Lesson 1: Introduction and the ABCs of Skills Teaching Introduction Depending on your childs level of neuro-cognitive development will

dictate how much or how little support you will have to give to then in order to complete a task. It is important to repeat a task or activity until your child is able to master that level of learning. Why are antecedent-based intervention strategies particularly useful with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder)? Many learners with ASD exhibit behaviors with learning and development (disruptive, self-injurious, and repetitive). Antecedent-based intervention strategies can be used across a variety of settings and activities to reduce interfering behaviors. The evidence base indicates that antecedent-based intervention strategies can be used with learners with ASD who are between 3 16 years of age. Before starting with your child, make a list of activities you would like to do with your child each day. You may want to document your childs response in each activity and give them a mark of competence. This will allow you to document their progress throughout their learning. You may even want to write a few notes on their behavior during the task (avoidance, didnt seem to understand the instructions, frustration, etc.) or learning obstacles in the environment. This will allow you to reflect on how to overcome these barriers in moving forward. Overview So often when a child is diagnosed on the spectrum not only do they have communication and social deficits but are also plagued with developmental delays. These delays can be defined as: significant delays in two or more developmental domains. These different areas of development delays may include: Gross motor skills Fine motor skills Brain hemisphere integration Speech and language development Oral motor development Gross motor skills muscle tone Visual perceptual skills Auditory and visual memory Hand-eye coordination

Since children diagnosed on the spectrum have difficulty learning in social developments, these development gaps can become pronounce. Being able to achieve mastery in these developmental areas are the foundations to being able to learn in an academic world. Trying to teach a child to read and write can be most difficult if they have not yet created the neural pathways in their brain to allow for such learning. Gross Motor Skills These involve actions using the large muscle groups in the body such as needed for crawling, running, jumping, kicking, and postural control. Gross motor development can be encouraged through safe open play. Development of gross motor abilities is less complicated than that of fine motor skills. A childs success is dependent on opportunities to practice and develop these large muscle groups. Each child develops differently and it is important that a child with low muscle tone not be pushed to perform tasks out of their ability as this will lead to frustration and unwillingness to participate. Activities need to be done in fun, motivating and possibly even in an interactive way. More of this will be in a later lesson. Fine Motor Skills Fine motor skills refer to the involvement of the small muscles in the body which control fine movement of the fingers, hands and wrists such as needed for writing, grasping small objects, doing up buttons, etc. These are important skills for both schooling and everyday life. Weaknesses in this domain can affect your childs independence of being to feed them self, dressing and grooming, drawing and writing, turn the pages in a book, or even the use of a computer. Brain Hemisphere Integration To allow optimal functioning and information processing it is important that the brain is able to integrate information from various areas of the brain to be able to coordinate a response. Both the right and left hemisphere of the brain need to communicate with each other and this occurs via corpus callosum. There are various terms relevant to this integration of information between the brain hemispheres. Lateralization The human brain is divided into two hemispheres left and right hemispheres. Lateralization of brain function means that there are

certain mental processes that are mainly specialized to one side or the other. Most mental functions are distributed across the hemispheres but there are specific processes that are specialized to one hemisphere. For example, both side of the brain perform functions related to language. But in most people, grammar and vocabulary are localized to the left side of the brain, while understanding the emotional content of language is a function of the right hemisphere. This describes the development of lateral dominance. The right hemisphere sends messages to the left side of the body and vice versa. Your childs ability to cross the midline is an important step to gaining lateralization of various body parts such as eyes, hands, feet and ears which are vitalsensory components. Midline Crossing This refers to the ability of one side of the body to cross over the other side by moving past the centre line of the body. Crossing the midline means that one hand spontaneously moves over to the other side of the body to work there. Why is midline crossing so important? When your child spontaneously crosses the midline with the dominant hand, then the dominant hand is going to get the practice that it needs to develop good fine motor skills. If your child avoids crossing the midline, then both hands will tend t get equal practice at developing skills, and your childs true handedness may experience delays. http://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/crossing-the-midline.html

Bilateral Integration This refers to the communication between the right and left hemisphere which allows for the two sides of the body to move together in a coordinated fashion. Bilateral Integration Dysfunction is due largely to the immature development integration of primitive reflexes and core muscle patterns. This result is an inability to use two sides of the body together, lack of lateral dominance (switches hand use where parents say their child is ambidextrous), and inability to cross the body midline. Often this translates to observing the child to have difficulty with directionality, inability knowing where the body is in space, have difficulty alternating limb movements, poor conjugate eye movements, or extreme gravitational insecurity (unusual fear for certain positions), being on their tummies, moving backwards, going downstairs,

etc., and difficulties executing activities of daily living skills of self dressing as they are to button or zip, and/or reversals of letters. http://www.senseablekids.com/sensInt.html Some signs that your child has not yet established dominance include switching hands when drawing or coloring or writing. They may draw on one side of the paper and when they kick a ball they will use a different foot each time.

