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The Hoot Chronicles XVIII – ABA and Dementia

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Hello everyone,

This episode of The Hoot Chronicles came out on 19th September and you can listen to it on our podcast Chirping with ABA Owls. This should take you to our podcast page or you can listen on iTunes, Podbean and other podcasting apps. 

Every month, we discuss a book or article(s) that we find interesting – For this episode, we delve into a study done on needle phobia. Most specifically: Increasing activity attendance and engagement in individuals with dementia using descriptive prompts.

This study was published in 2008 and we will add the links for it at the end of this post. 

About the authors

There are 4 authors, all from Saint Cloud State University. We will give you a bit of information on the first author, Shasta Breske.

Breske’s experience ranges from implementing early intervention ABA services at the Croyden Avenue School to being a leader of multidisciplinary patient care teams, and acting as state director of a national network of health and human services providers. 
In 2017 she established Bright Behaviour, Inc. which serves and supports children ages 2-7 diagnosed with Autism, Down syndrome., and developmental delays.
You can find out more on their website: https://brightbehaviorinc.com 

What is the topic?

It is a journal article to demonstrate the research conducted to assess whether people with dementia  will increase their attendance and engagement in activities if these activities are described to them.

Who should read this article?

A wide range of people and professionals could benefit from reading this article – anyone who supports people with dementia (carers, nurses, family members, etc.).

The article does have some ABA jargon but it’s still understandable for people who are not in the ABA field.

Where can you get the article?

There are various online platforms, such as google scholar, wiley library, research gate, etc. You can find this article on the National Library of Medicine and Research Gate.

We hope you’ve found this helpful, we will try our best to publish blog posts as the podcast episodes come out.

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

Season 3, Episode 1 – PECS II

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Welcome!

On the ABA Owls podcast episode for September, we’ve decided to return to the topic of PECS. In case you’d like to listen, you can go to our podcast page or use your preferred podcast app and search “Chirping with ABA Owls” – we’re on iTunes, Podbean and other platforms.

If you prefer to read rather than listen, carry on with this post.

A brief summary

PECS was developed in the U.S.A. in 1985 by Andy Bondy and Lori Frost. Dr. Bondy is an innovative leader in the field of autism and applied behaviour analysis and has directed a statewide public school system for students with autism for fourteen years. 

Lori Frost is vice-president and co-founder of Pyramid Educational Consultants. Ms Frost has a wealth of background in functional communication training and applied behaviour analysis and has assisted in the development of a number of training packages designed to teach language and academic skills.

If you would like to hear more about the history of PECS, and the whys and hows, feel free to listen to our episode from November 2020.

PECS and ABA

The more we learn about PECS, the more we notice how much ABA is ingrained into it. 

PECS looks into:

  1. Functional objectives – teaches learners the skills they need for when they leave school, and emphasise the importance of independence.
  2. Powerful reinforcement systems – what is rewarding for learners and to be aware of the changes over time. As we say in the ABA field, motivation is fluid, it evolves and changes over time. Being mindful of this and being able to adapt, allows us to effectively reinforce our clients with stimuli they actually like.
  3. Communication and social skills – this section of the training manual is based on the work of B.F. Skinner in his book Verbal Behavior from 1957.
  4. Preventing and reducing inappropriate behaviours – they have a different way of describing it, but it is essentially looking at the function of the behaviour. Gain access to reinforcement or items (tangible), escape or avoid activities or tasks (avoidance or escape).
  5. Generalisation – is paramount and throughout the course it focused a lot on where the skill is going and how it is going to benefit the learner in their growth towards independence. Generalisation is planned early on, just like it is done in ABA (or how it should be done).
  6. Prompting – PECS uses four levels of prompting: verbal, gestural, modelling and physical prompts. As any ABA practitioner will tell you, they use the same type of prompting.
  7. 4-step error correction procedure – similar to ABA error correction and they use it when teaching communication, requests and other skills. PECS is not just about asking for things, it’s also about other forms of communication across the verbal operants.
  8. Collecting and analysing data – they collect data on their learner’s progress and use it to make necessary changes.
  9. Verbal Operants – written by Andy Bondy, it goes through pre-requisite skills and how PECS and verbal operants work together.

If you’d like to hear some of the examples we discuss within each area, feel free to listen to our episode.

End Thoughts

We find PECS to be a well set up system, organised in a way that teaches people to communicate effectively and in a functional manner.

We highly recommend doing the PECS courses, which you can access online – have a look at their website https://pecs.com/ and select your region.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post (and the podcast episode, if you’ve listened to it). 

