The How to ABA Podcast

Today, we’re discussing burnout with one of our members, Julie Tewell. She’s a clinical BCBA in Louisville, KY. Julie works with kids ranging from two to twelve years old. She originally wanted to be an occupational therapist but stumbled into the field after getting the opportunity to shadow at a clinic from a family member who worked in ABA. Her favorite thing about working as a BCBA is the connections she makes with families. It's important for clinics and organizations to be mindful of employee burnout. When an organization doesn’t adhere to the values they claim they’re about, it can be disheartening for employees. One of the challenges Julie dealt with was going into a job with high expectations and being let down. At one point, Julie became so frustrated that she considered a career change, but she kept looking for a better job and found one she loves. It’s important to stay in touch with your values and never settle in a job that doesn’t feel right. As a new BCBA, it’s easy to feel pressure to know everything but go easy on yourself. Lean on your network and resources and don’t be afraid to ask for help. What’s Inside:How Julie got into ABA and what she enjoys the most.How to tell the difference between a toxic job and having high expectations.Advice for new BCBAs and tips to avoid burnout.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram

Today, we’re hosting one of our members, Kailani Bartley. She’s a case manager at CABS, the Chicago Autism and Behavior Specialists. Kailani landed in the field sort of by accident. She originally wanted to become a music therapist, but after working at a tech job for a year while she was in college, she decided she wanted to work within ABA. Today, Kailani just graduated with her master’s degree and is taking the BCBA exam in August. Kailani spent time in several jobs searching for high-quality supervision and finally found it at CABS. Networking with others in the field can be a huge help in making connections, especially when you’re just starting out. Supervision is a two-way street and today’s supervisors are usually thrilled when they get a chance to collaborate. In the field, using the natural environment and being creative with games helps make work fun for both practitioners and clients. If you’re a newly minted BCBA, Kailani recommends remembering kids need compassion as much as consistency. Never stop learning, never settle, and always help your learners to the best of your ability. What’s Inside:Challenges with getting quality supervision and how to find it.Kailani’s most valuable lessons in supervision.How to be creative and use the natural environment with clients.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram

A member of our audience brought a situation to us that involves a three-year-old non-speaking autistic child. He has a tendency to open and close sliding doors and also a tendency to hurt other children. He’s the same across all environments. This type of behavior is worth targeting, especially since other kids are being injured. Based on the details we have, it seems like the behavior is getting automatically reinforced. Sensory or automatic behaviors often become the catch-all for things that have no antecedents. Kids will sometimes engage in automatic behaviors just because they feel good.After you determine that behavior is being automatically reinforced, you have to then determine what it is about the behavior that the child likes. In other words, you have to figure out the function of the reinforcement. With our example, it could be that the child really enjoys the visual of seeing doors open and close or an associated sound. Sometimes it helps if you engage in the behavior yourself to explore the possibilities. Once you figure out the function, then you can take a look at potential replacement behaviors.What’s Inside:How to determine the function of automatically reinforced behaviors.How to introduce replacement behaviors.When to reduce a sensory behavior.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram

As behavior analysts, we have to know what the function of a problematic behavior is and why the client is doing it. When you’re confronting challenging behavior, you’re going to be capturing it in a behavior plan. It’s important to understand the data collection process around behavior reduction goals. The first step should be defining the behavior you’re looking to collect the data on and getting as specific as possible so everyone’s on the same page. Then, you can collect specific ABC data on the behavior you’re targeting. Sometimes data collection can go on longer than it should and become overwhelming for both the collector and anyone doing analysis. It helps to set limits around the data collection period and to reassess once you’ve determined the function. Once you’ve gone through the initial ABC process, you can then move on to frequency and duration, and we cover how to tell which to focus on. We also go over partial interval recording and when it may be helpful to use it. What’s Inside:Why it’s important to define a behavior first before collecting data How to determine whether to focus on frequency or durationPartial interval recording and when it’s appropriate to useMentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram

We’re giving you another sneak peek into our mentorship meetings where we share some questions from our members. One member is working on spontaneous manding with a three-year-old student. The student has an advanced verbal repertoire and is strong in several areas but doesn’t always verbally request items. The child also has trouble calming down in public settings and the member asked if ACT or AIM would help. No child is ever too young for these strategies, however, it’s important to figure out what your primary goal is when applying them. We suggest introducing alternative replacement skills as well as role-playing and discussing how both would be beneficial.  Another member asked a question around creating goals and balancing discrete trial teaching and natural environment teaching. The goal should be teaching without making the child feel like they’re working during play. Shayna’s currently working with a beginning learner who prefers structure, so she’s been using more discrete environmental teaching than NET. Natural environment teaching is great, but not every child is in a place where it’s the most effective method. Clinical judgment is so important, as we have to balance clinical assessment with our own observation. What’s Inside:How to use replacement skills and role-playing to assist with manding.Why it’s important to teach regulation when a child is calm.How to best use natural environment teaching.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram

