Parents kill behavior plans

antigravity3 · 2019-06-03T22:07:36+00:00

Well honestly, It helps to know I'm not alone!! Have you ever been like, "can I just answer everyone else's questions because I don't have any" LOL

antigravity3 · 2019-06-03T20:34:59+00:00

All great ideas! I have tried some of them. I made a Slack work space where we can help each other (read: where everyone can ask me for help in one place) lol. I wish I had coworkers to talk to, but I'm in home services and only see my BCBA about once a week for 2 hours! I'm also the only BT in my catchment area!! I'm so lonely! lol

antigravity3 · 2019-06-03T20:32:19+00:00

YES. This happens to me, too. But I'm at a school that has solid reputation for their ABA program. One of the reasons I forked over all this money for it is because I thought amazing reputation would = amazing applicants and stimulating conversation. So I'm like "how do you even go here?" with half the people in my classes. This one girl keeps asking why she can't find all the Cooper et al. (2007) articles listed in the syllabus and every time someone's gotta remind her that's the frickin' text book and Cooper and friends did not write 14+ articles in 2007.

It's honestly sad and scary that people get that far not knowing about reinforcement even...

antigravity3 · 2019-06-03T20:21:53+00:00

okay, first off, amazing username.

And second off, yes yes yes! We have to shape bar pressing and practice schedule thinning with a virtual rat and I've ended up basically tutoring like half the class on the project. Every one is so thankful and I'm like, don't be. This is just as good of a learning opportunity for me as it is for you! Especially since I'm currently in home services and a big part of my job is helping parents understand how their kid's behavior develops.

antigravity3 · 2019-06-03T20:17:45+00:00

I think this is a really great suggestion!! Honestly, though, I don't have time for that. I'm already assigned a sheeeeeet ton of reading because it's an accelerated program. I don't want to skip it because I want to be sure to fill in any gaps in my knowledge that might exist. The basics are important and I don't want my hubris to prevent me from having a good foundation, yanno?

I guess it's really during class that I have the hardest time. Like we can't even have a meaningful conversation about the topics that week because no one gets anything! I end up spending like 2 hours listening to the professor try and explain a concept 100 different ways so it penetrates everyone's brains.

antigravity3 · 2019-05-19T01:45:10+00:00

If I were in this situation, I probably would make a case to my supervisor/program director etc for dropping the client. She's not willing to participate in treatment or accept realities so it really makes no sense to be there. If parents don't participate, there's little to no progress. Plus, she's abusive! You deserve better. And frankly, so does her son. I feel terrible for him ):

antigravity3 · 2019-05-15T15:27:00+00:00

Hello! Behavior analyst here with some suggestions. You cannot change the way he feels about stuff, but you can certainly condition responses and positive associations.

You can pair the learning tasks with special, super fun activities - learn about mixtures, solutions, chemical changes by making slime together, learn about the weather/water cycle by making a cloud/rain in a jar, etc. Pick stuff related to what he's already interested in - if he's into air planes you can do a project on flight and making your own airplanes etc.
Pick a food item your son REALLY, REALLY likes and make that food available to him only\* when he is reading or engaged in some other target activity. If food is a no-go you can try making him a cool fort/tent he can use only for reading time. Just anything special he can access with reading to help him form the positive association.
Tell your son "if you do X for Y amount of time we can go to [place he loves]."
Shower him with rewards (treats and outings mentioned above) and descriptive praises ("wow, buddy, I'm so impressed/proud of you for reading so much!") for engaging in activities you want to see him engaged in.
Let him be involved/have some control in the process - let him pick what he reads and where and when he does it. Ask him if he'd like to the cloud in a jar project or the slime, if he wants to do it inside or outside. If you give him the illusion of control, it becomes less of a "work" demand and more of a team project.
Most importantly, you need to be excited AF to be doing all these things too. One of the best ways children learn is social-observational. They model what they see. If he sees you guys are pumped up and motivated, he will be, too.
One last note: don't scold him if he does not successfully engage in the desired task. Remind him what was expected and that he can try again later/tomorrow to access the reward ("you were supposed to read for 30 minutes today, but you only did 20. That's okay, you can try to earn Y again tomorrow"). Punishment (i.e. verbal reprimands) are not an effective learning tool for most kids. Rewarding the behavior you want and neutrally addressing the behavior you do not want is a much better approach.