If your child struggles with hemisphere integration they will struggle with: Perceiving left and right sides of objects and letters. Be uncertain about personal awareness of their body sides. Have difficulty accepting a change in rule or decision once it has been made. Have delayed language development. Unable to cross the midline. Struggle with developing gross and fine motor control. Possible difficulties in their ability to learning, reading and writing skills. The ABCs of Skills Teaching In this lesson you will be introduced to the foundations of teaching skills using the Applied Behavior Analysis process. Its a common sense approach to thinking systematically about how to teach your child new skills. You will learn how to define the process of teaching using 3 terms, Antecedents, Behavior, and Consequence. This process is an equation for success in teaching. Well gain an understanding of what reinforcement, or the act of rewarding is and more importantly what it is not. You will be given a way to select reinforcers that will increase the success of your skills teaching. Once you have a great variety of reinforcers, youll learn how to use them most effectively. Well introduce you to various schedules of reinforcement will maximize their value. And finally, youll learn how to put those reinforcers to work toward shaping or building from scratch, new and useful skills. We begin by breaking the process of teaching into 3 separate areas. These areas are Antecedent, which is anything that occurs before a behavior, or in this case skill you want to teach; Behavior, or skill that you want to teach;

and the Consequence, or anything that follows the behavior and will have an impact on whether the behavior will happen again. We will start by focusing on the first area the Antecedents; well refer to this point on the equation by the letter A. Remember, an Antecedent is anything that occurs before a behavior or skill. It actually acts like a trigger for that skill or occur. When teaching skills, the antecedents play a huge role in helping your child learn It becomes your job to arrange and control as many antecedents as you possibly can. With that in mind, there are some specific points to remember when trying to arrange antecedents that will effectively trigger a learning situation. First you will need to be sure that you have all materials needed to teach any skill. For example, if youre going to teach your child how to wash their hands, youre going to need some soap. By having all your materials presented and ready for use before you begin to teach, youll be able to create a comfortable flow to your teaching. If all your materials are ready to use when you begin, you wont have to stop and go get them. If you have to quickly run out to get something, youll be providing an opportunity for your child to lose interest in learning a new skill. In addition, one of the important factors in this area is that you have planned and practiced in advance exactly what you will be teaching during each session. The next thing we need to be aware of is the actual place or setting where youre going to teach the skill. When you think about it, it makes sense that the setting should have a relationship to the skill youre teaching. So if youre going to teach him or her how to wash their hands, the setting should include a sink. Also, choosing a setting with the least number of distractions is important, so it makes sense to teach hand washing in the bathroom. Just keep in mind that youll want to remove as many distractions as possible. These two components, materials and setting, help put the skill into context for your child. Trying to teach a self help skill, like hand washing, in a play area doesnt really provide the best context for your child. The context is closely related setting in that youre trying to establish a relationship between a skill and the need to produce the skill. In the beginning, the context for learning skills will be a teaching context. Later on it will be a need based context, like after he or she goes potty or comes in from playing in the dirt. Connected to context is the whole issue of time and timing. When you begin to become more systematic in your teaching, you will need to set aside specific times each day to have as teaching time. As youre choosing these times you will need to take into account the unique needs of your child.

Youre going to have to consider your childs sleeping schedule or patterns of tiredness. In addition, the teaching times you select must be times dedicated to teaching and not in competition with other activities in daily life. When you think about it, it wouldnt make sense to place a teaching session at the same time you have to pick your other children or take an important call. Likewise, youre going to want to avoid scheduling a session when your childs favorite show is on TV, plan ahead and utilize a recording device so your child can watch later. Once chosen, you should make your family, friends, and others aware that this time is for teaching and that you would really appreciate not being interrupted. Just keep in mind, the less distractions, the better. Dont get worried, teaching sessions dont have to be long. In fact, shorter sessions keep problems to a minimum and allow you to teach multiple times per day. You will want to come up with some phrase or cue that will let your child know its time to begin the teaching process. This serves as an opportunity for your child to make a smooth transition into the teaching situation. After a while, the timing may become more related to regular daily events. Hand washing is usually associated with dirty hands, which will occur many times across a childs day. Later on, the actual opportunity to teach may be spontaneous, like teaching how to put on a jacket as a prelude to going outside to play. This is commonly referred to as incidental teaching and will be discussed later on. Next up is the people involved in teaching. Who is designated to do the teaching is very important. Often families tend to have a single teacher, which may be preferable in the beginning. Over time, its more realistic to have more than one teacher. Keep in mind though everyone who teaches will need to be carefully instructed how to teach. In most families, certain skills might be taught better by someone who is more knowledgeable about the skill or highly motivated to teach a specific skill. And dont forget, siblings can be great teachers as well. If instructed how to teach. Sometimes sisters and brothers can do a better job of teaching kid skills than parents. When teaching your child, who is present is also a factor to take into account. In some cases, having an audience can create distraction resulting in less learning and too much directing or correcting. We recommend that a single teacher approach be used in the beginning to avoid unnecessary distractions. In some cases, your child might also have a preferred teacher and if this teacher is present, your child may be more motivated to learn. Over time, simply knowing that an individual is the teacher will help your child accept the situation with less resistance and learning will occur with multiple teachers. Finally the last point, directions; this is generally the area where teaching is most likely to fall apart. As parents, we tend to teach in a rather spontaneous manner, without being particularly logical. It is wise to create

