Autism: Chaos to Calm

How positive are you? Go for the 8 to 1 ratio!

April 28, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

Today we feature some wonderful, enlightening comments from Dr. Mary Lynch Barbera, nurse, autism mom, and Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She shares her thoughts on the benefits to the entire family of using positive reinforcement. The magic ratio is 8 positives to 1 negative. Thank you Mary!

From Mary Lynch Barbera: Lessons Learned on My Autism Journey

“I have been doing a Keynote presentation for the past several years called ‘Lessons Learned on my Autism Journey.’ One of the lessons, which I’ve discussed a few times in the past month, is perhaps the most important general lesson. The best part of this lesson is that you will most likely benefit no matter how old you are, no matter if you are male or female and no matter if you know anything about autism. This life lesson, in fact, is really not about autism at all.

Behavior Basics 35 & 36: End of Week Wrap-up

April 25, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

35. A conditioned reinforcer is something previously neutral that has gained reinforcing potential.

A conditioned reinforcer can be any quick sound or action. It can be a whistle, a tap, a flash of light, or a click sound made by a small plastic device called a “tagger.” Initially, the sound or flash has no significance for a child, but, by pairing the sound with a treat or other pleasing consequence, the “tag” (click sound) becomes an important event for the child. The tag means that a treat is coming. A tag means that the child did something right or achieved something. The tag is good news! The tag is worth paying attention to – this is very important. The tag teaches the child to focus on his own actions. What was I just doing that caused Mom to tag and hand me a treat? Was it swinging my arm or looking at the toy? Hmmm, I’ll try swinging my arm again. Nothing, no tag. Okay, I’ll trying looking at the toy again. TAG! Oh, that was it! I get it. I’ll look at the toy some more! Boy, Mom sure seems happy when I look at a toy. I know she’s happy because she tagged and gave me a treat, and I’m happy too.

36. Create a conditioned reinforcer by pairing it with something the child already likes.

How does the child learn that the acoustical signal, the “tag” (click sound) has meaning? You teach the child by “pairing” the tag with a treat. This can be achieved very quickly. When I first got a tagger, I sat down next to my son with a fruit roll-up and proceeded to tag and hand over slivers of fruit roll-up. It went like this: tag/hand over sliver, tag/hand over sliver, tag/hand over sliver, continuously. In 25 seconds he figured out that the tag meant that a treat was coming. 25 seconds! That’s all it took. I never had to repeat that lesson. I could immediately start using the tag to teach new skills. Try it! It’s great fun to teach a child with autism something in just 25 seconds!

REMINDER: This concludes the wrap-up of Behavior Basics for the week. Please remember the schedule: On the release date of each module, the Behavior Basics for that module will be compiled into a PDF ebook available from our blog and Facebook page. Click on this link to download the entire series of 42 Behavior Basics for free: http://statictab.com/m7bizwt.

TAGteach Tale: Tink rocked her blood tests!

April 22, 2014November 27, 2017 Martha Gabler

Preparing the child

Medical procedures can be tough on kids with special needs, especially anything involving a needle. Advance preparation can help. Here’s how one dad in the UK used TAGteach to prepare his daughter Tink for some necessary but unwelcome blood tests.

How TAGteach helped the Dad

Dad Seany Pogson says, “TAGteach gave me confidence so I didn’t panic. I had been worried about it for about two weeks. TAGteach gave me a coping strategy by being able to build up my daughter’s experience to be ready for it. The nurses helped a lot too when I explained the situation to them. The nurses are there because they care. They don’t mean to cause any upset to anyone. If they had just taken her arm without her offering it, they wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

How Dad used TAGteach to prepare his daughter

“First of all, I built up touch on the arm as a cue so she was offering her arm for touch. Then I slowly increased it so she did it with other people. Next, I built it up from a touch on the arm to holding her wrist, and then offering her wrist to other people — again until she was comfortable with letting other people do the same.

Want to avoid emotional overload? Use TAGteach!

April 14, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

Kids with autism tend to be super-sensory!

They often report that they experience sounds, sights and movements at very intense levels. This intensity can overload their systems, cause them emotional distress, and be an impediment to learning new skills.

We are all like this to some extent: we experience emotions and we broadcast our emotions — through our body language and especially through our voices. Probably everyone has had the experience of calling a friend on the phone and, from the tone of voice when the person answers, being able to tell instantly how that person is feeling.

TAGteach: What to do when dark clouds roll in

April 8, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed

In recent posts I have talked about building behaviors from tiny seeds of potentially positive physical movements, and nurturing these new behaviors with lots of positive reinforcement.

But, sometimes dark clouds roll in and the sunshine goes away. When we get overwhelmed or tired, it’s all too easy to fall into negative habits.

When things get bleak, positive reinforcement can go out the window

A few weeks ago I had a string of bad days – mostly being tired, stressed, and cranky. I had no patience with my son, and little things that normally would be easy to handle suddenly seemed impossible. I slipped into negative comments and negative behaviors towards him. I knew I should instead pick up the rate of positive reinforcement, but didn’t have the energy to do so.

Plants seek the light, kids with autism seek success, TAGteach delivers both

April 1, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

Plants grow towards the light

Why? So they can grow better, so that their cells produce more food for the plants to grow. This phenomenon is known as phototropism. Phototropism is so powerful that plants turn around completely to face the sun as the sun moves across the sky. Here is a cute 2-minute video that shows phototropism in time-lapse photography.

Kids with autism need to grow too, but they need special help. They need help with understanding what to do, when to do it, and how long to do it. The best way for them to learn is with success. When they experience success, they turn towards the activities that deliver reinforcement, just as the plants turn toward the light.