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

The Hoot Chronicles XVII – The Power of Character Strengths

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Hello everyone,

This is our last Hoots for this season and you can listen to it on our podcast Chirping with ABA Owls. This should take you to our podcast page or you can listen on iTunes, Podbean and other podcasting apps. 

As you might know by now, every month we discuss a book or article(s) that we find interesting – It’s not always ABA themed but it will be behaviour related.
This time Carla is discussing The Power of Character Strengths by Ryan Niemec and Robert McGrath.

What is the topic?

This book is a good introduction into what strengths are – it categorises our personality not into types, but into virtues and strengths. Each Strength belongs to a type of virtue and the authors use WH-questions to explain What each strength is, Why is it important and How do we use it.

Who should read this book?

Anyone interested in personality traits and improving themselves will probably enjoy this book.

Contents

This book comes from the VIA institute, which was founded in the U.S. – the creators divided personality into strengths instead of types, as mentioned above. 
Anyone can take their 24 strengths survey for free on their website.

The book is divided into 3 parts: introduction, discussing the 24 strengths and building up your strengths. 
They’ve divided the strengths within 6 different virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance and Transcendence. There is also an explanation  as to why these are the virtues.
Within each virtue there are strengths assigned – for example, within Humanity you have Love, Kindness and Social intelligence.
The last chapter, the strength builder, is very self reflective. It has a few tables and writing exercises with the purpose of making you think about your strengths, how you use them, where else you could utilise them and applying them to life challenges. 

Something I want everyone to understand is that this book is one of MANY resources offered by the VIA institute. I first came across the survey and then the book.

Impressions 

We do discuss the book in more detail on the podcast episode, but we will leave you with some of our comments below. 

When you take the survey, be advised that it relies a lot on your perception of yourself. If you view yourself as a brave person, you probably will get that character strength. We think it would’ve been beneficial to have some questions about the actions a person has had in the past and what actions they want to have in the future. 

It’s normal that your strengths change over time, because we are constantly changing, learning – or at least, we should be. If you take the survey once a year (or every 2 years, etc.) you might notice that your strengths will show some variances.


We would’ve liked some of the research mentioned to be referenced – throughout the book, the phrase “research finds” keeps popping up, but no actual research or studies are mentioned.

The website does have plenty of resources, not just books, but also activities, webinars, workshops, etc. Maybe one of those resources will have more guidance on how to develop each particular strength. 

Nevertheless, I would still recommend taking the survey and reading more about each character strength. I found it to be a really good way to work on yourself.

Where can you get the book?

Disclaimer: the prices might have changed since the time this post was published or the podcast episode recorded.

Physical book
Ebay: £ 16.99
Amazon £18.77
AbeBooks: £15.22
World of Books: £16.79
Not found in: Blackwell, Book Depository nor Waterstones

Online version
Apple books: £16.99
Audible: £16.09
Not found in: Google Books

Extra Resources

https://www.viacharacter.org/pdf/340%20Ways%20by%20Tayyab%20Rashid.pdf

https://www.viacharacter.org/

We hope you’ve found this helpful, we will try our best to publish blog posts as the podcast episodes come out.

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

Season 2, Episode 10 – Training Staff: New Staff Member

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Welcome!

On the ABA Owls podcast episode for July, we revisit our Training Staff Series and go through some ABA guidance on training new staff members. In case you’d like to listen, you can go to our podcast page or use your preferred podcast app and search “Chirping with ABA Owls” – we’re on iTunes, Podbean and other platforms.

If you prefer to read rather than listen, carry on with this post.

Where do you start?

When a new employee joins, they will need more attention – which means that your focus will have to shift from other tasks (e.g., supporting other staff members). We understand every job is different, but we can use the same measures across different settings.  

Planning your time can make a massive difference in your day, but the biggest difficulty people seem to have has been to keep it simple. Truth be told, we are guilty of striving for doing as much as possible in one day – we advise you to think of the quote “Less is More”. The first written recording of this quote is from an 1855 poem, but it’s still the best approach you can have. 

This doesn’t mean we are advising you to do less things, but to make your tasks achievable. It is quite punishing or disheartening to have a to-do list for a day and not be able to complete it. And you are less likely to even want to write a list and attempt to complete it if you have been unsuccessful previously.

What do we mean by “Planning”? Planning can be having a checklist of the behaviours the new employee needs to learn. Planning can be discussing a backup plan with your superior in case you are not available to train. Planning can be setting aside time for that new employee and stick to it as much as possible. 

Checklists are actually much more powerful than what people believe. They can be a great source of support in helping you remember all the steps you have to follow or what you need to do to achieve a task. They can also track where you are and where you are going.