of a list of directions or steps, called a Task Analysis or TA for short, to make sure your child is taught logically, which will increase learning. A task analysis is a list of steps to be taken for each skill to be taught. This task analysis will not only help you, but will provide consistency across teachers and allow you to record, or notice, progress. Depending on the skill being taught, the TA may be very simple or more detailed, including specific instructions on how to teach a specific component. The second part of the equation is the Behavior. This will be the specific skill that youve chosen to teach. Its really important that each skill be defined in way that is very clear, meaning that we must be able to observe it and measure it. For example, hand washing is very observable and measurable, but when you use the phrase clean up, the expectation is less specific or not easily observed and measured. Plus, cleaning up can mean many different situations. Generally speaking, as we define each skill, the steps in the TA will let us know what readiness skills might need to be taught first. Back to hand washing; this is actually a sequence of smaller skills, like reaching, turning, and rubbing. These readiness skills or prerequisite skills are tied together (or chained) to produce the general skill, called hand washing. When teaching skills, we focus on positive consequences, or rewards, also called reinforcers. The reinforcers will help to motivate your child to fully participate. Think of it as a paycheck for working hard and good performance. 1. The three-part equation for success in teaching skills is: a. Location-Location-Location b. State-Demonstrate-Practice c. Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence d. Hope-Pray-Try Again We break the process of teaching skills into the separate areas of Antecedent (anything that occurs before the skill you want to teach) Behavior (the skill you want to teach) Consequence (anything that follows the behavior and will have an impact on whether the behavior will happen again). This three-part skills-teaching equation is referred to by the letters A (Antecedent) B (Behavior) C (Consequence). 2. In skills teaching, an Antecedent (A) is defined as: a. Anything that occurs before a behavior and serves as a trigger for the behavior b. Anything that stops a behavior from occurring c. Anything in the environment that you cannot control

d. Anything that can be observed and measured An antecedent is anything that occurs before a behavior (or, in this case, before the skill that you want to teach); the antecedent acts like a trigger for the behavior to occur. In teaching skills, it is important to arrange and control as many antecedents as possible to make for effective learning situations. 3. In skills teaching, a Behavior (B) is defined as: a. Anything that happens that you do not want to occur b. Attitudes, emotions, and thoughts c. Any action that can be observed and measured d. Something that needs to be punished systematically The behaviors (skills) that you choose to teach will be observable and measurable. For example, the skills for hand washing are very specific, observable, and measurable; the skill for cleaning up are not. 4. In skills teaching, a Consequence (C) is defined as: a. Punishment, such as spanking, yelling, time-out, etc. b. Anything that follows the behavior and increases or decreases the chances that the behavior will occur again in the future c. The threat of losing a privilege d. A way of handling problems When teaching skills, we focus on positive consequences (also called rewards or reinforcers) that will motivate your child to fully participate and learn the targeted skills. 5. Which of the following would be considered Antecedents (A) to skills teaching? a. Having your teaching materials ready b. Pre-selecting the time of day to teach c. Removing distractions from the teaching area d. All of the above In skills teaching, carefully selecting and arranging materials, choosing the appropriate time of day for the teaching session, and removing distractions from the teaching area are important antecedent triggers for successful learning. 6. In a. b. c. d. skills teaching, a Task Analysis (TA) is defined as: A list of skills that should be taught A list of steps to be taken for each skill to be taught A measurement of how hard a particular skill is to teach A weekly report on the success of teaching sessions

A task analysis is a list of logical steps to be taken for each skill to be taught. The task analysis may be very simple or more detailed depending on the skill being taught. 7. Reinforcers fall into which category? a. Antecedent (A) b. Behavior (B) c. Consequence (C) d. None of the Above When teaching skills, we focus on positive consequences or rewards- also called reinforcers. Appropriate use of reinforcers following the targeted behavior is vital to successful teaching sessions. 8. How long should each session be? a. Longer, to ensure lots of practice b. Exactly five minutes in length c. Any length of time, as long as it is always the same d. Shorter, to allow for more opportunities to teach across the day When teaching skills, shorter teaching sessions keep problems to a minimum and allow multiple teaching opportunities per day. 9. What is the best time of day to teach a skill? a. Always in the morning b. When your child is very sleepy c. Whenever you feel motivation to teach d. None of the above In choosing teaching times you need to take into account the unique needs of your child. The teaching times must be dedicated to teaching and must not be in conflict with other activities in daily life.