Implementing a
programme
Now that we have discussed many of
the behavioural principles involved in
understanding and increasing behaviour, as
Data collection is your way well as dealing with problem behaviours, it
is important to explain how to bring all this
of guaranteeing an unbiased knowledge together under the umbrella of
science.
assessment of the extent of As noted in the opening section of this
the behaviour brochure Applied Behaviour Analysis is a
science, and as such when implementing an
intervention (i.e., when changing a particular
behaviour) a scientist must prove that the
changes s/he has made to the environment
are responsible for any observed behaviour
change. In other words, there has to be
accountability for decision making. In order
to make this possible a number of steps are
outlined below.
Non-contingent
Reinforcement
In order to change a behaviour we must first
understand it by identifying the contingencies
that are maintaining it.
We have discussed this in detail in the
sections “Functional Assessment” and
“Functional Analysis”. (See also article on
Functional Assessment by Marcie Desroches
at: www.behavior.org/autism)
Baseline
The Baseline is the initial phase of an
intervention in which the behaviour has been
properly defined and recorded, something
we touched on previously. For example,
is a child’s temper tantrum composed of
screaming loudly, or is it composed of hitting
out at others?
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Although both are temper tantrum
behaviours they are both very different and
would need to be dealt with in very different
ways. Making decisions about baseline data
often gives vital information as to which is
the most appropriate intervention to put in
place. If we have no baseline data that can be
compared with the intervention data, we can’t
be sure if the intervention is effective or not.
Baseline data are also vital for giving us a
measurement of the severity of a problem.
Parents often claim that their child “never”
does something in particular. However,
after collecting data it is not uncommon to
discover that the child does indeed engage in
the behaviour from time to time.
Likewise, parents sometimes claim that their
child “always” does something, but after
collecting data it becomes clear that the
child engages in the behaviour at a lower
level or only at certain times of the day. Data
collection is your way of guaranteeing an
unbiased assessment of the extent of the
behaviour you are interested in changing.
Also, after gathering such information the
intervention can be tailored to suit the
individual circumstances involved.
Intervention
The Intervention stage involves changing
some aspect of the child’s environment in
order to change behaviour. There were lots of
examples in the text earlier where changes to
antecedents and consequences were outlined.
If we are able to demonstrate that changes
to the environment influence changes in
behaviour then we can be more confident that
the behaviour is now understood.
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 Implementing a
programme
Goal
It is central to the science of Behaviour
Analysis that we are able to define and
measure behaviour accurately. We have
to specify exactly the dimensions of behaviour
we want to encourage. We can’t do this with
vague words that we normally use in our
everyday language (see DVD section 3.3
on “Mentalism”). In other words, we need
to specify the goals of the intervention in a
way that allows us to quantify the behaviour
change. How do we decide which behaviours
to target for change? This is where we need to
understand issues concerned with curriculum
development.
Curriculum Development
Knowing how to teach skills is important,
but we also need an overview of the general
goals of teaching. This is where a curriculum
is important. It provides a long-term strategy
for planning the teaching sequence. Usually a
curriculum for children with autism follows the
learning sequence of a typically developing
child. Importantly, though, it is adapted to the
needs of each individual child.
In the same way as knowing how to teach skills
is important in the treatment of children with
autism, having a long term strategy to plan
the teaching sequence is important in order to
optimise the effects of teaching. Thus, an ABA
programme must have a master curriculum
that the children must follow, even with
adaptations for each particular child.
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Some learning skills are prerequisites for
learning other skills, in the sense that these
skills must be learned before others can
be developed. For example, it is almost
impossible to learn to describe properties
of objects without having a generalised
repertoire of repeating sounds; in other
words, the repertoire of repeating sounds is a
prerequisite to naming objects and eventually
describing their properties. Other skills are not
prerequisites, but learning them can facilitate
learning of other skills faster than if these
steps are omitted. For example, children learn
to use words to name objects faster if they
have previously learned to repeat the words
used to name those objects.
Mastering some skills may allow children to
learn other skills faster. These skills function
as milestones that signal a new direction
in the development of the child. They are
termed behavioural cusps. For example, after
learning a generalised repertoire to imitate
actions, a child can learn to engage in novel
activities by observing other children. A
typical example occurs when the child goes to
a park and learns how to use a new apparatus
by observing how other children use it. Thus
when a new skill is learned opportunities for
reinforcement appear.
Some milestones in
the development of a
curriculum
The design of teaching objectives goes from
the simplest skills to the most complex skills.