We discuss more practical examples on the podcast episode. 

Start training.

This brings us to training. You’ve done all this planning and now you have to train someone. 

Keep these four questions in mind:
1) WHAT do they need training on?
2) WHAT is the priority?
3) HOW should we train?
4) HOW do we consider the skill learned?

1) WHAT do they need training on? This is something that the aforementioned checklist would help with. Every job has different work behaviours. 

2) WHAT is the priority? It’s important to prioritise, this can also be done at the planning level. However, exercise FLEXIBILITY and realistic aims. New needs might come up, there might be an unexpected new project, or there might be a new pupil joining the class or you might get a new client, etc etc. So, the level of importance of each work behaviour might shift based on day-to-day events. 

3) How should we train? In our Training staff introduction episode (season 2 episode 5), we mentioned an article that discussed different training methods.

In our field, there is something called BST (stands for Behavioural Skills Training) – this training procedure uses both verbal training and role playing. Verbal (or Vocal) instruction is given to the trainee, which can be in the form of a lecture, videos for around 15/20 minutes, followed by role playing where the work behaviour is demonstrated to the trainee.
During role play, it is also important for the staff to try and execute the work behaviour – there are various studies that have shown the efficiency of role play. But if you don’t believe us, just think about yourself when you start a new job. When did you learn a skill properly? When someone said “you do this and that” or when you actually had to do it? Understanding what works for each person could also help in training someone more effectively. 

4) How do we consider the skill mastered? Or when is someone competent at performing the target skill? The time spent in role playing is when you can assess if the skill is learned or if it needs more practice. To be clear, when we say role play, we don’t mean that you spend HOURS doing it but rather how skilled is the staff member at completing this skill correctly and with satisfaction.  

Fading in demands and Maintaining skill repertoire.

Fade in demands – If an employee is displaying the work behaviours necessary to master that part of training, progress with training, slowly adding more responsibilities.
This will help the new employee with being more successful in mastering each step.  They will also start feeling more confident as you systematically and slowly add more steps, so that each skill is well developed and fluently demonstrated. 

Maintenance – This is an important part of any work-based skill or any skill. If you don’t practice the target behaviours you will either lose the skill or forget how to do it. If you practise it or maintain it by performing it regularly, you are less likely to forget it.
Once in a while you can (and potentially should) check if the work skill is being performed correctly, but be mindful not to come across as condescending or overbearing. People can react negatively when they feel their superiors don’t trust them.
An approach we can recommend is to explain to the staff member that it is part of the company’s policy to do these checks, and that everyone goes through them, even managers. This is to ensure people are keeping their work skills.

End Thoughts

Training is a topic that is quite exciting for us, as we enjoy seeing people understand and apply skills to their work and personal life.

We find that using ABA can make people’s lives easier – the measures you put in place now will support you in the future.
Think about where you are now and where you want to be – ABA will help you prepare the steps between those two stages (the now and the future).

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post (and the podcast episode, if you’ve listened to it).
We are having a break and will be back in September!

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

The Hoot Chronicles XV – The Supervisor’s Guidebook

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Hello everyone,

This episode of The Hoot Chronicles came out on 16th May and you can listen to it on our podcast Chirping with ABA Owls. This should take you to our podcast page or you can listen on iTunes, Podbean and other podcasting apps. 

Every month, we discuss a book or article(s) that we find interesting – For this episode, we’ve chosen a book: The Supervisor’s Guidebook: Evidence-Based Strategies for Promoting Work Quality and Enjoyment Among Human Service Staff by Reid, Parsons & Green. 

We’ve read the 2021 edition, published by Charles C. Thomas.

About the authors

Dennis H Reid has over 40 years of experience providing, directing, and researching provision of support and services for people with intellectual disabilities and autism. He has published over 150 journal articles, chapters, and books as well as several widely used training curricula. 


Marsha B. Parsons has worked with individuals across the lifespan and disabilities spectrum beginning as a classroom teacher for children with mild intellectual disabilities and later, as a curriculum specialist and director of vocational programs for adults with severe disabilities and autism. 

She has authored or coauthored more than 50 journal articles and book chapters and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavior Analysis in Practice. 

Carolyn W Green is a noted practitioner, educational administrator, and applied researcher in the human services. She has provided many professional presentations across the United States as well as in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. 

All the information regarding the authors was retrieved from one of the author’s website, which you can access to find out more.

What is the topic?

This guidebook explains different procedures on how to supervise staff, particularly staff in the human service field. 

Some of the procedures they discuss are  BST (Behavioural Skills Training) and TEMP (Task Enjoyment Motivation Protocol).

