Teaching Interaction (TI)

The 5 steps of Teaching interaction (TI):

1)Labeling and Initiation-skill should be clearly defined, always used age appropriate language. Conversational style should match the student's ability and level of understanding. It must be clearly defined too

2)Rationale- Do not ever give the rote rationale ie If we want to teach him to play with friends, don't ever say that it's fun to play with friends cause it is not a strong rationale. He will most likely think it's more fun playing alone. Always give the rationale that he really needs.

3)Describing and Demonstration- know the task analysis steps, have to make sure the students understand the steps by making him reiterate or one can demonstrate it. One can also use descrimination training to see whether the kid can discriminate between the good and the bad demonstration. Remember not to ask the kid any questions in this stage, always just tell them the answer in order not to confuse them.

4)Practice- The kid can start doing it, slowly shape the kid's action

5)Feedback- provide feedback after the practice, make it more positive and if the kid is not good enough, we can make him practice again.

6)Consequences (optional)- a reinforcer but most often we don't really need it cause by knowing the skill, it's already an intrinsic motivation.

Ivan update and some questions regarding on the new programs (29/09/06)

This is an update on Ivan to my fellow therapists and my program supervisor:

Hey all, Ivan was not really good today. He didnt get to
go to the park and only got the 4 blue tokens once.

Easy worksheets: He was not doing it correctly so he got to trace
the line. And for tracing the line, he didnt do it nicely too (didnt
trace it on the line). So i made him do it over and over again. And
everytime he traced the line, i would ask him whether it's nice to
do it. He would say it's not nice and he didnt like tracing it. Hence,
i gave him the rationale that it would be better to do the sums correctly
so that you don't have to trace the line as a punishment and able to
get the tokens to choose what you want. He was able to understand this
but somehow still didnt trace nicely. After a really long time of tracing,
i told him that i would give him a chance to try the worksheet again.
He did better this time round getting 3 correct but still have to do
another cause only 3 correct. And finally i had some really simple
sums for him to do ie 1+2, 1+3. He got 7 right this time round. But
he was quite stressed by then as he really didnt want to do the tracing.
After he got his 4 tokens, he didnt want to do the worksheet when i
told him to.

Conversation: went really well today. This is his most preferred programs now as compared to all other work programs.

Directing: pretty good with this, able to direct me and saying it slowly at the same time

Storytelling: He was able to start with one day, and then. written prompt went well with it.

Following instructions: so much better compared to easy worksheet. He was able to get 6/8.


Questions:
1) Should i make sure that he really trace it nicely then he can stop doing
it? Cause it seems that he can't really do it nicely even with only a
curve

2)How long do i let him play with the reinforcers if he got all the 4 tokens?
Is it going to be real short like for normal DDT or we can develop
his interest with the reinforcer?

3)How do we take data for the easy worksheet? Do i only give a + if he got
all 10 correct? If that's the case, his data will always be -

4)What should i do if he say he doesnt want to do the easy worksheet? He
did this today. I feel that we should increase his success rate by
giving him real easy questions first and slowly build up

5) For storytelling, do i have to finish the whole story first in
order for him to tell me or can i ask him some questions along the
way?

As Ivan is an much older ASD kid (14 yrs old), we are doing teaching interaction (TI) instead of Discrete Trial Teaching (DTT)

I got my FOURTH kid!!

Ok, this entry was a bit late cause i was out of town and only got back today. I got a new kid called Derek. He is around 5 years old, using PICTURE EXCHANGE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM (PECS) to communicate. He is under lots of COMMUNICATION TEMPTATION(CT) too. Basically, his main program is to teach him to speak and communicate. We are trying to find out the words that he knows so that we can teach him to say those words and use it. Beside words, we are also teaching him to make sounds. This is important as it progresses into saying words and statements. He is a smart kid and i know that he will be doing well. I'll write more about his program when i start teaching him=)

Nick's new program

Nick has a new program. It's triple retrieval(TR). He has been doing double retrieval(DR) out of chair now and this TR is done in the chair. In the chair means that he does not have to move out of his chair to get the objects. So what's exactly DR ot TR? For double retrieval, it actually means that the kids have to listen to the 2 objects that i want and get it for me For example: I would say "Get me spiderman and batman". The kids have to pay attention and get it according to the what i say first. AS for TR, it basically means to get 3 objects so that also means that the kids have to pay real attention and remember it in order.

