Probably this question pops up dozens of times a day. When my son was little, I would think about what happened earlier in the day, whether he was upset about something that happened yesterday, or if he was bored or something else.
I tried to figure out reasons for his behavior by looking at what happened BEFORE the behavior.
I had it all wrong
In the early years I didn’t know enough about behavioral science. I had heard that ABA was the recommended treatment for autism, and I thought positive reinforcement was a nice idea, but I didn’t understand the most important thing.
It’s not what happens BEFORE the behavior, it’s what happens AFTER.
Why is he doing that? Because of the Consequence!
The most important fact to know about behavioral science is that CONSEQUENCE of an action is the thing to think about. The CONSEQUENCE of an action determines whether that behavior will happen again — or not. If the CONSEQUENCE is pleasant, the behavior will occur again. We all do many things every day. The actions that result in nice, pleasing consequences are what we will do again. This is how all living things respond to their environments.
If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. How else can we decide if something is safe, pleasing or worthwhile? We know because of the consequence. Touch the hot stove, and you’ll be careful near the stove in the future.
Open the refrigerator door, see some nice food and you’ll open it again.
If the food in the refrigerator is always old and rotten, you will stop looking there for food.
The word “environment,” has been a top subject in the news for decades. We know about natural environments like forests and rivers, and urban environments with streets and buildings. These are tangible, visible environments. But tangible objects are not the only features of an environment.
External factors
Included in every environment are external factors influencing the life and activities of plants, animals and people. These factors are elements that cannot be seen, and include things like knowledge, resources and skills. For a child with autism, the most important environment is this “invisible” environment.
What is the invisible environment of a child with autism?
This environment is made up of all the interactions and consequences that the child experiences each day. The impact of this environment on the future growth and development of the child is enormous. A supportive environment with access to knowledge, resources and skills can help both the child and the family learn important skills. A chaotic environment will help neither the child nor the parents, and may cause damage. Children with autism may display various challenging and dysfunctional behaviors. Everyday life can be hard for them due to the communication deficits and sensory issues that are part of the autism condition.
Teaching a child with autism is a challenging task that requires teams of specialists from multiple disciplines, yet most of us do not have access to such teams due to financial and bureaucratic obstacles. So how can parents help their children with autism and provide a supportive learning environment?
This is actually fun to do. I found that one way to help my son with autism calm down was to reward him for breathing. You heard that right: I reward my child for breathing. I’ll show you how this works as part of a calm-down technique.
You can try it too, and when your friends are sitting around talking about the latest lame brain parenting ideas, you can tell them about this one. And, before slap their foreheads and moan that this idea has to be the ultimate candidate for the Lame Brain Parenting Hall of Fame, tell them the reason.
On the surface, the idea of rewarding a kid for breathing seems preposterous. But let’s look at how important breathing is. Descriptions of breathing tell us a great deal about the emotional state of a person, for example: panicky breaths, labored breathing, gasping for air, or holding one’s breath with suspense. A sigh can be a sigh of relief, a sigh of grief, or a sigh of resignation.
And what do people who attend meditation and yoga classes learn to do? They learn to control and regulate their breathing to achieve a calm emotional state and reduce stress.
Kids with autism often agitated
Now, let’s look at our kids with autism. Our kids experience neurological and sensory feelings that we do not experience and that we can neither comprehend nor relate to. We know our kids experience sound, light, and movement in a different way, and that these sensory issues can create problems for them. We also know our kids with autism can be quickly overwhelmed by the combination of sensory issues and performance demands, with the result that they become angry and agitated.
Parents of children on the autism spectrum by necessity become keen observers of their child’s behavior.
We are ever vigilant, watching for signs of an impending meltdown, or to appreciate those wonderful, elusive flashes of understanding or emotional connection.
Our beautiful kids have shining moments of great behavior when they are happy and all is right in their confusing world.
Wouldn’t you like to have more of those moments, and have those moments last longer?
Study what the child is already doing
An easy and effective way to get more of those shining moments is to start with something that the child is already doing (even if it is only fleetingly) and increase the strength of that behavior. By behavior, I mean a physical movement that the child is doing (as opposed to “good,” “bad” or other emotional descriptions of what is happening). If your child is shrieking and running around, he is not “driving you crazy,” he is demonstrating a behavior, i.e., the physical movements of moving his feet and moving his vocal chords.
Dr. Martin Kozloff, in his excellent book: Educating Children with Learning and Behavior Problems suggests that you take five minutes and observe your child, recording every movement of every body part. This will give you objective information of what actual physical movements your child is making. Once you have a catalog of the child’s movements, you can decide which ones could be the basis of new, “good” behaviors. We have created a download for you to use in recording your child’s movements that has additional instructions.
During vacations and holidays, moms and dads have a lot more unstructured time with their children with autism. During this time, we may engage in a lot of wishful thinking. “I wish he would play with legos. I wish she could go on a play date. I wish he did something other than running around and screaming.”