Who should read this book?

Having a basic knowledge of ABA would help before reading this book – even if it’s just the concepts of Reinforcement and Shaping. But this book and their procedures can be used by people who supervise members of staff. Even people who are supervised could read this, as it gives them a bit of insight into how and why supervision occurs. 

Content

This book covers 5 areas: Introduction to supervision, critical supervisory skills, resolving common performance problems,  supervising from a distance (Telehealth) and selected reading.

Each section will have a certain number of chapters and each of them will have examples and a summary of the topics discussed at the end.

We do discuss the contents in more detail in the podcast episode, if you’re curious, you can always listen here.

Where can you get the book?

Disclaimer: the prices might have changed since the time this post was published or the podcast episode recorded.

Physical book

Creator’s website: http://www.dennishreidau.com/

Ebay: £ 75.59 (not including postage)
Amazon £38.56
AbeBooks: s £ 75.98
Not found in: Blackwell, Book Depository, Waterstones nor World of books.

Online version
Google books: £34.28
Not found in: Apple Books nor Audible.

We would love to have more books in audio format – even in different languages! Any ABA authors interested, feel free to drop us a message!

We hope you’ve found this helpful, we will try our best to publish blog posts as the podcast episodes come out.

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

Season 2, Episode 8 – Guess What I’m Thinking

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Welcome!

For this month’s Owls podcast episode, we discussed overt and covert behaviours. In case you’d like to listen, you can go to our podcast page or use your preferred podcast app and search “Chirping with ABA Owls” – we’re on iTunes, Podbean and other platforms.

If you prefer to read rather than listen, carry on with this post.

What are Overt and Covert behaviours?

Let’s start with some definitions.
Overt behaviour, which we can also call “actions” is  “Behaviour that can be observed by someone other than the person performing it” (Chance 1998, p.7)
Covert behaviour, or private event, is described as “behaviour that can be observed only by the person performing it”. (Chance 1998, p.7)

Skinner did consider thoughts to be important, but as he couldn’t measure them, it was harder to use it in a scientific manner. There have been many people misinterpreting Skinner’s views on feelings, thoughts and psychology. Here’s part of an article that combined Skinner’s views with the criticism he received: “Skinner (1956) himself opposed attempts to restrict scientific practice with preconceived rules or maxims. When placed in historical context, Skinner did not criticize neuroscience, he criticized the misuse of pseudo-physiological theories in the explanation of behavior. In addition, Skinner assumed that many questions about behavior, from the mechanisms of reinforcement and motivation to perceptual processes and private events, would be at least in part explained by neuroscience (Zilio 2013a).” (Zilio 2016)

In ABA we work with what we can see, the actions an individual performs – but that doesn’t mean we should ignore what the person might be thinking and feeling.
With thoughts and feelings, we enter a dicey and tricky area sometimes. There is quite a lot of debate on what is considered to be behaviour and what is not. For example, not all behaviour analysts take into account the importance of private events, the same way not all psychologists consider thoughts to be behaviour.
Honestly, we aren’t even touching that because there’s no point in starting a whole discussion. Bottom line is, we all perform actions and we all have thoughts and feelings. 

Since covert behaviour can’t be seen, there is a tendency for it to not be considered as important in ABA – but there are a lot of professionals changing this approach. Just because a person doesn’t convey their feelings, doesn’t mean they don’t have them. This can be especially hard for autistic people, and if you add an inability to speak or the inability to express yourself well into the mix, you can potentially have a recipe for challenging behaviour. 

Where and When do they occur?

Both covert and overt behaviour happen all the time and everywhere. Anything can trigger actions and thoughts: things we see around us, things we remember, smells, sounds etc. 

In ABA we say that behaviour doesn’t come from air, and that is true, but we think people should consider that thoughts can also cause behaviour.
We’ve all heard the expression “train of thought”, and we’ve all experienced remembering an event because something else triggered it. We can be talking about a flower we saw, and the other person listening to us can then think of a memory associated with flowers, that is associated with something else and so on. This train of thought can put us in a good or a bad mood, or have no impact on us. 

We know that in ABA we don’t use terminology such as “good” or “bad” mood, because it’s hard to measure and it’s not an accurate definition, but they are terms that the majority of people will understand. We shouldn’t ignore how these thoughts can influence our behaviour – just because a person is not able to communicate their emotions and mood, doesn’t mean that those feelings are not occurring. 