You must be wondering what the real function of DR and TR is. Imagine this: what would happen to you if there's no order in your life? I think it'll be chaotic. Also, we need to follow a certain order to do things. Just take wearing shoes for example, we cant wear the shoes first and then wear the socks. And in our normal daily life, we also needs to listen to lots of instructions, remember them and do it.

In a nutshell, DR and TR teache the ASD kids to be attentive and train their memory and also teach them to do things in order=)

So let's talk about how Nick fair for his DR and TR. He did pretty well for DR. He used to be really bad at this. He would just grab the first object without waiting for me to finish what i said. And if i stopped him, he would scratch me. This is how bad he was at the beginning. But now, he'll wait for me to finish saying my statement. TR was not that good now cause it's a new program and he has to listen and remember 3 objects now. This may be hard as he needs to pay real attention. I'm prompting him quite a lot now. I would say the 1st object first and when he touched the 1st object, i would then say the 2nd and the 3rd objects. He did pretty well with this prompt. Hopefully, i'll be able to fade the prompt soon=)

The difference between ABA and normal teaching

So what's the difference between using ABA approach and normal teaching? ABA approaches are sometime also called Discrete Trial Teaching (DTT). This is also the approach i use to teach my ASD kids. Ok, let me talk about DTT for a little bit first.

DTT:
1)breaking a skill into smaller parts
2)teaching a sub skill one at a time until it's mastered
3)provide concentrated teaching
4)provide prompts when the kids are unable to do it and to
increase their success rate. Fade prompt when necessary.
5)reinforcers are a must in these teaching

In DTT, it involves many trials, with each trial having a beginning and an end. It follows the ABC models, each concists of a (A) an antecedent which can be an instruction or a request, (B)a behaviour which is the response from the kid and (C)a consequence which can be a feedback ranging from positive to negative.

Now that you know DTT, let me give an example of DTT and normal teaching and you can compare and see the difference.

Scenerio 1
Teacher ask the kid to do a sum of 10 questions.
Teacher:Ok, let's do all these questions
Child:(look at teacher and start doing the question)
Child completed 3 questions.
Teacher: ok, let's do the rest.
Child continues doing it.
Child finally finshes all 10 questions
Child: I'm done
Teacher:(mark the questions)not bad, you got only 2 wrong, let do another 10 questions (look at the kid and smile).
This pattern carries on....

Before i carry on the 2nd scenerio, i just want you to think what will be the child reaction after doing 30 questions? Would he feel motivated? would he carry on doing the questions or be restless after 30 minutes?

Scenerio 2
Teacher: ok, today we are going to do some questions. Lets do the first question for me first.
Child does the questions.
Teacher:(marks the 2 questions)Well done, you got both of them right. Are you ready to get more right, smart kid? Let's do the next 2.
Child carries on.
Teacher:(marks and child got 1 wrong) Not bad this time, i know you tried(teacher goes through the question he did wrong)
Teacher:Ok, the next question is a hard one, lets do it together this time round
Child and teacher do the question together and do it right.
Teacher: Well, see it's not that difficult after all. Ok, you do the next one on you own.
Child does the question. This pattern carries on until he finishes 10 questions.
Teacher: Excellent job, you've done all the questions and you did really well. You can have a ten minutes break .

Can you spot the difference between scenerio 1 and 2? Which one is normal teaching and which is using ABA?

OK, scenerio 2 is using ABA. It uses DTT, folows the ABC model. It always start with an instruction, follows by the childs' behaviour or response then end with a feedback depending on the childs' actions. Also, unlike the normal teaching whereby the kid keeps doing the questions, DTT is broken down into smaller part, also prompts are given to help the child so they he can do it and be motivated. The child is also being praised for the tasks that he has done. And after all the questions, he is being reinforced unlike normal teaching where he has to do more questions.

