019) while also prioritizing online safety, screen time for children needs to be controlled by parents. Here are five important guidelines to help parents do that:

1. Monitor Content: There is a lot of content that is inappropriate for children. No matter how much content is verified by the platform, there is always some content that seeps through filters and presents itself to children. Curated content build specifically for children is important. Animation, a concept that was primarily designed with children in mind, has shown to be worse than auditory content for children's reading comprehension. It is the parents responsibility to be aware of everything the child is exposed to on screens. If possible, try to make it as interactive as possible while avoiding passive content consumption.
2. Positive Versus Negative Screen Time: It is key for every parent to understand the difference between positive screen time and negative screen time. An example of positive screen time would be the time children spend on online classes and educational apps. Negative screen time would be the time spent watching TV or playing video games, activities that have no educational benefit and are purely for entertainment purposes. Moreover, screen time should always be limited and reserved for education and learning.
3. Bond With Positive Screen Time: Avoid using phones and constantly checking social media around children. Try reading books aloud with children. This will help you bond with them and provide them with a positive learning experience. Avoid running distractions such as the TV in the background and discourage placing televisions or other devices in bedrooms.
4. Evaluate Technology and Apps: While many technology companies are working towards making their products child-safe and giving parents more control by the introduction of parental controls, parents still need to evaluate the apps and technology and be able to distinguish between distracting entertainment apps and educational apps that offer deep learning without the bells and whistles.
5. Educate Yourself and Your Child: Trying to avoid screens as a whole is impossible in today's world. The world is becoming more and more dependent on screens,because technology has manifested itself into every aspect of life. However, technology has the potential to do harmful physical and mental damage to young children. For this reason, it is the responsibility of parents to educate themselves and their children about the right technology, the right content, the educational quality of mobile apps, and how to avoid online dangers and keep children safe. Social Media can be a very dangerous place for young children and should be discouraged until they reach a certain age and maturity.

Education technology has seen a massive boom in 2020 after the pandemic, enabling children to continue their learning remotely and safely from home. While research on the effects of screen time on young children is continuous and ongoing, we might expect to learn much more from new studies in the coming years. One thing that will remain unchanged is the importance of parents monitoring and controlling children's screen time especially in the early years of learning and development.

References:

1. Roseberry, Sarah, Kathy Hirsh‐Pasek, and Roberta M. Golinkoff. "Skype me! Socially contingent interactions help toddlers learn language." Child Development 85.3 (2014): 956-970.
2. Huber, Brittany, et al. "Young children's transfer of learning from a touchscreen device." Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016): 56-64.
3. Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy, et al. "Putting Education in 'Educational' Apps: Lessons From the Science of Learning." Psychological Science in the Public Interest, vol. 16, no. 1, May 2015, pp. 3–34, doi: 10.1177/1529100615569721.
4. Hutton, John & Dudley, Jonathan & Horowitz-Kraus, Tzipi & DeWitt, Tom & Holland, Scott. (2019). Functional Connectivity of Attention, Visual and Language Networks During Audio, Illustrated and Animated Stories in Preschool-Age Children. Brain Connectivity. 9. 10.1089/brain.2019.0679.

Instead of choosing your battles, choose when to battle.

Recently at a workshop I was providing, a parent shared a difficult behavior that her 8 year old son with autism was exhibiting. When it was time to play with trains, he wanted a specific train. He would scream and cry until his mom found the specific train he wanted, and sometimes she was unable to find it at all. The screaming often lasted 30-60 minutes. She said this frequent behavior was stressful for both her, her son, and her other two children.

My suggestion to her was to tell her son “wait quietly,” and that she not search for the train while he was screaming or crying. As long as he was quiet, she would search, but when he started screaming or crying she would stop searching. We talked about the importance of just asking one time to “wait quietly,” and whether or not her son would benefit from a textual prompt (such as a paper that said “Wait quietly. I’m looking.”) As we discussed this, the parent said, “I just know I can’t do that all the time. I have to pick my battles.”

It’s important to note here that I have very different expectations for teachers and parents when it comes to implementing interventions. A teacher’s sole purpose when they’re with your child is to teach in a way to meet their unique needs. Teachers should be implementing an intervention 100% of the time.

Parents, on the other hand, are in a very different situation. Parents are frequently trying to implement the intervention while also cooking dinner, answering the phone, taking care of other children, etc. Unless the intervention is addressing a dangerous behavior, I don’t expect parents to be implementing the intervention 100% of the time. It’s unrealistic given the different environment the parent is working within.

But I’m not letting parents off the hook! Let’s go back to the example from the workshop.

My response to this parent was that picking your battles doesn't necessarily mean choosing to address other, less stressful behaviors instead of this behavior. Instead of picking your battles, think of it as picking when to battle. For this parent, she would direct her son to “Wait quietly” when she knew she was ready to implement the intervention. When she knew she wouldn’t be able to implement the intervention (because she was excessively tired or she had the other two siblings with her and no other adult support) she would not say “Wait quietly.”

This may seem a bit silly at first, but over time, the child learns that when mom says “Wait quietly,” she means it. I also suggested that the first time she tries it, she should set herself up for success. Have her mother babysit the other two children, have a therapist or teacher come provide support or coaching if possible, and make sure she has enough time to follow through on implementing the intervention successfully the first time. While it takes some time and planning, the long term benefits can be powerful for the whole family.