Think about your behaviour when you are trying to fall asleep. You’re lying in bed, the room is dark, the bed feels comfortable and your to-do list for tomorrow pops up in your mind! That alone can trigger other thoughts and memories, and slowly you lose sleep. What prompted this? It wasn’t anything around you, it was simply a thought you had.
But what happens between remembering your to-do list and losing sleep? You think about the actions you need to do to perform your tasks, you think about the level of difficulty those actions require, that alone can be quite demanding. 

Personally, we think thoughts and behaviours are connected. Just because we can help someone change their behaviour, doesn’t mean we’ve changed their thoughts and feelings. To change the latter, you need a different skill set and procedures.

How do these behaviours occur?

How do we identify covert and overt behaviour? Overt behaviour is easier, it can be seen, observed, measured. Overt behaviour is where behaviour analysts are very comfortable as they are able to observe and determine a function or a reason behind the behaviour, this way they may be able to help that person find another way to get their needs met without having to do it in 

Covert behaviour is so much harder because only the person experiencing these events knows if they are real or not. Maybe in the future we will be able to measure them – for example, using brain scans that light up when someone lies. Maybe that technology already exists, but it’s not available for the masses at the moment. 

For now, we work with what we got: overt behaviour. The way ABA professionals attempt to understand covert behaviour with their clients is by using things tools such as interviews, preference assessments, providing choice, etc. We do try to fill that gap as much as possible, but it can be difficult. 

Why do these behaviours occur?

It’s important to understand the difference between these two types of behaviours, because it will affect how we react to others behaviours. What can happen quite a lot is that people will associate certain behaviours with emotions and feelings, and make assumptions about it. 

Here’s a situation we do come across quite regularly: We go to a client’s school and ask “why do you think he/she doesn’t sit at the table to do work?” and they will reply “because they feel anxious about work”.
We enquiry further by asking “how do you know? Have they said work makes them anxious?”, to which a lot of the time people will reply  “no, but we can tell because he/she gets very distressed during class”.

They’ve associated behaviours that they call “distressed” with “anxiety” without having any way of confirming it. And yes, potentially school work might make the person feel anxious, but it can be equally true that they are using their behaviour to escape doing work – and they do this because it has shown results, that is, escaping school tasks. It can happen that the work is too hard and if the student displays problem behaviour, the work is then removed so they are able to avoid it.
A lot of people will be able to understand and relate to this, we avoid situations that are too difficult and unpleasant, we may not have problem behaviour to such a disruptive level but we will use other behaviours, e.g.saying we have a headache. 

We can’t ignore the possibility of anxiety, but in ABA, as we mentioned, it’s harder to work with what we can’t see. This is when ABA could benefit from contributing with psychologists, and develop an intervention that can support the person as best as possible. These collaborations already exist but maybe they need to happen more frequently.

End Thoughts and Resources

Learning and adapting is something that can be celebrated, we are fortunate in having the means to be able to explore and learn, this wasn’t a possibility in many other generations.

As we move forward in the human behaviour field, learning what best suits our clients and ourselves, learning to be more aware of our own behaviours – how they are influenced by others and our environment – the better we will be at adapting and improving as people.

For this episode and blog post, we used the following resources:
– Chance, P 1998, First Course in Applied Behavior Analysis, Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, U.S.A.

– Zillo, D. (2016). Who, What and When: Skinner’s Critiques of Neuroscience and His Main Targets. Association for Behaviour Analysts International, 39 (2), 197-218. doi: 10.1007/s40614-016-0053-x

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post (and the podcast episode, if you’ve listened to it).

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

The Hoot Chronicles XIII – Blind Spots

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Hello everyone,

This episode of The Hoot Chronicles came out on March 21st and you can listen to it on our podcast Chirping with ABA Owls. This should take you to our podcast page or you can listen on iTunes, Podbean and other podcasting apps. 

Every month, we discuss a book or article(s) that we find interesting – This month we decided to go with Blind Spots: Why Students Fail… and the Science That Can Save Them.

About the author

Blind Spots was written by Dr. Kimberly Nix Berens, she is a scientist-educator, the founder of Fit Learning and has been using behavioural science in her practice since 1998, There are more than 30 centers worldwide – one is actually in London.

What is Blind Spots about?

The book focuses on the educational system, and how it is not serving students appropriately. Even though the data and information is relevant to the North American school system, there are a lot of similarities to the worldwide educational system. 

Who should read this book?

In one word? Everyone! If you’re a parent, a professional, a student or just curious, this book is for you. We’ve all been students, we’ve all felt like we were doing something wrong because we were not understanding something in school and this book addresses that. 

Inside the book

Dr. Kimberly divides her book into 8 chapters. The first 4 chapters discuss the current situation – she presents data, studies, etc. 