Let’s change this pattern of wishing
During my son’s younger years, I made the mistake of thinking about the behaviors I wanted him to do, as opposed to thinking about what he was actually doing. I kept thinking of behaviors in terms that were too big and too complicated. I wanted him to play games, interact with kids his age, and have fun—according to my understanding of what should be fun for him.
This was wrong. This kind of thinking kept me focused on the deficits in his skill levels, and took away the many opportunities that were actually popping up every day to build up his skill levels. Instead, I should have been looking for the tiny micro-movements he was already performing that had the potential to be shaped into bigger functional skills. What do I mean?
First, Move to a pattern of observing
Well, if you look at the picture of this beautiful piece of pottery, please remember that it started with a soggy lump of clay. In order to make a beautiful pot, you start out with the clay, knead it, form a base, build up the sides, shape it, finish it, and bake it in an oven. It’s quite a process, with many steps. With our kids with autism, we have to take the same step-by-step approach.
Look at your child, and look for the smallest possible movements he is making with his body that could serve as the foundation for further behaviors. Does your child make eye contact with anything or anyone, even accidentally? If so, tag and treat all instances of eye contact, no matter how fleeting.
Does he touch anything? If so, tag and treat all instances of him touching functional objects (toys, books, household items). After he is touching these items, switch to tagging and treating every time he picks up an item, then when he holds an item, moves an item from one place to another, or plays with or uses the item.
Many of us as children played with sticks and homemade toy boats in streams or rivulets at the beach. How did we get those tippy little boats to sail downstream? We placed them in the middle of the stream where the water was deepest and flowed most strongly. Now, think about our kids with autism. We use positive reinforcement to increase functional skills, but how much reinforcement? I learned the answer from my son: a river of reinforcement.
Create a river that flows
Positive reinforcement is best when it is like a stream that can propel a twig or toy boat. The twig follows the stream just fine when the flow is deep and strong, but what happens when the stream dries up? There is no forward movement. The toy boat gets stuck and keels over. If we want the boat to move, the water has to be deep and flowing.
A strong flow supports learning
Let’s say a young girl is learning to pick up blocks and place them on a mat (with the eventual goal of stacking blocks and following block patterns). The tag point is Block On Mat. As soon as she places the block on the mat you would tag and treat. As she picks up speed with this skill, you can tag, tag, tag quickly for each block as it hits the mat. You can tag her literally almost every few seconds. Think of what she is experiencing: a flow of success and reinforcement that is supporting her every action. The flow gives her confidence, success, affirmation, and some very nice treats. She won’t falter, she’ll keep sailing along.
Today’s blog post comes to us courtesy of the Indiana Resource Center for Autism. The author is Rozella Stewart, an Education Special at Indiana University, now retired. In this outstanding article, she explains how to develop motivation in students with autism by focusing on their individual interests and strengths, how to structure a supportive environment, and the importance of delivering successful experiences.
The Challenge
Motivating individuals who have autism spectrum disorder is an essential but often difficult challenge. It is essential because, by definition, they have restricted repertoires of interests and skills needed for community living and coping. Without planned, positive experiences, these individuals often become increasingly victimized by their autism as they age. With successful experiences, each can become a victor who lives, works, and plays in the community. It is difficult, at least in part, because people who have autism are particularly vulnerable to key factors which impact motivation.
An individual’s motivation is strongly influenced by: learning history; learning styles; internal and external incentives to engage in tasks; expectations of success or failure with a particular task; meaningfulness and purposefulness of the task from the perspective of the learner; and task-surrounding environmental variables which affect attention and achievement. In general, tasks and activities which learners associate with past success tend to stimulate interest. Success begets success! Challenges which trigger memories of past anxieties and failures tend to stimulate avoidance reactions and self-preservation responses. Although occasional failure is often seen as a challenge by learners who are highly motivated to learn through problem solving, repeated failure fosters feelings of futility and frustration in fragile learners who lack self-confidence and may lack competencies for task-related problem solving. When diligently applied, proactive strategies often prove successful in eventually eliciting positive, productive responses and pride in personal accomplishment. The following are just a few success-oriented strategies that support motivation for individuals who have autism spectrum disorder:
Know the individual
Maintain a current list of the individual’s strengths and interests. Include preoccupations and fascinations that may be considered “bizarre” or strange. Use these strengths and interests as the foundation for gradually expanding the individual’s repertoire of skills and interests.
Note tasks or activities which create frustration and heightened anxiety for the individual. Attention to these factors can result in avoiding episodes which perpetuate insecurity, erode confidence, foster distrust in the environment, and generally result in avoidance behaviors.
Pay attention to processing and pacing issues which may be linked to cognitive and/or motor difficulties inherent to the individual’s autism. Give the individual time to respond. Vary types of cues given when movement disturbances are suspected.
Many autism parents, and I am among them, have beloved children who are severely challenged. Our kids often struggle with language, basic tasks, and difficult or disruptive behaviors. To make it worse, they do these behaviors all the time—they are not occasional events. What can you do?