I do not know if this particular parent tried out any of my suggestions after the workshop, but I have used this strategy with many other parents over the years. Two things tend to happen. One: the child figures out the parent means what he/she says. Two: As the child learns this and the parent experiences success, the parent uses the intervention more frequently creating a calmer, less stressful environment for both parents and children.

Sam Blanco, PhD, LBA, BCBA is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for sixteen years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. She is also an assistant professor in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges, and she is the Senior Clinical Strategist at Chorus Software Solutions.

The following post is an excerpt from Remote Learning With ABA, a guide for parents created by Dana Reinecke, PhD, LBA, BCBA for use with our Remote Learning With ABA kit.

You can learn more about this new resource for home learning here! 

Whether your child is going to school in-person or virtually, or you are entirely homeschooling, teaching and learning at home can be daunting for both you and your student. It can also be incredibly rewarding and lead to greater gains and generalization of skills than traditional school alone. As in any educational programming, the skills to be taught and strategies used should be individualized for maximum success, but there are some things you can do that are pretty universal to set you and your child up for an enjoyable experience.

First, remember that motivation is key for getting your child to happily participate in the activities that you plan. Motivation is the term used to describe anything that makes an item or activity more or less appealing, so it’s helpful to think of ways to increase the appeal of learning time and decrease the appeal of competing activities. Here are some suggestions:

A key strategy for increasing motivation and improving engagement is providing choices wherever possible. Giving choices doesn’t mean not having any control, however. For example, the choice should not be whether or not we are going to read, but which of these three books we are going to read. Similarly, the choice may not be whether or not we are going to do math, reading, and spelling, but in which order we do those activities. You can also offer choices of writing implements (does it really matter if they use a boring pencil or a sparkly pen?) and locations for where to do a particular learning activity (on the bed, the floor, or even outside?). Some children do well with choosing how long an activity will be done for, given a reasonable selection of times – we can do this activity for 5, 7, or 9 minutes – and let them choose and set a timer. Giving your child control in some of these parts of their learning may help to improve motivation and make them feel like more of a partner in the whole effort.

It is important to remember that learning can and should be fun. Even when something is challenging for your child, it may be possible to turn it into a game or at least embed some laughter where you can. One way is to use themes that are appealing to your child. A kid who loves superheroes might be more engaged with word problems that feature Batman and Superman, and a child who is fascinated by animals might be more inclined to participate in spelling animal names than random words. Of course, you will eventually want your child to be able to engage in activities that are not only high-interest themed, but the transition can be gradual. Maybe for a whole week all math activities are superhero themed, and then the next where there are 80% superhero problems and 20% more generic ones. The week after that you might be ready for 50/50. There’s probably never a reason to completely eliminate regularly embedding those high-interest stimuli in learning, however.

Learning is also more fun when you are doing it together. If possible, let your child be the teacher sometimes. Deliberately make mistakes and laugh about them, and then correct them. Modeling cooperative and enthusiastic participation may help your child to understand what you are looking for from them.

Most of all, remember that the goal of teaching your child at home is not just to teach them the specific skills that you are targeting. Learning with you as a parent also provides many other valuable lessons, including that you are invested and interested in their success, that you enjoy spending time with them, and that you listen to their communication.

About The Author

Dana Reinecke is a doctoral level Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and a New York State Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA). Dana is a Core Faculty member and Associate Chair in the Applied Behavior Analysis department at Capella University. She is also co-owner of SupervisorABA, an online platform for BACB supervision curriculum and documentation. Dana provides training and consultation to school districts, private schools, agencies, and families for individuals with disabilities. She has presented original research and workshops on the treatment of autism and applications of ABA at regional, national, and international conferences. She has published her research in peer-reviewed journals, written chapters in published books, and co-edited books on ABA and autism. Current areas of research include use of technology to support students with and without disabilities and online teaching strategies for effective college and graduate education. Dana is actively involved in the New York State Association for Behavior Analysis (NYSABA), and is currently serving as Past President (2019-2020).

Recently I received a phone call from Barbara, the mother of a 14-year-old boy who was displaying inappropriate behaviors on the train during his commute to school. We had put an intervention in place that had been successful for two months. But Barbara reported that it wasn’t working as well anymore, and the inappropriate behaviors were increasing in both intensity and frequency.

Barbara was concerned and fearful that her son’s behaviors could put him in danger. As we began discussing each incident in detail, it became clear that Barbara and her son’s other caretakers had unintentionally stopped following the intervention. A strong intervention will have multiple components, so straying from the intervention is quite common for both parents and teachers (including myself). It’s important to try to address it before it happens to help ensure long term success for your learner.

There are two simple strategies you can implement to help everyone stick to your intervention.

1) Write it down. Some parents I work with choose to print out the steps for their child’s intervention and place them near their computer or in their wallet so they see it on a regular basis. Having access to a reminder of the steps can be an essential part to ensuring success. For example, one of the steps in Barbara’s son’s intervention was access to his favorite comic books with new comic books available every 7-10 days. Barbara put a recurring reminder in her phone that was scheduled to appear every 7 days. Having the visual reminder helped Barbara and her husband stay on schedule with replacing the comic books in their son’s travel backpack, as well as stay on track with all the steps involved in the intervention.

2) Check in on a scheduled basis. Barbara and I have set up monthly conference calls for the two of us and any other adults that supervise her son on the train. Each call lasts about 30 minutes and focuses specifically on maintaining the intervention, promoting independence, and systematically reducing the supports her son requires. Depending upon the behavior, you may need to check in more or less frequently.
Barbara’s son has now gone eight months without experiencing any increases in the inappropriate behaviors he once displayed. Because Barbara has instituted the two strategies above, we have also been able to systematically reduce the number of prompts and the frequency of reinforcement so that her son is coming closer and closer to independence.