In the 5th chapter, she discusses the 9 myths in education – the so-called “reasons” why children (both SEN and neurotypical) are not progressing.

One of the myths is called “But they are the experts” – this myth in particular caught our attention. Many behavior analysts (including ourselves) have come across situations where our knowledge is not perceived as specialist.
If you’re a SENCO, or a teacher, or a psychologist, then you are considered a specialist. Behavior analysts seem to have a harder time being considered specialists.

For the final 3 chapters, Dr. Kimberley presents her proposed solution for what can be done in the future and the evidence supporting her strategies.

Where can you get the book?

Disclaimer: the prices might have changed since the time this post was published or the podcast episode recorded.

Physical book
Creator’s website: https://www.drkimberlyberens.com/blindspots
Ebay: £15.45
Amazon and Book Depository: £16.29
Blackwell: £11.99
AbeBooks: £11.46
Waterstones: £17.99

Online version
Apple books: £7.99

We would love to have more books in audio format – even in different languages! Any ABA authors interested, feel free to drop us a message!

Final Notes and links

The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria has an episode with Dr. Kimberly discussing her book – session 136

You can also listen to her on The Controversial Exchange podcast by Ryan O’Donnell – TCE#035

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Kimberley Berens and FitLearning, here are some links for you:
https://fitlearners.com/

https://www.drkimberlyberens.com/
https://fitlearnersldn.com/

We hope you’ve found this helpful, we will try our best to publish blog posts as the podcast episodes come out.

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

Season 2, Episode 6 – The GROW Model

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Welcome!

This month (March 2022) we released an episode podcast called “The GROW Model”, if you’d like to listen, you can go to our podcast page or use your preferred podcast app and search “Chirping with ABA Owls” – we’re on iTunes, Podbean and other platforms.

If you prefer to read rather than listen, this post will summarise the episode. 

The first episode and blog post on the “Training staff” series was an introduction to this topic area, and even though the GROW model is not ABA, we feel that it is a very useful tool that can be combined with ABA procedures.

Disclaimer: Both this post and the podcast episode are in no way meant to be seen as training on the GROW model – we are gathering the resources available online and putting them together in one place.

What is the GROW model?

It was developed in the 1980s in the UK by business coaches Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and Sir John Whitmore. Have a look at their official website for more details into the history of GROW: https://www.performanceconsultants.com/grow-model 

It is important to note that the GROW model is copyrighted, but based on what we’ve read on the official website, we think it applies to businesses that want to use it. We’re not sure how that applies to individuals at home. There is an email or contact form provided if you want to seek permission to use GROW in your business or organisation.

GROW stands for:  Goal, Reality, Options (or Obstacles) and Will. 

Goal – something that you aim for, that’s inspiring. It doesn’t have to be measurable nor detailed. Some people have the goal of being happy, others want to be artists, or become carpenters. Goals are different for everyone. 

Reality – what is the current situation? E.g. Little time for x,y,z tasks.

Options or Obstacles – When we were trained, we were taught this section is about the Obstacles standing in your way. However, the official website mentions “Options”. There have been other places where the term “Obstacles” is used.  On the performance consultant’s website it is written “Explore the options moving forward” and an example of a question you could ask yourself in this section is  “How would you tackle this if time wasn’t an option?”.

Will – What achievable and measurable steps will you take towards your goal? These steps should be something you will commit to. Don’t worry about setting up loads of targets, it’s better to do a few but achievable. 

How to use it?

The official website describes the GROW steps, along with examples,  and they provide training for people who want to be coaches and for those who want to use GROW themselves. 

There are various videos on Youtube about the GROW model, here’s the link for one that we found helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fbooiSh_bA

Why should you use GROW?

We find that GROW is a really good tool to create clear and achievable steps towards an end goal. This method makes end goals feel less daunting and its format reminds us of ABA type ways of breaking down goals into small, achievable steps. 

Feeling overwhelmed is something we have all experienced at one time or another – goal can seem out of reach and it’s difficult to know where to start.  

GROW founders also advise on their website that this model should be used in conjunction with other tools. They mention “fundamental coaching skills” but since we’re not business coaches, we rely on ABA.

GROW and ABA

To end this post, we will discuss the similarities and differences between GROW and ABA.

Similarities:

1- They both look at the current situation (GROW calls it reality and ABA calls it Baseline)

2- They both use achievable and measurable steps towards an end goal (GROW calls it Will. In ABA it can be called “intervention”).

Differences

1- ABA doesn’t use vague goals. In GROW, a person can set up a goal such as “being happy”, but in ABA it’s harder to use a goal like this. It’s not impossible, but we would look at how that person describes “happy” and give it a clear and measurable definition. Happiness means different things to different people, so we would ALWAYS tailor that main goal in terms that are clear and specific for that person. 