In a way, in many teaching environment, most people are using normal teaching to teach the child but they don't realise it that it's not effective and the child will not be motivated. Who would be if you have to do so many boring tasks and not get rewarded? What i want to say is, DTT is a much more effective and it not only can be used to teach ASD kids effectively but also regular kids as they would understand the concept of rewarding and praises better.

So next time, always not to forget to praise you kid when they did something right and reward them accordingly. Too often, we tend to remember the bad stuffs and not the good=)

Johnny, the super off task(OT) king!!

All of the sessions went pretty well this week except for one session with Johnny. He was super off task (OT). This means that he was not paying attention to me whe i told him to do something. He would basically look everywhere instead of my direction and the tasks he had to do. I couldnt believe it that he could do it for like almost haif of the session (which is 1.5 hours). I tried enforcement prompting, holding his hand to get the taks done, also trying to get his attention back but it didnt help. He just totally ignored me. This is the first time that i feel so helpless. I've tried almost everything but i just couldnt get his attention. In fact, he had pretty strong reinforcer and by right he shouldnt have OT. Maybe it was one of those days that he just feel happy being in his own world and completely shut down on others. Haha, come to think of it, it's quite possible cause i tend to do this too when i just want to be left alone. I just hope that this does not happen to often with me cause i'm really at my wits end.

As for Nick, he was good at the preposition and attributes programs now. It's really great that he is quite a fast learner and he is also the easiest to teach among the 3 kids that i have. He is not really that high functioning as compared to Johnny but he is super compliance which makes programs really easy to teach. Johnny was actually quite high functioning, just that he still cant talk but i'm going into that. As for Ivan, he was quite low for his age but it doesnt matter cause whatever their age, whether they are low or high, they are also smart in my eyes. I know that they can learn and are willing to learn which is the good thing=)

Can ABA really treat autism?

I was reading a blog from Susansenator and there was a comment saying that ABA does not work, it does not treat autism. What the person say actually kind of make sense too. He came out with some questions that really make me wonder whether i'm doing the right things for all these ASD kids. Why do we have to teach them eye contact? Do that really feel happy when they are smiling? Is pacing up and down really that bad?
Actually when i really think of all these questions, all the answers are a big NO.

We teach ASD kids eye contact so that we will know that they are looking at us instead of rejecting us. In a way, we are making our lives easier working with ASD kids. And i don't think that pacing up and down is wrong, it's just that it's not good for us as we will get disturb by them. In actual fact, we are trying to make these ASD kids blend into our society, conform to our social norms. So they are of no difference as compared to us. The objective or the main motive of ABA to treat autism is to make them indistinguishable from regular kids. By saying that, it does not mean that they have recovered (in fact there is still no cure for autism). All i can say is that they can behave the same as regular kids and act like regular kids but i really have no idea whether they are happy. So, should we really use ABA to treat them to become indistinguishable or should we just leave them alone? (i think they will in fact be more happy). I really don't have the answer. Can someone tell me? Till now, i'll still practice ABA and treat them cause i really want them to be treated like regular kids.

De-structuring was quite a fun program to do

I did this new program, De-structuring with Johnny today. This program is basically to make the whole therapy session less structured. Initially, Johnny's sessions were always very structured as he was a really rigid boy. However, from this month onwards, we are going to de-structuring the whole therapy session. This is very important as we all know that in real life, it's not that structured.

Normally, his session would be held in his room but for today, i brought him out to the garden and did some programs there. In fact, i was bringing him in and out of his room to the garden (it was good exercise for him and me). Unexpectedly, he was pretty ok with it. It was quite fun too as it was more natural in a way (that we moved around in the house). It was also so funny to see him getting all his tokens when he rushed into his room to get his reinforcer.

Beside de-structuring, i also did the 'pointing program' whereby he has to see where i'm pointing at get the objects for me. He was pretty good at that too. Awesome!! Hope that he will be able to maintain or even improve when we start to de-structure more=)

Some new programs for Ivan and Nick

I had therapist sessions with Ivan and Nick yesterday and today. You must have read that they were both doing well at the clinic last month, hence they have some new programs for the therpy.