**Name and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the identities of my clients.

Sam Blanco, PhD, LBA, BCBA is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for sixteen years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. She is also an assistant professor in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges, and she is the Senior Clinical Strategist at Chorus Software Solutions.

One of the obstacles I face as a special education teacher is that so much of my work is focused on deficits. I am continually required to report on the milestones my students have not met. After assessing a student, I am required by law to report quarterly progress on IEP goals to help bring that student up to grade level.

All of these mandates are essential to helping my students to progress, but they also serve to overlook my students’ strengths. There is little space on an IEP to focus on what my student is quite skilled at, or to detail a plan for encouraging those skills. The long-term implications of failing to nurture a student’s strengths range from increasing boredom and frustration in school to failing to prepare students for engaging careers.

Students in the general education population typically have many opportunities for nurturing strengths because they frequently have more free time since their days are not packed with various therapies, and they have access to extracurricular activities and courses that may not be available to students in special education. So how can we, as parents and teachers of students in special education, address this concern?

* Set aside part of each team meeting to discuss developing student strengths. Your team should be asking questions such as: What activities does the student naturally gravitate towards? What can we do to expand and encourage these activities? What extracurricular groups and classes might be available that are related to this activity? What social skills or academic skills are essential to encouraging this strength?

* Consider extracurricular activities. Is it viable for your family to add a music lesson to each week? Or to reduce therapy sessions by one hour each week to allow for practice with a track team? Can the school provide support for your learner to have access to the computer design class?

* Push for access. Most IEPs have social skills goals listed. Consider the context needed for your learner, and push for that to be written into the IEP. For example, let’s say your learner is highly motivated by digital cameras. Request that he/she be placed in a photography class with associated social skills goals, such as “The student will be able to accept feedback about a photo and demonstrate use of feedback in 4 out of 5 trials,” or “The student will be able to work in a group of 3–4 students to take photos related to a theme.” When considering what is an appropriate education for your learner, it is definitely appropriate to outline social skills related to student interests and strengths, especially as these may lead to employment later down the line.

* Find mentorship. Seek out high school or college students with common interests and strengths to offer tutoring/coaching in that area. Ask people you know if they have friends or family members working in the profession your learner is interested in, because they may be able to set up job-shadowing for you. Don’t rule out the potential of connecting with people via video chatting if you can’t find mentors in your area.

It is essential for the long-term interests of children in special education that we spend more time considering and encouraging their strengths.

About The Author 

Sam Blanco, PhD, LBA, BCBA is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for sixteen years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. She is also an assistant professor in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges, and she is the Senior Clinical Strategist at Chorus Software Solutions

As a BCBA, I am often asked to address problematic behaviors. One of the most common errors I see in addressing such behaviors is that the adults working with child have not identified the function (or purpose) of the problematic behavior. Decades of research have shown that there are only four functions for any behavior: attention, escape/avoidance, access to a tangible, and automatic reinforcement (or something that just feels good internally, but cannot be observed by outsiders).

The function of the behavior is whatever happens immediately after the behavior, and increases the likelihood that the behavior will occur again in the future. Here are a few examples of the functions, based on the same behavior:

1. The therapist tells Lisa it’s time to practice tying shoes. Lisa starts biting her own hand. The therapist look shocked and calls in Lisa’s mother, who rubs her back lightly while Lisa ties her shoes then gives her a lot of verbal praise. This is likely an example of a behavior that functions for attention, because the mother comes in and provides both verbal and physical attention while she ties her shoes. Or it could be an example of a behavior that functions for escape or avoidance, since Lisa did not have to tie her shoes immediately once she began biting her hand.
   
2. The therapist tells Lisa it’s time to practice tying shoes. Lisa starts biting her own hand. The therapist gently pushes Lisa’s hand down and then introduces a new task. This is an example of a behavior that functions as escape because Lisa does not have to tie her shoes once she begins biting her hand.
   
3. The therapist tells Lisa it’s time to practice tying shoes. Lisa starts biting her own hand. The therapist says, “Oh, don’t stress, we’ll take a sensory break,” and gives Lisa a ball to squeeze. This is an example of a behavior maintained by tangible reinforcement. When Lisa began biting her hand she was immediately given access to a preferred item.

You’ll notice that I left out the automatic reinforcement. This is intentional because often, with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, people assume that a behavior is automatically reinforced instead of exploring these three potential functions described above. One way to recognize if a behavior is automatically reinforced is to note if the behavior happens when the child is alone and/or when no demands have been placed on the child. If it’s only happening around other people or when demands are placed, then it is highly unlikely that the behavior is automatically reinforced. For now, we’ll save automatic reinforcement for another blog post.

Identifying which of these functions is maintaining a problem behavior is essential to putting in an effective intervention. But how do you go about doing this?

The first thing you should do is assess! You can do an informal assessment, such as using the Functional Assessment Screening Tool (FAST) which is comprised of 16 questions that can help you quickly determine the function. If this does not provide conclusive results, you can have a BCBA do a formal functional assessment. Once you have identified the function of the behavior, you can change the environment so that not only does the child no longer receive that reinforcement for a problematic behavior, but there are appropriate replacement behaviors they can engage in to access that reinforcement. For more on that, you can look back at the Importance of Replacement Behaviors.