2- Whilst GROW separates Options (or obstacles) and Will into separate parts, ABA will more likely combine the two. For example, on their website, GROW founders gave the following question as an example for Options: “how would you tackle this if time wasn’t a factor?”.
In ABA, we would use the information given from Options and convert it into targets. Whilst GROW has people separating these into two separate categories, in ABA we are more likely to do this in one go. 

As an ABA practitioner you can separate these two, of course – this is especially helpful when you are new to setting targets. Once you become more fluent, you’ll find that you might not need to set up all those questions, options, etc. before deciding targets.

At the end of the day, this is a very good tool to use, whether you are ABA trained or not. We discuss our opinions on this model in more length on our podcast episode – just search “Chirping with ABA Owls” or go to the podcast page on our website.

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

Season 1, Episode 12 – ABA programmes: Consultants and Supervisors

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Hello everyone,

This post is the written version of the podcast episode with the same title – it was episode 12, part 1 was released on 1st February 2021 and the second part on 8th February 2021. Click here to be directed to our podcast page or you can search for “Chirping with ABA Owls” on apple podcasts or Podbean – this post is a summary of what is discussed on the episode.

In this post you will find information about:
– What is a BCBA, BCaBA and a Supervisor.
– Why do you need a supervisor or certified person.
– Who should you hire.
– When should a consultant or supervisor visit.
– How do you find a consultant/BCBA.
– How much will it cost.
– Ethical guidelines for BCBAs.
– Becoming a BCBA.

What is a BCBA, a BCaBA and a Supervisor

If you listen to the podcast, you’ll know that we like to divide our topics into WH- questions. We understand that there are many acronyms in our field and that it can become quite confusing.

BCBA stands for Board Certified Behavior Analyst –  there are 3 types of BCBAs, the BCBA-D (D stands for doctoral level), BCBA (has completed supervision hours, sat and passed the BCBA exam) and BCaBA (the lowercase “a” stands for assistant).

BCBA-D is the highest rank in ABA, people holding this qualification have finished a PhD in ABA.

A BCBA is a person who has completed their qualification and is able to fully fulfil the duties of a consultant: creating targets, procedures, behaviour plans, reviewing data, training others (such as carers, parents, tutors, other professionals), etc..

BCaBA has completed their supervision hours and exam, but the amount of hours will be less in comparison to the ones required of a BCBA, and their exam will not be as extensive. For these reasons, BCaBA is considered the lowest rank in the consultant qualification.

A person can first become a BCaBA and later complete the necessary requirements to achieve the BCBA qualification. They can also choose to complete the BCBA qualification and skip the BCaBA stage.

In a lot of home programmes there are supervisors – these are people that do the same tasks as a BCBA (or consultant) but they are still guided by a qualified BCBA (or at least, they should). When a BCBA is busy, they might delegate some duties to the supervisor.

Supervisor is not an official position within the BACB (Behavior Analyst Certification Board). Typically, supervisors are people working towards the BCBA qualification, but that is not always the case.

Different people have different experiences, and you will come across people with a BCBA qualification who might have only worked in one type of setting or they might have worked in different environments. There are some supervisors that are as experienced as a BCBA, but don’t have the official qualification.

We’ve both come across situations where people who have been home tutors for a while, but haven’t pursued training or further qualification, start calling themselves supervisors. Of course there are tutors who ask for training, and actively learn about ABA procedures, etc., the ones who don’t, end up having gaps in their knowledge.

When you interview someone and you need to make a decision, look at their CV, ask questions about the settings they worked in, talk about your particular situation and what actions they would take.

In the field of ABA, it’s really important for a person to work in the field they’ve had training and experience on – if you’ve always worked with autistic children, you’d need training before working in OBM (Organisational Behaviour Management).

Why do you need a supervisor or a certified person?

When seeking specialised help, having people trained in the area will make a difference in the results. The same way doctors, lawyers, police officers and others receive training, so do ABA professionals.

As you may know, ABA stands for Applied Behaviour Analysis, it is used to modify behaviour – it is imperative to have someone who has been trained because this field actively intervenes in people’s lives.

The professional who gathers all the information about the client, will also be the one making the decisions: they will look at what areas need intervention, how should the goals be run, are they measurable, are they appropriate? There are many questions we ask ourselves as consultants and supervisors when implementing an ABA programme.

As the person hiring the BCBA or the supervisor, don’t be afraid to ask questions – Ask the professionals about their qualification, their experiences. It is not insulting to try to understand if a person’s abilities are suited for your situation.