The curriculum includes all types of skills,
from the more basic skills, such as looking
at or grasping objects, to the more complex
such as verbal skills. Basic skills include
eating independently, self-dressing, using
learning materials, using motor skills such as
grasping, or going to the toilet. Other skills
are important because they facilitate other
programmes such as sitting still on the chair,
or looking at the teacher. These skills may be
acquired before listening skills, although some
forms of basic listening skills are essential
such as following instructions.
A generic strategy is outlined below. For the
purposes of this present discussion, we have
divided the skills into three areas:
First, motor skills and imitation;
Second, self-management and learning to
enjoy using objects or engaging in actions;
Third, verbal behaviour, which includes
the most complex uses of language, but
broadly refers to behaviours that directly
influence other people’s behaviours.
The first area includes all type of movements,
from those that involve large muscles, such as
moving legs and arms, to those that involve
finer manipulations, such as grasping a pencil
or being able to move the lips and the tongue,
which is a prerequisite for talking.
When these behaviours, or any behaviours,
need to be taught, the advantage of using
a scientific approach is that it demands
progress be continually monitored so as to
assess the effectiveness of the teaching
programme.
Programmes are designed to ensure that
the child can make the movements, either
in response to a teacher’s request or by
imitation. Those children who need to learn
these skills often need physical prompts.
Being able to make a movement does not
mean that the child can do it in any situation.
Imitation is a specific skill that involves a
motor response by the child that is made in
response to another person performing an
action.
As such, their behaviour functions as an
antecedent stimulus for the child’s behaviour.
Other motor skills might include learning to
use many tools or sporting equipment, such
as biking and skating.
The second area, self-management, includes
skills needed for everyday life, such as going
to the toilet, self-dressing, and other self
help skills. It is also important that the child
learns to enjoy newly learned activities such
as looking at books, or colouring in pictures
so that they act as reinforcing activities in
themselves.
The third area, verbal behaviour, is the most
complex area and very often more than
90% of instruction time is involved directly
or indirectly with verbal behaviour. Some
social/verbal skills are related to this, such
as making eye contact with people, tracking
objects, and pointing to objects. These skills
lead to having joint attention, a skill that
involves the teacher looking at an object, the
child orienting towards the object, and then
pointing at or commenting on the object.
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 Implementing a
programme
Some children with autism have a basic
learning repertoire that involves making
sounds or repeating them. Given the triad
of impairments (i.e., difficulties with social
interaction, social communication, and
imagination) a considerable amount of time is
devoted to teaching verbal behaviour. As the
child acquires new sounds and words, some
of these may be used to teach him/her to
request reinforcers (to mand), to label things
and events (to tact), and to answer simple
questions.
Initially, the child is taught to match objects
to objects (e.g., matching a red block with an
identical red block), pictures to pictures (e.g.,
matching a picture of a cat to an identical
picture of a cat), pictures to object (e.g.,
matching a picture of a doll to a real doll),
pictures to words (e.g., matching the word
“cat” to the picture of a cat), and objects
to words (e.g., matching the word “doll” to
a real doll). Finally, children are taught to
match spoken names to objects, pictures, and
events.
Having learned basic verbal skills, the child
can then go on to learn more complex
skills such as forming questions, having a
conversation, and turn taking. Not surprisingly
all these skills prepare the child for social
interactions in everyday life. Another
important skill is listening to and following
instructions directed to a group of people.
This attentional skill is essential to being able
to listen to the teacher in a regular school.
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As the child develops,
Skills related to reading and writing are
important because they allow the child to the skills needed for
learn faster and communicate in a more
sophisticated way. everyday life become
Reading is the basic skill that leads to increasingly complex
and sophisticated
comprehension. This starts by matching
words to non-verbal stimuli and continues
with more elaborated skills, such as following
written commands and communicating
actions effectively to other people.
As the child develops, the skills needed for
everyday life become increasingly complex
and sophisticated, for example, s/he needs
to learn perspective taking, or how to behave
appropriately in different social settings.
These skills may initially seem difficult to
teach, but using the science of behaviour
analysis allows us to break complex
behaviours into simple teachable steps that
can be measured to assess the effectiveness
of our teaching.
An important objective for teachers and
supervisors is to analyse and track all verbally
and socially sophisticated skills, especially
those necessary for successful social
interactions.
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 Implementing a
programme
Data Collection
When you begin a home programme you
are being asked to behave somewhat like a
scientist. You are required to define
your terms, select your measurements, and
design your intervention. But all of this is not
complete if you do not collect data on what
you are doing. Without your data you will not
be empowered.