It may be difficult at first to think in terms of “function of behavior,” rather than assigning a reason for the behavior that is based on the child’s diagnosis or based on something happening internally inside the child’s brain that we can’t see (such as, “she’s just frustrated so she’s biting her hand,” or “she doesn’t know how to control herself”). However, once you try it out and experience some success with addressing the true function of behavior, you’ll likely see the beauty of a simple explanation for why we behave.

About the Author

Sam Blanco, PhD, LBA, BCBA is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for sixteen years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. She is also an assistant professor in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges, and she is the Senior Clinical Strategist at Chorus Software Solutions

This excerpt from Homeschooling With ABA by Dana Reinecke, PhD, LBA, BCBA is a perfect introduction for anyone new to data collection. For more resources for parents, check out our exclusive Homeschooling With ABA kit! 

An important step in planning your child’s education is assessing their needs, both initially and during learning activities. Time is precious, so you don’t want to waste it by attempting to teach something that your child doesn’t need to learn or using strategies that are not effective. Equally important, ongoing assessment provides motivation to keep going, especially when you see your child making progress. Some children are also excited by evidence of their own success and can become more engaged with learning if they are involved in measuring and assessing their own progress.

The first purpose of data collection is to set goals for your child’s learning time. Choosing goals is a whole topic by itself, but as a parent, you are undoubtedly well aware of the skills your child needs to improve to participate successfully in their everyday lives. Very often, however, these skills are thought of as bigger categories that need to be broken down for teaching purposes. You might be concerned about your child’s language skills, but that is a big area to tackle. Language skills can be broken down into goals depending on your child’s needs, to whatever level makes the most sense. For some children, you might start by teaching them the labels for the items they might want to ask for, and for other children it might be more appropriate to address skills like asking questions or staying on-topic in a conversation. Start by meeting your child where they are at, and building from there, for a goal that is achievable and less frustrating than one that might be too big at the moment.

Establish a baseline for each skill area by observing your child and making note of their current level of the skill. If you are thinking about teaching prepositions, try asking your child to put an object on or under the chair, or show them a flashcard from the prepositions deck and ask them to label where the object is in relation to another object. Take data on which prepositions they get correct, and which ones they don’t seem to know, so you know where to focus your teaching. This baseline is what you will compare to later on, to see if your child is learning the skill that you are trying to teach.

Next, use data collection to conduct ongoing assessment of your child’s progress, and the effectiveness of your teaching. For each learning session, collect data similar to the baseline to evaluate your child’s new level of the skill. There are many different ways to collect data, including:

Frequency: counting the number of times something happens (you can use the hand-tally counter to make this easier)

Duration: timing the how long it happens for (using the count-up feature of the timer)

Percent Correct: marking each opportunity as correct or incorrect, to determine the ratio of correct responses (simple paper-and-pencil works well)

The type of data that you collect will depend upon the skill and what you need to know about it. If you want your child to increase writing letters and numbers, frequency might be sufficient. You can see if they are writing more letters and numbers in a 5-minute period each day. If you want your child to play independently, duration would be an appropriate way to measure this skill, using a timer. If you are interested in teaching your child to accurately solve math problems, percent correct would make sense. There are many other ways to measure behavior, and many tools to help make measurement efficient and accurate. After all, you want to spend most of your time interacting with your child and actually teaching, so data collection should be as easy and practical as possible. ABA Tools of the Trade provides clear instructions on how to collect various types of data, and how to graph and analyze it.

Once you choose your data collection strategies and tools, set a reasonable schedule for data collection. You may not need to collect data on every single activity, every single day. Instead, you can collect samples on a regular basis. For example, you might decide to collect data during the first 5 minutes that you work on a particular area each day, or you could collect data on that skill every Tuesday and Thursday. The important thing is to collect enough data to give you the information you need. Collecting data is only the first step; you then use it to determine if your teaching is working, or if you need to change your strategies to better support your child’s learning.

Some parents find that their children are really engaged by data collection, and it can be fun and motivating to let their children self-monitor. This is a form of data collection that most of us are used to using in our everyday lives – if you have ever used a food journal for your own health, or even recorded your transactions in a checkbook register, you are used to self-monitoring. Your child may be able to self-monitor their learning if you teach them how and set up a data collection system that is not distracting. Some children enjoy clicking their own hand-tally counter, and some are great at setting and reading timers. One caveat is that if your child is not progressing as quickly as they would like, self-monitoring might not be as motivating as we would hope. Like everything else in teaching your child, keep it individualized and monitor to determine if it is something that you should continue, change, or discontinue altogether.

About The Author

Dana Reinecke is a doctoral level Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and a New York State Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA). Dana is a Core Faculty member and Associate Chair in the Applied Behavior Analysis department at Capella University. She is also co-owner of SupervisorABA, an online platform for BACB supervision curriculum and documentation. Dana provides training and consultation to school districts, private schools, agencies, and families for individuals with disabilities. She has presented original research and workshops on the treatment of autism and applications of ABA at regional, national, and international conferences. She has published her research in peer-reviewed journals, written chapters in published books, and co-edited books on ABA and autism. Current areas of research include use of technology to support students with and without disabilities and online teaching strategies for effective college and graduate education. Dana is actively involved in the New York State Association for Behavior Analysis (NYSABA), and is currently serving as Past President (2019-2020).