Ivan has a new program for his behaviour. Normally, he likes to touch anything or open any things that he can reach. He is quite impulsive in a way. So for this program, i'm teaching him to control himself and not get distractors by all the things that surround him. To start with, i just placed something that he like in front of him. However before i started that, i actually preempt him by telling him that i was going to place something in front of him and he was not supposed to touch it for 15 seconds. This is just the beginning for this program, gradually we will start increasing the number of distractors, altering the environment. He was able to stop himself from touching the items that i placed yesterday. Pretty good to start with. You must be wondering why are we teaching him this, what is the function behind this? Basically this is to teach him to control his behaviour as it will be quite destructive sometime if he needs to touch anything that he can find, also we are teaching him to be in focus and not get distracted by other things. This is extremely important as there are lots of things that need attention in order to do it ie sitting for an examination (how is he able to sit for 2 hours if he gets distractor easily, he will most probably not be able to finish his paper)

Another new program is "Recounting events". Ivan tends to get disoriented. He does not really know how to organise events. Sometimes when i was talking to him, the events often got disorganised and i would have no idea whether the event is going to take place or had taken place. He did pretty well for this but still not that solid. I asked him to recall the CDs that we listened to in order. He was able to do so when i laid out the CDs. However when i asked him without laying out the CDs, he was not able to do so. However, i can see that he has improved quite a bit fron the first day i saw him. ABA does help if one uses the right approach=)

As for Nick, i did "Preposition" of on/under. He doesnt really know them so i had to prompt him quite alot by having the word 'on' and 'under' on the chair and under the chair. He was able to put the items on the chair and under the chair with the help of the words. But when i remove both the words, he was not really good at it. So instead of removing both the words, i left one of the word 'on' on the chair, he was good at this and slowly i tried to fade my prompt. Hopefully, he will learn them in few more sessions cause there are so much for him to learn.

I also did "Attributes" big/small as he had mastered wet/dry. He was unsure about this too hence lots of prompting for this program. As one can expect, he was fussing for like 5 minutes during the session mainly because he gets frustrated when he was not able to do something or when he was not able to earn his tokens to have his reinforcer. One more new program under RI (1 step + colour out of chair). I'm suppose to give him instruction and he has to follow and do it ie Can you give me the "red" lego? (There are actually lots of other color and objects that have the same color, hence he needs to listen carefully in order to get the rght one). For this, he has to leave his chair, get it, sit back on his chair and give me the object. He did excellently with this one, smart kid=)

The Autistic ABA Therapist

I was searching for some ABA information when i came across this on the internet:
The Autistic ABA Therapist

This is a short clip about a lady who has autism and instead of getting help from others, she is actually a ABA therapist helping other kids with autism. Salute to her!! After watching this short clip, i just feel that i want to be a real good ABA therapist helping all these ASD kids. This is the least i can do=)

Techincal Skill For ABA

I realised that there are still so many skills for me to learn after this morning staff training on ABA. We had a kid today for training. He is able to match word to picture and match picture to word ie he was able to match the word 'ball' to the picture 'ball. However, the interesting thing is that he was not able to match word to object or object to the word. Isnt this interesting? Is there such a different between 2D and 3D (real objects). i don't think that there will be any difference for a regular person but definitely for an ASD kid, especially this kid.

So we have to think of a way to teach him to match picture to object and object to picture first. In fact, the real problem that he couldnt match them was because he was not paying much attention when there were objects and picture but once there was
words, he was able to do so. To start with, we had to intersperse the words and the picture and gradually built up his momentum to make him pay attention and after that. Bang!! He was able to do it.

I learnt so much things from this staff training. I learned that task analysis is really important. One has to find out what the real reason is in order to tackle the problem. We cant just help the kid blindly without knowing the situation and problem. Also, there are so many skills in ABA that i need to learn to be really good. I still have a long way to go but i know that i'm getting better as days go by. Yeah!!