The Challenge
Because these behaviors are so relentless, it can seem that our kids never do anything positive or productive. I used to go crazy at autism meetings with my big question, “How can I get my kid to stop Behavior X?” only to be told, “You have to reinforce other behaviors.” Inwardly I would fume, “My kid has no other behaviors!”
But … I was wrong. After a while, I noticed that my son occasionally had a flash of a clever or funny behavior. These were always short and almost never repeated, but they were there. It takes time and a persistent eye to spot these elusive moments, but it can be done. Here’s one way to spot them.
10 Pennies in Your Pocket
Put 10 pennies in your pocket, then go watch your child. Every time he or she does something–anything–that is positive, take a penny and throw it into a dish. You may see a flash of eye contact, a moment of connection, a careful glance at an item, or a clever action of some sort. If you can manage it, keep a notepad next to the dish and jot down what your child did. At the end of the day, count the pennies in the dish.
How many positive things did your child do today? The first day you may have only one penny, but the next day you many have two or even three in the dish. After a few days, you may have many more pennies in the dish. Congratulations! You are now a skilled observer of the potentially positive behaviors your child already has, plus, you are probably happier about what your child is doing.
Part 3: Precise Reinforcement and Success versus Random Reinforcement and Confusion
In Part 1 of this series, we discussed how the click, or “tag,” is ONE specific sound that relates to ONE specific physical movement. This precise information to the child, “Hey, taking two steps in the same direction is great!” tells him that taking two steps in the same direction is a good thing to do more often. In Part 2, we discussed how the precise timing of the click helps the parent/instructor think about planning the small steps that lead up to the bigger behavior. My goal was to teach Safe Walking, and my son worked up from taking Two Steps/Same Direction, to taking Three Steps/Same Direction, and eventually Walking Beside Me, and Stopping At Corners. For reference, please see the chart I’ve been running in this series of articles.
Benefits of Precise Reinforcement
Part 3 of this series discusses how the precise reinforcement delivers success to the child, and avoids the problems of random reinforcement and confusion. The quick click of the tagger, followed up by a treat (strips of fruit roll-up), gave extraordinarily precise information to my son. The click marked the precise moment his second or third footstep hit the ground in the same direction. If he bolted or spun around, no click and no treat. Being a smart kid who likes fruit roll-ups, he quickly figured out he would get more by taking steps in the same direction.
Billy
Problems of Random Reinforcement
Because of the precise, consistent sound of the click and consistent reinforcement for that one targeted behavior, my son knew what to do. There was no confusion because there was no delay in information and reinforcement. Contrast this to what often happens when a child is being urged to walk in a straight line or stay with a group: “Hey Billy, come back here, stay with the group. We’re walking to the playground. Yes, that’s it. You can swing at the playground. No, come this way, we’re going to the left not the right. Just go straight ahead to the swings.” This verbal barrage provides lots of confusing sounds, some instructions, a reprimand, a small amount of praise, and lots of non-pertinent information. Billy experiences too many words, too much emotion, and a lot of confusion and failure. This experience does not build a foundation for continued learning.
Zack
Let’s try it with TAGteach
Let’s look at how a different instructor uses a tagger to work with Zack; he starts out by watching Zack’s feet. Zack would experience the following: when he takes Two Steps/Same Direction: he hears a click and gets a tic-tac. Wow! That was easy and he got a nice treat. He takes Two Steps/Same Direction again, and experiences more success and reinforcement. Now he’s got it, he continues taking Two Steps/Same Direction, and before he knows it, he’s standing in front of his favorite swing. Zack experiences success and reinforcement, and really knows to listen for that click—because it means good things are coming. Now the foundation is set for more learning. He’s ready to learn to take Three Steps/Same Direction, then Four Steps/Same Direction, then Walk With Group.
What’s the bottom line?
Precise reinforcement delivers success to the student: he learned something, he did something correctly, and he will do that good thing again. Success breeds success, confidence and attentiveness. Random reinforcement mixed in with confusing instructions, corrections and reprimands delivers confusion and failure to the student. Which student do you think is experiencing success and confidence, Billy or Zack?
What is TAGteach?
TAGteach stands for Teaching with Acoustical Guidance. TAGteach is a teaching and communication method based on the scientific principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA).
TAGteach enables extremely precise positive reinforcement of behavior by using an acoustical signal to “mark” the behavior – at the precise moment the child performs the behavior! The acoustical signal is a short, sharp sound made by a handheld device (the “tagger”). When the child performs the correct action, the parent/instructor immediately presses the button on the tagger and hands over a treat (candy, treat, token, praise, social recognition, or money) as a reinforcer.
With TAGteach, it is easy to reinforce behaviors precisely and quickly. The immediate, accurate feedback and positive reinforcement result in the child performing the correct action more often, and for longer periods of time. With immediate feedback and learning tasks broken down into small steps, children can learn many new skills with TAGteach — at their own pace.