In this excerpt from You Can Have An ABA Classroom!, author Beth Greenhagen addresses the best practices for designing and evaluating a distance learning curriculum for students with special needs. 

You might be thinking "This is impossible! Many of my students can only perform basic tasks, even with help!" Remember that even though you are teaching remotely, you will still be required to report on your students' IEP goals and objectives. You could do this by conducting live one-to-one sessions with your students, or you could connect with your students and their families by using an online instructional program (examples include Boomlearning and MouseTrial). Whatever you do, keep it simple! Target the most pertinent objectives (e.g. the ones that affect home skills) and as you start to see progress, add on more.

How to have an ABA classroom online: You need cooperation from family members to effectively run one-to-one sessions. Your families will need a lot of guidance to effectively run sessions using ABA principles with you. Be patient and go slowly. Reinforce the assisting family member with lots of encouragement and praise. For example, you may ask a student to identify a visual when you hold up two, but you may not be able to tell if the student chose correctly. You likely need a family member assisting to tell you if the student chose correctly. If you can get concrete materials to the families to assist in the instruction, do it! Some families may not be able to print materials out at home, so it’s best to mail physical materials for live instruction if possible.

Find ways to relate current IEP goals and objectives to useful household activities that are meaningful for families. For example, if your student has a compliance objective, begin to work on a simple cleaning routine. Teaching a student to wipe a table with a disposable wipe is helpful at home and can also be carried over when in-person instruction resumes. If your student has an objective dealing with multi-step directions, work on daily routines like hand washing, brushing teeth, making microwave popcorn, or making a sandwich. You will need to teach your families to apply task analysis with their child. Practice with them during live sessions before asking them to do it on their own. Don’t forget to include the Occupational Therapist when coming up with a plan for these types of activities. Though it may be difficult for some families to stop doing household tasks for their child, they will likely appreciate an opportunity to help their child become more independent.

Don’t hesitate to ask your paraprofessionals for help with online direct and group instruction. Use their skills to your advantage. Remote learning is challenging for all instructors and working as a team can make everything go more smoothly. 69% of special education teachers surveyed said that if they had to continue to teach remotely, they would explore more interactive online tools. The easiest kind of online instructional programs for students with high levels of need are set-up in discrete trial format. Most likely these programs will cost money, so it would be up to your special education program to determine your budget. Online discrete trial programs make it easy to get concrete data on how your students are progressing on their individual objectives. 

For more information on integrating ABA into your special needs classroom (online or in person), check out You Can Have An ABA Classroom!, available exclusively from Different Roads To Learning.

It’s time for school! No, not our other book… actual school! What “school” looks like is likely much different in 2020 than we are accustomed. This includes whatever form “school” was taking for individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; e.g., at a school, in a room at their home, in a clinic-based setting). It is likely your child or your client diagnosed with ASD is spending instructional time on online platforms. So, how might the procedures and curriculum within the new book, The Autism Partnership Method: Social Skills Groups​ be adapted to these changes? Virtual social skills groups!

Much of the curriculum in the book and many of the procedures can be moved to an online platform with little to no modifications necessary. When running a virtual social skills group on the online setting the main room can be used for large group instruction, modeling, and practice. Breakout rooms can be used to arrange smaller groups working on similar or more specific skills. While this shift may occur with little to no modification it is important to really consider generalization of the skills acquired within a virtual setting (e.g., Zoom) to other settings (e.g., at the beach).

For others, making the shift to an online platform for a social skills group may be more difficult. In these situations, it may be necessary for an interventionist (if possible) or parent to be present during the social skills group. If an interventionist is possible (please follow all federal and local guidelines), they should take the shadow role (as described in the book). If an interventionist is not possible, a parent could fill this role to some extent. Parent coaching prior to and during the social skills group could occur via written information or in-vivo training.

When using the curriculum online it will be more important than ever to keep it engaging. If using video clips, take the time to find suitable clips from the child’s favorite show. When running the Cool vs. Not Cool™ procedure be “extra” not cool so that it’s more engaging coming through a computer screen. Overall, like mentioned in the book, planning and teamwork will be the key to success.

There are undoubtably numerous ways we have not considered here. Be creative, flexible, and keep your child or client’s interests, goals, and strengths in mind when making changes to the structure of a social skills group during Covid-19. If you or anyone you know would like consultation on setting up an online social skills group please contact info@autismpartnershipfoundation.org.

About The Author

Joseph Cihon, PhD, BCBA-D is the Co-Director of Research for the Autism Partnership Foundation. Joe received his bachelor’s degree in special education from Fontbonne University, master’s degree in behavior analysis at the University of North Texas under the mentorship of Dr. Shahla Alai-Rosales, Dr. Jesus Rosales-Ruiz, and Dr. Manish Vaidya, and his doctoral degree at Endicott College under the mentorship of Dr. Mary Jane Weiss. Joe has over fifteen years of experience working with children, adolescents, and adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities in home, school, and community settings. His research interests include evaluating approach based interventions, shaping, increasing favorable interactions among children, their families, and interventionists, developing contingencies to promote generalization and maintenance, and improving mealtimes for selective eaters. Joe has published and served as a reviewer for several prominent journals and presented research at national and international conferences. You can reach Joe Cihon at jcihon@autismpartnership.com

This month’s ASAT feature comes to us from David Celiberti, PhD, BCBA-D and Mary Jane Weiss, PhD, BCBA-D. To learn more about ASAT, please visit their website at www.asatonline.org. You can also sign up for ASAT’s free newsletter, Science in Autism Treatment, and like them on Facebook!