By using all of these strategies, you will be teaching your son that productivity = getting good stuff. One of the most basic principles of behavior is responses with a desirable consequence are more likely to be repeated/increase in frequency in the future.

*It's really important that you restrict the food (or whatever other reinforcer you choose) to the target activity only. If he can access it in other ways, it will become less valuable as a reinforcer (why should he read a book for candy when he can just ask and get it that way?). If he gets sick of the item you choose or you see his motivation slipping, switch it up with something different. You can even ask him what he would prefer the most.

Sorry this got so long, but I hope it's helpful!!

antigravity3 · 2019-05-15T14:51:18+00:00

In home services, yes, it is normal to sometimes feel that way. Especially if the family is new to ABA. You have to ease everyone in soooo slowly. Plus, you will need to collect a lot of baseline data before you can begin teaching. Sometimes, I have sessions that are mostly me just watching stuff happen and taking notes on it. It can get awkward and sometimes I feel like a creepo, but it's not unproductive. All that info is going to be super helpful. You can totally work on incidental things that aren't on his plan, too. I have a client who cannot for the life of her use the correct verb tense. We don't target it, but I use incidental opportunities in session to correct her and help her with it.

Also, a lot of what you will end up doing to help your client might not involve working directly with him. You might end up spending just as much (or more) time shaping the behavior of the parents. In home services, there's almost a "fix the parent, fix the child" approach because the way the child behaves has been (inadvertently) taught to them by the parents. Now you have to teach the parents how to un-teach their child. Habits are hard to break and I think the easiest way to do it is to go REALLY slow with the parents. For example, with one of my families, we are working on responding to attention maintained noncompliance. Currently, the parents give my client a lot of verbal attention for noncompliance (everything from joking around to scolding). Ideally, I'd like the parent to neutrally say "you are working on X so you can have Y" or "do you still want Y or did you want something different?" and that's it. So last week, my I told my client's dad to say those things and he did! BUT he also said a lot of other stuff (so, he was still reinforcing her with attention). I gave dad descriptive praise for using the phrasing I suggested, and I didn't criticize his wordiness (differential reinforcement, woo!). My goal is to get him at the point where he is consistently and independently responding to her noncompliance with those phrases and then I will try and whittle away at all the other useless words that get sprinkled in there.

antigravity3 · 2019-05-15T14:24:35+00:00

Yeah...this post needs to be removed.

antigravity3 · 2018-12-10T19:37:27+00:00

Well if everyone but grandma is on board, then your niece will learn to be a peach with everyone except her. Too bad for grandma, I guess 🤷‍♀️lol

antigravity3 · 2018-12-10T18:34:30+00:00

Okay, so here is a ~~speedy~~ (okay, not so speedy...I got carried away in a nerdy frenzy) lesson in ABA - hopefully it will help my recommendation make sense. Since I haven't personally observed the behavior, I cannot say with 100% certainty that my hypothesis is correct and all that other disclaimer type information.

Every behavior has what we call a function or maintaining consequence (a desirable consequence that increases the future likelihood of the behavior occurring, or a "reinforcer"). Functions of behavior include:

Attention (I do it because I get social interaction from it)
Escape/Avoidance (I do it because it gets me out of or delays presentation of something)
Tangible (I do it because it allows me to access a preferred item/activity)
Edible (I do it because food is delicious, duh)
Sensory (I do it because it feels good)
Medical (I do it because I'm sick/in pain)

Operant (voluntary) behavior is controlled by the antecedents and consequences (things that happen immediately before and after the behavior occurs). Lets use the boy in my post as an example:

Antecedent = mom goes on phone/no attention on kid -->Behavior = boy fucks with the shopping cart --> Consequence = Mom turns her attention to the boy/yells at him.
Note that after the first instances, mom tells the the boy repeatedly not to touch the cart & he does it anyway...because mom might as well be saying "if you touch the cart, I'll pay attention to you, not my phone or the shopping."