Your data are a record of what your child is
doing at any point in time. Your data also
indicate whether or not you have designed
an effective intervention. If the data show
that the intervention is successful, then build
upon it. If the data show that the intervention
is unsuccessful, then make changes to the
programme. Making decisions based on your
data in the way just described makes perfect
sense. That’s why the science of Behaviour
Analysis does it.
For samples of Data Collection Sheets
refer to supporting CD-ROM.
Selecting an
Intervention
Is the desired outcome to increase a
behaviour, or to decrease a behaviour?
If the goal is to increase a behaviour, you will
be selecting a reinforcement procedure such
as shaping, or chaining? If you are addressing
a problem behaviour your procedure might
involve either extinction, DRO, DRI, and DRL
etc.
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It is also vital to specify suitable reinforcers
for the behaviours that are being modified.
This is one example of what it means to be
sensitive to the needs of the individual. In
beginning any ABA programme seek the
advice of a qualified behaviour analyst.
How to Get Started
Generalisation should not be an afterthought
but an integral part of any behaviour change
intervention (see below for more details).
ABA is not something you only do in a therapy
session. Every learning opportunity can be
utilised throughout the day, 7 days a week.
More intensive teaching sessions are used to
teach new skills and these learned skills must
be generalised at every opportunity at home,
at school, in the supermarket, at the park,
wherever you are.
Organise the learning environment.
Ideally you should begin teaching in an
environment with as little distraction as
possible. A small table and chair
(as demonstrated in the video clips) is a
good environment for a child to learn. It is
important that over time the child is exposed
to progressively more distractions as
s/he will need to be able to cope with the
noise and bustle of learning environments
such as a typical classroom, or the comings
and goings of a typical household. Have your
teaching materials been organised? This
is important as the child will be more likely
to remain on task if s/he is occupied by an
activity.
Often children leave the teaching
environment because they have nothing to
do whilst the therapist/parent is preparing the
next activity.
How long should the session last?
Initially teaching sessions should be short.
Bring the child to the table to complete a
small task, reinforce, and then let the child
leave. By doing this the child will learn that
coming to the table is a fun activity. Over a
number of sessions the length of time a child
spends at the table can be shaped up.
This is usually a quick process and is much
more preferable to bringing a child to the
table for a long time in which the child is
uncooperative and little teaching is achieved.
The danger is that the child will view the
teaching environment as an aversive stimulus
and will engage in escape/avoidance
behaviours during subsequent teaching
sessions.
How many trials?
Just because there are 10 data collection
spaces on your data collection sheet this
doesn’t mean that you must do 10 trials. You
could do fewer if the situation demanded it.
Neither does it mean that you are restricted
to a maximum of 10 trials. In many respects
this is one of those “How long is a piece of
string?” questions. The answer changes from
child to child and from skill to skill.
What do you teach?
Again there is no simple answer. Every child
has unique behavioural excesses and deficits
and their curriculum is guided by this fact.
A number of key skills are demonstrated in
the DVD. These include imitation (See DVD
Section 6.4.1), Discrimination (See DVD
Section 6.4.2), Sorting (See DVD Section
6.4.3) and Matching (See DVD Section
6.4.4).
Video recording sessions. This is important
as it allows you to review your teaching
behaviour. It also serves as a useful reminder
of how far your child has progressed and can
serve as a valuable learning resource for
other parents.
Teaching using the 3-term contingency.
Some of the video clips in the DVD show
a method of teaching called Discrete Trial
Teaching. This is basically the 3-term
contingency in action. The child is given
an instruction (antecedent), responds
(behaviour), and correct behaviour is
followed by a reinforcer (consequence) while
incorrect behaviour is not followed by a
reinforcer.
For example:
Once the child’s attention has been gained
the teacher waits for a specific moment,
presents the child with an instruction and/
or stimulus, the child responds, and the
consequences follow.
When the response is correct, a reinforcer is
delivered. When the response is incorrect a
reinforcer is not delivered, and often a simple
correction is provided.
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 Implementing a
programme
Beyond teaching at the table
A common misconception about ABA is that
it is synonymous with Discrete Trial Teaching
with the child sitting at the table. That would
be like saying all physicists use microscopes
to carry out their research, whether that be
research involving atoms or planets. When
learning takes place away from the table the
same principles of behaviour apply. Once
you understand the principles of behaviour,
you can adapt your teaching methods to
the environment you wish to help your child
master.
Teaching incidentally
using the 3-term
contingency
Many skills occur around a table, for example,
looking at or reading books, writing, and
playing many games. For that reason, many
programs are suited to discrete trial teaching.
Other skills, however, are produced away from
the table. For example, a child names objects,
asks questions, and has conversations under
a variety of situations.