My spouse and I have been providing home-based instruction with the guidance of my son Sammy’s special education teacher, BCBA, and rest of the team and we learned a lot! We had already received some parent training in behavior analytic teaching and now have had the opportunity to put these skills into practice. What should we be communicating to his school team now that this has been underway for a few weeks and how can we use what we learned as a family to guide future goals/planning?

Answered by David Celiberti, PhD, BCBA-D and Mary Jane Weiss, PhD, BCBA-D

Let’s be clear. The abrupt cancellation of educational and other services certainly caught the autism community off-guard and put families in the challenging position of cobbling together home-based learning opportunities. We recognize that some families have had a wide range of support including ongoing consultation and training, as well as virtual teaching and therapies. Sadly, some families have received little support and have had to create structures and home programming with little guidance. It is also important to recognize that every family is unique in terms of the resources that they may have to support home-based learning, as well as possible fluctuation in availability and resources to carry out home-based instruction that may occur over time.

Your question is an excellent one. Our response comes from a place that accepts that we are in a period of transition that was not planned or initially well designed. Nonetheless, there are steps we can take now, which include asking questions that will improve the quality of the home-based instruction moving forward. You will see that we have provided you with numerous questions that may help guide your conversations with his team. Furthermore, so much can be learned about how Sammy adjusts that can be shared with his team and inform future conversations, priorities, and goals. It is that spirit in which we offer you this reply.

By way of background, we want to first acknowledge some of the many contributions that parents may offer to help shape their children’s intervention efforts. Taken together, these bear tremendous relevance to COVID-19 and position you well to help improve the quality of your son’s home-based learning.

Parents were already important information providers:

• Parents, like yourselves, are walking historians of their children’s lives and have rich, firsthand knowledge.
• Parents have extensive familiarity with their children in a variety of settings and situations outside of school.
• Parents often inform the selection of potential motivators (reinforcers) that can be used at school and in other settings (e.g., “he loves basketball”).
• Parents can provide useful input about treatment targets (i.e., goals, new skills to be taught).

And now with instruction in the home:

• Parents can more deeply participate in the ongoing selection of treatment goals.
• Parents can identify targets that are likely to be reinforced in the natural environment (i.e., what skills are valuable for Sammy to possess right now and in the future).
• Parents can provide the professional with important information about carryover across materials, people, situations, and settings (presence or absence of generalization), whether mastered skills continued over time (maintenance), and unexpected benefits emerging such as improved sibling interactions as a result of more structured family time (collateral effects).

Now back to your question. If your family is carrying out family-led instruction, you are likely learning a lot about your son, such as how Sammy learns, which skills readily carry over and which do not, and where he may struggle. We encourage you to maintain very close contact with Sammy’s teacher and other service providers and direct your questions to them.

We are hoping that you have already gained a better sense of the roles and responsibilities of various members of your team, particularly if your contact with the related service providers had been minimal prior to COVID-19. If you would like more guidance, our colleagues at Attentive Behavior Care recently authored an article on this very topic which may help you to determine whom would be the best person to address your questions. If unsure, it would be fine to ask, or to copy, more than one provider on your inquiry (ensuring of course that these providers have your consent to collaborate). This is a very appropriate time to develop a clearer understanding of roles, as well as a mutually satisfying agreement about the nature and frequency of communication.

Based on your observations and impressions, coupled with your existing familiarity with behavior analytic intervention, please reflect on some of the questions below, which may help you better communicate feedback and concerns to your team at school.

Related to Your Role

• What role did you play in Sammy’s intervention before COVID-19 and how did it evolve given that Sammy is not in school? How has it continued to evolve?
• Do you have a clear sense of your current role and what is expected of you?
• Are you comfortable with your role? Do you feel overwhelmed? Are there specific aspects that are more challenging to you?
• What assistance have you been provided to support that role?
• Have you been able to express your feelings to the school about shifting roles?
• What might you do differently to better communicate with the school (e.g., check in more regularly, set limits, say no, ask for support, request help with prioritization)? 

Related to Reinforcement

• Is the motivation system that you are using clear? Does Sammy need visual support to understand those expectations?
• Are the motivators powerful? Does your son remain interested in them? Do you have a broad array from which to choose?
• Do you need clarity in how best to deliver the reinforcer (i.e., how it should be set up)? Do you know exactly what to deliver, when, for how long, etc.?
• Are new motivators needed? Do you have ideas on what they may be?
• How can they be identified and their strength assessed (which ones may be highly preferred versus moderately preferred)? Do you need assistance keeping reinforcers motivating?

Related to Teaching

• Do you need help structuring the day? What role can visuals play in supporting and conveying that structure?
• Do you know which mastered skills should be practiced? Which ones shouldn’t?
• Will you be teaching new skills? Do you understand how the new skills build on old ones, and which skills will be built on these? Are the adjustments you should make when teaching a brand new skill clear?
• When targeting new skills, is Sammy responsive to your efforts to fade prompts? In other words, are you observing increasing independence in Sammy’s ability to demonstrate the desired skill? Would it help to arrange a video session to have someone watch and give guidance to you?
• Do you need assistance in developing a “user-friendly system” for collecting some data to track the acquisition of his skills?