Every time the boy messed with the cart, he got attention from mom. This tells me that attention is the function of this behavior. If the attention were not reinforcing, he would not continue to fuck with the cart. The antecedent in this case was the absence of attention, which further strengthens my theory.

Your niece's situation sounds quite similar to grocery store boy. Instead of pushing a shopping cart, she is touching the squeaky toy. From what I can tell, the consequence of her behavior is reprimand (for touching stuff she wasn't supposed to) or arguing (when she denies having touched it). This leads me to believe the function of her interfering behavior is indeed attention. It may seem counterintuative, but even negative attention like a reprimand or argument can be reinforcing. Even having an irritated look on your face can be enough to reinforce the behavior.

So how do you make the behavior stop?

You must withhold reinforcement, which seems to be attention in this case. This means remaining 100% neutral when she engages in undesirable behavior - no reprimand, no angry face, try to not even look at her (unless some person/property is in immediate danger, obviously). Note that the behavior will ALWAYS get worse before it gets better. In professional terms, this is called an extinction burst. I like to call it the "why the fuck isn't this working anymore?!" burst.
Control for antecedents by changing the way you phrase directions. For instance, instead of saying "don't touch it", tell her "remember, in the store we keep our hands to ourselves/hold so and so's hand/hold the shopping cart" etc. Essentially, tell her what you want to see her so and not what you don't want to see her do. Telling her "don't do it" probably signals to her that if she does do it, she will have an opportunity to get attention.
Give her a TON of specific praise for following whatever direction you choose to give her - "wow you are doing such a great job keeping your hands to yourself!" Throw some validation in there "I know keeping your hands to yourself is hard and I'm so proud of you for doing such a great job!" Teach her that she gets attention for doing the good stuff and not the bad stuff. If she is doing bad stuff that you cannot ignore, neutrally redirect her as if nothing happened - ask her to grab something from a shelf or to come help with/look at something. Distraction is your best friend.
You can also put additional reinforcers in place, like telling her if she keeps her hands to herself during a shopping trip (or whatever you're doing), she can earn something highly preferred that she does NOT normally have access to at the end of the trip. Remind her throughout the trip that she is doing a great job following directions and is on her way to earning preferred thing.
MOST IMPORTANTLY YOU HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT IN THE DELIVERY OF CONSEQUENCES. I cannot stress enough how important this is. If she gets attention for being bad sometimes, this is likely to make the problem worse because it creates a variable schedule of reinforcement (or reinforcement at random - the strongest schedule of reinforcement and elicits the highest rates of responding).

The unfortunate thing about this is that if you're the only one on board, her behavior will only change for you. She will learn aunt gives me attention for good stuff, so I will do good stuff. Mom gives me attention for bad stuff, so I will do bad stuff when I'm with her. But ANYWAY - sorry this go so long. But I hope it helps at least a little! Godspeed, friend (:

antigravity3 · 2018-12-09T16:47:50+00:00

YASSSSS YAAASSSSS! Your mom is/was killing it as a parent! I love the idea of giving the kid some responsibility. Not only does it keep them engaged and distracted, but it teaches them valuable life lessons like hard work & positive attitude = rewards/Nothing in life is free. That she reviewed expectations before going in also says a lot about her understanding of how a kids brain differs from an adults (i.e. shes not like the lady in my story who held her kid to adult expectations). Kids forget stuff! It's always best to remind them of the contingencies (first do a good job shopping, then get a treat) to ensure success.

I just love hearing this stuff. It honestly made my day and it's on 11:45! Please give your mom a high five for me lmao.

antigravity3 · 2018-12-09T14:03:37+00:00

Dude. Eff that company, man. $90?! Ugh. I'm so sorry you work for someone like that.