In our community, we get a lot of questions from our members and the question for this episode is: “When would be a good time to teach a client to ask questions, or what are some of the prerequisite skills before teaching to ask questions?”There are a couple of options you want to look at which usually are asking questions and answering questions. If you’re teaching the latter, you need to make sure that comprehension is there. We share how we approach it in the most tactile way by teaching the most motivating, relevant, and simple things to start with. Once the student has more manding skills, then that’s when we take on tacting repertoires. What’s Inside:Our thoughts on teaching to ask questions from an ABA program standpoint. Things that can help with repertoires. What you need to work on before teaching asking and answering questions.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram

Dr. Laura Cesaroni is the Clinical Director of FERN in Toronto. FERN stands for Family Education Resource Network. They assist parents, grandparents, and teachers who require specialized resources for teaching, managing, and parenting children who experience challenges. Laura saw a number of children in her practice that were dysregulated and started seeking out effective strategies to deal with big behaviors. Self-regulation is all about understanding stress and the importance of relationships. Over the last several years, Laura has been facilitating courses around self-reg at FERN, and one of them focuses strictly on parents. The goal of self-regulation is restoration. Stress impacts people of all ages, and how people restore themselves varies greatly amongst different individuals. We’re in a time full of stressors we can’t control or eliminate. However, we can learn to manage, understand, and uncover them. Stress can be high in families when going through the diagnostic process. Recognizing that stress early on is key and it’s important to provide as much support to parents and clients as possible.What’s Inside:Why stress adds a layer to treating behavioral issues. How self-regulation can help clinicians and therapists.Main stressors for parents and related maladaptive behaviors.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on InstagramFERN websiteFERN on Instagram

Today, we cover all things related to staff hiring and training. When hiring, sometimes personality means more than what’s on a resume or how many years of experience a person has. How someone presents themselves and how prepared they are going a long way. Asking the right questions in an interview is key. When interviewing for a new job, try your best to let your personality shine through. As an interviewer, having a candidate interact with a potential student could uncover valuable information on how successful they’d be in the real position.  Staff training is super important because it sets the tone for employee success and influences the quality of ABA services they provide. The BST model is very helpful for training new staff and getting them up to speed. Spending the first week or two in observation mode coupled with explanations gives new employees a foundation before they jump into the role. In addition to training on day-to-day duties, it’s important for staff to become acclimated to the organization’s culture. Holding regular training for all employees helps reinforce company principles so everyone stays on the same page.What’s Inside:What to focus on when interviewing for a job and what to avoid.Tips for dressing for an interview.Examples of hands-on staff training.Why it’s important to have recurring training for existing employees.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on InstagramHow To ABA Staff Training Modules

We’re answering another question from the community regarding our opinions on ACT and AIM. ACT stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It’s a branch of behavioral psychology that’s been adopted by the field of ABA. AIM is an acronym for Accept, Identify, Move, which is an ABA curriculum that’s based on the principles of ACT. We’re no experts on these modalities, but we’ve used them in the field and have encountered them in training and at conferences. We discuss the ACT Values Matrix and how it can be applied in practice. ABA doesn’t always answer all our questions as practitioners. It’s important to always expand what we offer, so adding these tools to our toolbox can be valuable. Taking a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work, and sometimes uncovering internal motivations is highly beneficial. ACT and AIM allow ABA professionals to go deeper and see what’s driving a client beyond external factors. Exploring clients’ values can help you develop better treatment plans. What’s Inside:The difference between ACT and AIM.How to use the ACT Values Matrix.Types of clients that are best suited for ACT and AIM.Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram

We received a question from a member on echolalia and scripting and wanted to share our thoughts in this episode. They were wondering if there were any practical tips to help reduce scrolling responses, as their current treatment methods weren’t working. First, it’s important to identify if the behavior is associated with specific operants. Therapist responses are important to note as well. With imitation, if we’re not doing enough mixing and varying, the student may resort to the one action they’re most comfortable with. When we add variety, the student is forced to look and imitate, reducing the scrolling.To prevent scrolling, we typically start with a set of two or three labels or actions at a time. With error correction in verbal scrolling or echolalia, reduce the number of targets until the child masters a few before moving on. Age is also an important factor, as many young mainstream children don’t have a lot of intraverbals either. We cover the two reasons echolalia happens and how we can prevent and treat it. It all comes down to good teaching, considering the child’s skills, using the right error correction procedures.  What’s Inside:How to address echolalia and scrolling with students.How to use error correction procedures.Why echolalia happens and how to treat it. Mentioned In This Episode:HowToABA.com/joinHow to ABA on YouTubeFind us on FacebookFollow us on Instagram