Related to Retention and Carryover of Skills

• Are previously mastered skills still present? Are those skills consistent? Are they produced independently and in a timely manner? Are you concerned about any aspect of these skills in particular (e.g., consistency, quality of responding)?
• If there are concerns, for which component of the skills are these observed? Be specific.
• Given that teaching may be different than what was carried out at school, are you observing limited carry over of already mastered skills? As there can be many reasons for limited carryover, do you think this may be related to the task being set up differently? Different instructions? Different materials? Different instructors?

Related to Family Life

• What has this experience been like for you and your family? How are things going with your spouse/partner/significant other? Other children/siblings?
• Which aspects have been hard? Which aspects have been easier to manage?
• Are there any skill deficits that were easier to manage before but not more challenging? What grew harder? What grew easier?
• Are you observing an increase in challenging behaviors? Are new behaviors emerging? What are the recurring triggers or antecedents (i.e., what happened right before the behavior occurred)?
• Do you have a sense of what “replacement behaviors” can be taught and/or reinforced (i.e., desired behaviors that may “replace” or, at least, decrease the likelihood of the challenging behavior)?
• In light of any shifts in family life and activity, are there new skills that you believe you are well positioned to target (e.g., more independent bathroom routines, texting grandma, participating in outdoor gardening, following a simple recipe)?
• Do you need guidance in teaching these skills such as assessing present level of performance, laying out a progression of teaching steps, or prioritizing desired outcomes?
• Could you use any guidance in taking steps to improve the quality of the sibling relationship in general, or in certain sibling interactions more specifically?
• With respect to sibling interaction, are there any new or different behaviors you would like to see? More of something? Less of another? Would it help to schedule joint leisure time in which siblings could play a board game, watch a movie, or otherwise spend time together?

This list of questions is by no means exhaustive, but aims to provide you with a framework for communicating your questions and concerns with greater precision and clarity.

We don’t have a sense of how home-based instruction has gone for you and what you specifically may have encountered as a family; however, in the next part of our response, we would like to highlight some of the things that families may learn that can also be shared with the school team. Here are some hypothetical COVID-19 “epiphanies” to provide a framework for the types of discoveries that can be shared with the school team. 

“He needed a lot of help with making lunch.” Please reflect on important skills that have required a lot of assistance from you. Let the school know what those skills are and, more specifically, what type of help you needed to provide in order for your son to be successful.

Lesson learned: Weak skills that are observed at home often make new IEP goals. Alternatively, your providers may be able to give you suggestions on how you can target those skills more effectively at home now.

“I had no idea that he couldn’t sign his name.” As your son participates in home-based instruction, and has more opportunities to go into the community with you (to the extent feasible and safe), skills that are completely missing may become evident to you for the first time. These may not have been apparent to you prior to COVID-19. Take note of them and, if necessary, keep a running list.

“Wow! I had no idea that he could actually load the dishwasher all by himself!” Over the last few months, you may have discovered some skills of which you were previously unaware. For any number of reasons, most students with autism are not likely to boast of newly acquired skills at school. Share this observation with the team, as the responsible parties will be happy to learn that the skills carried over. Celebrating successes is exciting feedback for everyone, and also ensures that a balanced conversation is had when you’re addressing concerns and skill deficits.

Lesson learned: Be on the lookout for emerging skills that may have been targeted at school. As progress reports are shared in the future, be sure to continue to ask for examples of newly acquired school-based skills, and how these could be practiced at home.

“My son is now an expert at watering plants, setting the table, and can double knot his shoes.”

In a related vein, it is quite likely that new skills you have taught– perhaps even some that are unexpected– have emerged over the last few weeks while your son has been at home. Share these clearly and proudly with school staff. As suggested above, it may be helpful to write these down so they can he shared later, and so that they are maintained and generalized to school once normal activities resume.

Lesson learned: It is far better to over-communicate than to under communicate, when it comes to newly acquired skills. Communication about expectations is the soil in which consistency can take root. Further, it allows the team to add it to their knowledge base about your child, giving them more information with which to make their recommendations.

Finally, we want to offer five “take-away” suggestions that may help you look to the future and guide some of your communications and priorities in the months ahead:

1. Self-advocate. If you need more help, ask. If you feel overwhelmed, say so; and ask for assistance in developing a more feasible and manageable role (both now and in the future). If the schedule and expectations become unmanageable at a later time, let the team know. If you want to play a larger role, articulate what is driving that and what that might look like. If you need more training, ask yourself what you want to do better and discuss that with your team.

2. Go easy on yourself. There was and is no blueprint for how to manage the myriad of disruptions, obstacles, and losses associated with COVID-19. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy so give yourself grace. It is OK not to be amazing everyday. Perhaps realistic, weekly goals can be helpful (“Next week, I want to try to do better at …”).

3. Embrace what you have learned. Although this pandemic has brought much stress and sadness to so many families, this crisis has provided opportunities for learning. All of us – parents and professionals alike – can grow and benefit from the many lessons learned. The task ahead is how to translate these new skills, knowledge, and experiences into long-term gains.

4. Work toward a shared vision for your son’s future. Such a vision should be discussed widely, operationalized, and revisited frequently. Questions for teams to consider may include:

• “What is our mission for Sammy this year?” “What do we want most to accomplish?”
• “What is the single most important IEP goal that trumps all others?”
• “What will Sammy need in 5 years?” “How do we get there?”
• “What are the biggest barriers and obstacles for future success?” “Which of these relate to Sammy?” “Which relate to his services?”
• “Are we on the right path?” “If so, what needs to continue?” “If not, what should change and what can we do differently now?”’
• “Is Sammy able to participate in these conversations” “Is there a mechanism to engage him in goal selection and decision making?” “What would be needed to make that a meaningful experience for him?”