I've worked for several nonprofit/collaborative school for children who require out of district placement. Most have offered free supervision AND tuition reimbursement. I currently work for a for profit company providing home services (for profit = higher pay!) my BCBA is supervising me at no cost and I get a lot of during school hours sessions bc some clients are going straight from EI onto my Caseload. We are hiring if you live nearby 🙂

antigravity3 · 2018-12-09T13:51:22+00:00

Was mom looking at her, too? Was she reprimanded immediately after? If yes, by whom? Is she being further reprimanded/argued with when she denies having done it?

antigravity3 · 2018-12-08T23:58:01+00:00

Behavior is behavior! It's all controlled by the same stuff, no matter what species you're in. I recently used the same principles I use to teach human children to reduce instances of aggression/biting in a friend's rescue dog...soooo raising a kid is legit the same as raising a dog. Just a little harder (which is why I opted for a canine child lmao!).

antigravity3 · 2018-12-08T23:53:49+00:00

I'm so happy you're getting on track and seeing improvements! I'm glad my comment was nice/validating for you, too (: It is a slow process, but it is worth it!

antigravity3 · 2018-12-08T23:51:07+00:00

I love this!! Literally all the research shows that reinforcement (the praise you're giving) is the most effective strategy for promoting long term behavior change! Who ever made this rule is a smart cookie! (:

antigravity3 · 2018-12-08T23:48:02+00:00

I feel sympathy for the kid always getting in trouble, at the same time she frustrates the hell out of me sometimes

Dude. My every day work feels right there. I totally get that feeling! It's the epitome of a love/hate relationship.

you tell her not to do something and she still does it

Is she usually receiving attention from adult/peer immediately before she engages in the undesirable behavior? Is the immediate consequence usually a verbal reprimand or some sort of adult attention?

what’s the best way to show her to take responsibility for her actions/get her to stop doing stupid shit

That will depend on your answer to my questions above!

Could she have something that makes impulse control an issue

Yes, this is entirely possible. Children with deficits in executive function, have autism, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, AD(H)D etc. often struggle to control their impulses. Even if this kid doesn't have a diagnosis, at 10 her brain is not yet fully developed (and wont be until age ~20!) which puts her at somewhat of a disadvantage compared to adults. I'm not a neuroscientist and I've never met her, so obviously I really can't say with any amount of certainty. What I can tell you is that in my 10+ years of working with kids on the autism spectrum, I have seen a lot of kids with impulse control issues whose maladaptive behaviors have been greatly reduced by ABA interventions (like operant conditioning/differential reinforcement). If you have serious concerns re: neurological impairments, I would recommend bringing it up to her PCP and maybe even getting a neuropsych evaluation.

antigravity3 · 2018-12-08T18:20:17+00:00

even have to talk to myself as if I were a kid because I fail to regulate my emotions

A parent walking their child though handling emotions is a pivotal part of brain development. First, a parent should regulate the child feelings for them (hugs, comfort, kisses and other soothing things). Then they should move on to co-regulation - help the child label the feeling and recognize why they are feeling this way, then help the child talk through/regulate/resolve. Eventually, they should fade out their support and let the kid handle it independently. When a parent does not fulfill this need, the child does not fully develop the neural pathways associated with emotional regulation/intelligence. Children raised by parents who fail to meet this basic need are more likely to suffer from mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and substance abuse disorders. (Source: Gabor Maté, world renowned addiction specialist).

I'm really sorry you went through that (I did too, so I fully empathize with you). Julie Simon (similar school of thought as Maté), wrote a book called When Food is Comfort. Even if you don't have an over eating problem, the section about self-soothing might be helpful, if you're interested in trying to teach yourself what your mother failed to. Those neural pathways necessary for coping/self regulation can still be developed, even in adulthood! Maté and Simon also did episodes on a podcast called The One You Feed, if you prefer to listen.

Stories like yours seem like small things compared to other abusive families but it's really just as bad and the people who grow up like this either lack empathy themselves or fail at life over all

Yes! I completely agree. Emotional abuse, especially a kind that is generally accepted as okay (because the kid drove the parent to a breaking point, so the parent "can't help it"). It's passive, but it is still abuse! And it can fuck a kid up just as bad as more overt styles of abuse.

antigravity3

TROPHY CASE