Success is the “light” for kids with autism

For all of us, the feeling of success makes us feel good; it gives us a sense of accomplishment. When a learning experience is successful, the learner feels confident in performing a task and is eager to do more. We all want our kids with autism to experience success, confidence and enthusiasm for learning. How best to achieve this? How can we deliver success to our kids? TAGteach is ideal for this. In addition to the event marker (the tag or “click”), TAGteach has other protocols that make sure kids have a successful learning experience. Here is one of them: Start at the Point of Success.

TAGteach: Building great behaviors from the smallest seeds

March 31, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

The entire fruit is already present in the seed

Since springtime is almost upon us, many people are thinking about their yards and gardens, and may even be starting seeds for flowers and vegetables. Seeds are amazing things. From these very tiny particles, large plants and trees will grow.

Our kids with autism don’t follow the typical growth process. With their communication, learning and sensory issues, they often display challenging, dysfunctional and disruptive behaviors. In fact, so many difficult behaviors may be going on at the same time that it may seem impossible to make headway on any front.

But, in the midst of the behavioral chaos, a child with autism will, at some point, perform a behavior (physical movement) that can be the basis of more functional behaviors. These fleeting movements are “seeds” that can eventually grow into functional behaviors, provided they are nurtured and receive lots of positive reinforcement.

How can we increase the number of times our kids with autism perform such rare, but desired, physical movements? TAGteach!

TAGteach is a teaching and communication method that combines an audible marker, a “tag” (click) made by a small plastic device called a “tagger” with positive reinforcement. With a tagger you “mark” a desired physical movement performed by your child and then give her a treat (the reinforcer). Because the tag is so quick and immediate, you can pinpoint even the most fleeting movements for your child.

Behavior Basics 35 and 36: End of Week Wrap-up

March 28, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

35. A conditioned reinforcer is something previously neutral that has gained reinforcing potential.

36. Create a conditioned reinforcer by pairing it with something the child already likes.

Behavior Basics 33 and 34: End of Week Wrap-up

March 21, 2014February 15, 2016 Martha Gabler

33. Slow reinforcement is ineffective for teaching a child, especially one with autism.

A child with autism lives in the moment. He is keenly aware of what is happening right now, and often, right now he has at least three or four behaviors (physical movements) going on simultaneously. Those movements change very quickly—every few seconds he’s doing other actions. Let’s say the child momentarily does one action that you wish to reinforce, so you run over and say, “Hey, good boy for doing that,” and hand out a treat. I timed myself walking a distance of 12 feet, saying, “Hey, good boy for doing that,” and handing over a treat. It took 4 seconds. In those 4 seconds, a child with autism has performed many more movements and is thinking about those new movements. The one you liked, that happened about 5 or 6 seconds ago, is history. So if you walk over to your child, praise him and hand over a treat, you are too slow and too late. The child won’t know what you reinforced. He won’t know what you want him to do again. Your reinforcement will be ineffective because it is not paired precisely with the desired behavior. Effective reinforcement is timely, on-time, and precise information. It tells the child, “That thing you are doing right now is great. Do it some more.” Our voices and words, of which we are so enamored, are slow, clumsy and too late to give exact, pinpoint information to the child. So, help the child out. Make sure that, during the time that he is doing a desired action, he gets the information, “YES. That’s right,” and now a treat is on the way. See Behavior Basic #34 for more information.

34. What’s the solution to late reinforcement? Use a conditioned reinforcer.

In Behavior Basic #33 we discussed the fact that a child with autism needs pinpoint accuracy of reinforcement in order to know that he should do a behavior again. We cannot provide such speedy, accurate reinforcement with our slow voices or confusing gestures. An excellent way to provide fast, timely information to the child is with an acoustical signal, a “tag,” or click-sound, made by a tagger. The best way to reinforce a child is when he is actually doing the behavior you want — to reinforce in that “right now” micro-second. How can you reinforce so quickly? With a TAGteach tagger. A tagger allows you to provide split-second information to the child while he is performing the desired behavior. So the procedure is: observe child, tag desired behavior, give treat. By following up each tag with a treat, the tag becomes a “conditioned reinforcer.” When the child hears the tag, he knows a treat is coming his way. Eventually, the sound of the tag is reinforcing in and of itself. He learns to listen for the tag, think about what he was doing that earned the tag, and then perform the behavior again—because it brought about a pleasant consequence. Precise, timely reinforcement builds behaviors faster. There is nothing else like it.

TAGteacher tale: Skill and faith – shaping behavior in a child with autism

March 17, 2014February 15, 2016 Joan Orr

By Joan Orr MSc

There are two things that a TAGteacher needs to be successful. These are skill in applying the technology and faith in the technology. The skill comes from having a good understanding of the principles underlying the science of behavior, having a good understanding of the principles of TAGteach and lots of tagging practice. The faith comes from experience and seeing it work again and again and just knowing that it works.

Denise Blackman posted a story to the TAGteach Yahoo group that gives a perfect illustration of the combination of skill and faith resulting in a successful outcome.

Here is Denise’s post (reposted with permission):

I don’t normally post, but I had a fun experience today and want to share it.

I work as a consultant to a preschool program for children with autism. Yesterday we were discussing one of the kids, “Robert”, an almost 4-year-old boy who does not currently speak, make eye contact, imitate, play with others, or follow most directions.

One of the many things “Robert” is working on is writing. His writing goal is to draw a vertical line. Unfortunately he wasn’t making any progress on the goal. Rather than trying to copy the line, he just scribbled on the paper. We decided to try TAGteach with him.