5. Communicate, communicate, and don’t forget to communicate. By way of a quick review, this would pertain to your concerns, your questions, and your achievements as a family.Please take the time to review the other related articles in this special issue of Science in Autism Treatment and we wish you all the best in the months ahead.

Citation for this article:

Celiberti, D., & Weiss, M. J. (2020). A Clinical Corner on home schooling during COVID-19: What questions, concerns, and input can be provided to the school? Science in Autism Treatment, 17(4).

David Celiberti, PhD, BCBA-D, is the Executive Director of ASAT and Past-President, a role he served from 2006 to 2012. He is the Editor of ASAT’s monthly publication, Science in Autism Treatment. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from Rutgers University in 1993 and his certification in behavior analysis in 2000. Dr. Celiberti has served on a number of advisory boards and special interest groups in the field of autism, applied behavior analysis (ABA), and early childhood education. He works in private practice and provides consultation to public and private schools and agencies in underserved areas. He has authored several articles in professional journals and presents frequently at regional, national, and international conferences. In prior positions, Dr. Celiberti taught courses related to ABA at both undergraduate and graduate levels, supervised individuals pursuing BCBA certifications, and conducted research in the areas of ABA, family intervention, and autism.

Mary Jane Weiss, Ph.D., BCBA-D, LABA, is a Professor at Endicott College, where she has been for 9 years, and where she serves as the Executive Director of ABA and Autism Programs, including directing the Ph.D. Program in ABA. Dr. Weiss also does research with the team at Melmark. She has worked in the field of ABA and Autism for over 35years. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Rutgers University in 1990 and she became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst in 2000. She previously worked for 16 years at the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center at Rutgers University. Her clinical and research interests center on defining best practice ABA techniques, exploring ways to enhance the ethical conduct of practitioners, teaching social skills to learners with autism, training staff to be optimally effective at instruction and at collaboration, and maximizing family members’ expertise and adaptation. She is on the board of ASAT.

If you're looking for more resources on teaching social skills to younger learners, check out our new curriculum: Pre-Communication Social Engagement Skills!

Sharing and cooperative play are among the most difficult skills for children to learn, whether or not they have a diagnosed disability. Why is sharing so hard? Because it necessarily involves giving something up, and usually it’s something highly preferred that is being forfeited. Cooperative play is similarly challenging because there’s often an element of compromise required. Play isn’t cooperative if one partner is getting his or her way the whole time; what makes it cooperative is the give and take. Taking is usually easier for some children than giving, and most children struggle when asked to share their toys or their parents’ attention, but there are ways to make it easier to learn these important social skills.

First, most simply, reinforce sharing and cooperation as you would reinforce any behavior that you want to see more of. Often when a child is asked to share or to compromise, the immediate and only consequence for that behavior is losing something that he or she was enjoying. This is not going to be effective for increasing sharing and cooperating in the long run, but we can add reinforcers that make it more motivating to engage in these responses again in the future. If a child shares his toys and receives lavish praise and maybe access to even better toys as a reward, he may be more likely to want to share in the future. Similarly, being willing to take turns or let someone else “go first” in a game might be more likely to happen in the future if that behavior is followed by some other reinforcer like getting an extra turn or the option of picking the game next time.

Second, approach sharing and cooperation as skills to be built up gradually. This might mean stacking the deck for success initially. Sharing and cooperation can be easier to teach when the target peers are likely to be cooperative and patient. Both areas of social skills may be modeled from peers, perhaps slightly older children, who are willing to demonstrate how to share and cooperate. Peers who are willing to take “short turns” and quickly return shared items, or to accept small concessions at first, are also going to be better partners for the learner who is only just developing these social skills, rather than peers who might be trying to learn the same lessons at the same time.

It can also be a lot easier to encourage sharing and cooperation if the games and activities where they are being practiced are not competitive. It may be harder to recruit cooperation or sharing when there is a clear “loser” and “winner” as an outcome, resulting in extra motivation to do the opposite of sharing and cooperating. Poker players don’t cooperate or share with each other, because they want to win. But, sharing and cooperating are less costly and in fact often enjoyable when applied in creative, productive situations. Having children practice cooperation and sharing when doing a craft together, for example, may be more effective than during a competitive activity.

Finally, don’t jump to complex social skills like sharing and cooperating until the child has the basic skills in place for the target activities. It would be a lot to expect someone to learn how to do something else while also learning to share and cooperate. To return to the idea of working on sharing and cooperating during a craft activity, make sure that craft is something that isn’t entirely new to the learner and that he or she has the basic skills to do the activity. This will take some of the pressure off and make sure that the focus of learning can be on the more complex social skills.

About The Author 

Dana Reinecke is a doctoral level Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and a New York State Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA).   Dana is an Assistant Professor and Department Chair of the Department of Special Education and Literacy at Long Island University Post.  Dana provides training and consultation to school districts, private schools, agencies, and families for individuals with disabilities.  She has presented original research and workshops on the treatment of autism and applications of ABA at regional, national, and international conferences.  She has published her research in peer-reviewed journals, written chapters in published books, and co-edited books on ABA and autism.  Current areas of research include use of technology to support students with and without disabilities, self-management training of college students with disabilities, and online teaching strategies for effective college and graduate education.  Dana is actively involved in the New York State Association for Behavior Analysis (NYSABA), and is currently serving as President (2017-2018).