Therefore, as the child learns more complex
skills and because generalisation is necessary,
the format must change to use more
sophisticated formats and situations. This
method of teaching takes advantage of
naturally occurring, student initiated learning
and is referred to as incidental teaching.
An example would be a child learning to
request things in a natural context, for
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example, asking for a drink when thirsty.
Other examples include naming objects
and events, answering questions, asking
questions in a variety of situations. Many
of the learning opportunities do not start
with an instruction, but are embedded into
the natural context; for example, asking
questions naturally occurs in the course of an
ongoing conversation.
The programmes that teach these skills
reproduce these contexts. As another
example, a toy can be put out of reach of
the child and s/he is given it when s/he asks
for it. More generally, this kind of example
takes advantage of a state of deprivation.
For example, a child who is thirsty is more
likely to ask for a drink and this increases
the effectiveness of the reinforcer when we
provide a drink.
Precision and Fluency:
After a behaviour has been acquired, it has to
be carried out with sufficient precision. That
means that the skill must be demonstrated
with almost no errors or no errors at all.
Moreover, as well as being precise, the skill
has to be carried out at an appropriate
rate (these two together are referred to as
fluency).
Imagine someone being fluent in a foreign
language – this means that the person
speaks the language without having to
think about it, in other words, speaking the
language has become second nature to them.
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 Implementing a
programme
To develop precision and fluency,
reinforcement must be directed firstly at
accurate responses and secondly after an
increasing number of correct responses in
a given period of time. As the child reaches
certain goals, the goals can be made more
specific. For example, a child can learn to
respond to 20 one-digit addition sums in 1
minute; as s/he reaches this goal, the target
is changed so that the child has to respond to
the same number of sums in 50 seconds, 40
seconds... and so on.
This way, the behaviour becomes more
accurate (i.e., the errors diminish), and more
fluent (i.e, it also occurs at a higher rate).
Fluency is a very important building block for
learning further skills based on those skills
just learned. In the example with the sums, a
child who can fluently respond to one-digit
addition sums is more likely to quickly learn
one-digit subtractions, or multiplications or
divisions.
Generalisation
Once an appropriate behaviour has been
learned in a teaching situation it is important
that the skill generalised. That is, the skill
should be demonstrated in situations other
than where it was taught. The reasoning
behind this is fairly simple. Many children with
autism often have difficulty generalising
newly learned skills to different situations.
For example, parents often find that although
their child can use the bathroom at home they
are unable to do so in another location
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like a restaurant. Technically, the child’s
behaviour has not generalised. When
designing a programme you need to ensure
that the skill generalises to:
People - if a child learns to discriminate
colours with her mother, she should also be
able to demonstrate the skill with her dad, her
teacher, her granny, etc.
Places - if a child learns to discriminate
colours at home, she should also be able to
demonstrate the skill at school, at her
granny’s house, etc.
Materials - if a child learns to discriminate
colours with wooden blocks she should also
be able to demonstrate the skill with toy cars,
toy cups, counters, etc.
Appropriate Supervision
of an ABA programme
It is vital to remember that all the methods
outlined in this brochure are very powerful
behaviour change techniques and
should be used responsibly (see www.
bacb.com for ethical guidelines and
minimum professional qualifications).
Before embarking on a behaviour change
intervention a number of issues must be
addressed:
Does the problem affect the quality of the
child’s life?
If a particular behaviour affects a child’s
ability to function successfully in the
environment, then behaviour change is
probably ethically justified. However, if the
behaviour does not impact negatively on
the child, ask yourself if behaviour change is
necessary.
Can the problem and goal be specified
precisely enough so that you deal with
specific behaviour that can be counted,
timed, or measured in some way?
Have you eliminated the possibility that there
are complications involved in the problem
that would necessitate referring the problem
to another specialist? For example, are
there medical issues involved?
Can you identify significant individuals in the
child’s natural environment who might help
record observations and manage stimuli and
reinforcers? It is often easier to carry out
interventions with the help of others.
It is vital to remember that all
the methods outlined in this
brochure are very powerful
behaviour change techniques
Can you identify individuals who may
(inadvertently) hinder the programme?
Consistency is the key to any behaviour
change intervention. Is everyone engaged in
the programme working towards the same
goal?
On the basis of the answers to these
questions, does your training, qualifications,
daily schedule, and available time seem
adequate for you to participate in the
programme? If in doubt consult your
professional Behaviour Analyst.
Remember, behaviour change interventions
should be supervised by an appropriately
qualified Behaviour Analyst (for guidance see
www.bacb.com)
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