Who should you hire?

There are quite a few variables when you have to decide who to hire. You need to consider the type of programme you have, what your needs are, how much input is needed, are you planning on going through the tribunal process in order to have ABA in school?

Usually a BCBA (aka consultant) is hired, they have the recognised qualification and (should have) the necessary experience to support their clients.

BCaBs and supervisors can also be equally competent, but keep in mind that people in these two positions should have the support of a BCBA.

Something you should consider carefully when choosing someone is: how comfortable are you with this person? Do you feel they will be a good addition to the team?

We will repeat this many times: ask questions. Find out about their experience, ask them how they would act in a relevant situation to the client.

When should a consultant or supervisor visit?

The frequency of the consultant’s or supervisor’s visits will also vary according to each situation. By this we mean: what are the client’s needs? Do the tutors need training? Is input needed at school? Is the team around the client established or new? Is the programme already set up or new?

There is also a difference between team meetings and workshops. Team meetings will be a catching up between the team on the programmes already implemented. A workshop will involve training, either on a new programme or on a current programme that needs more support.

These two might intertwine at times, but we’ve found that we can use our time much more efficiently if we decide beforehand what type of meeting we’re having. We’d ask the team if there is anything they want to address and plan accordingly.

Covid-19 has had a big impact on how we conduct meetings – it has raised the question if every meeting needs to be in person. There was a period when face to face meetings weren’t possible, so we had to find ways to support our clients long-distance. Online meetings can be quicker and more efficient, but there are certain situations where on-hand training is necessary – which can be quite hard to perform through video meetings.

How do you find a consultant/BCBA?

1)    Go on the BACB website and look for “Find a Certificant”. The BACB keeps a registry of all BCBAs and RBTs who have achieved a qualification before January 2022. This might have changed due to the new rules on how to become certified.

2)    Facebook groups have a lot of parents/professionals advertising – try “ABA tutors/parents” or “ABA 4 all”. There are many other groups, you just need to search key terms such as “ABA”, “autism”, “tutor” etc.

3)    WhatsApp groups. These require an invitation, but it doesn’t hurt to ask others if they know of any chat group (you can enquire online or in person).

4)    Word of mouth. It is quite common for people to recommend professionals they are happy with.

When deciding on a BCBA or supervisor, ask for evidence of qualification. This can be their BCBA number (so that you can look them up on the BACB registry), their master’s diploma, training certificates, performance evaluations or even letters of recommendations from previous clients.

It is not offensive to ask for these things, this is work, it is absolutely normal to check qualifications.


How much will it cost?

Discussing money has always been a difficult topic for many people, but it is a necessary area to address.

Most of our experience has been in the UK, therefore our knowledge of rates will be relevant to this country.

The ABA field does not regulate fees, causing rates to vary greatly. They vary from country to country, vary from area to area (within the same country) and from professional to professional.

How much you pay a consultant or supervisor will also depend on the services they provide and the amount of time they can dedicate to you – we find it important to list every task we perform, as it allows our client to know exactly how much time we spent on each area of the programme.

You don’t have to settle for the first person you interview – you should be happy and comfortable with your choice.

We know that several people might be reticent when they hear the rate per hour, but also consider the fact that if you are hiring a BCBA, they would have had to pay for their exam, for their masters and for their hours of supervised work. Even after achieving their qualification, BCBAs have to complete 32 learning credits every 2 years and re-certify their qualification – this is another extra expense.

Other questions that arise are: should the employer pay for transport? Parking? Petrol? Food? Admin time (time spent doing paperwork)? The answer for all of these is: it depends.

Transport – is it a long commute? Are you, the employer, adamant in having this particular consultant come to you? Would you be willing to pay part of the commute? As a professional, is the commute worth it?

Parking– Is parking expensive in the client’s home area? Is there an alternative parking nearby? Does the employer have visitor discount parking?

Petrol – discuss it. Personally, we choose not to charge petrol as it was our choice to use a car.

Food – Accepting food from employers may lead to multiple relationships (see the BACB ethics code section 1.11), where the line between professional and personal can become blurred. Is there a place nearby where you can buy food? Can you bring a packed lunch? We advise caution in this area.

Admin – Is it a new programme? Does it need more admin time to set up at the beginning? Could you agree on a budget for admin time? Is the budget time enough to maintain the programme being run effectively? Have the employer and the consultant had a discussion where it is clear the amount of time necessary for admin work?

Ethical Guidelines for BCBAs

            This area is very important to ABA professionals, anyone practising ABA should be acquainted with the BACB ethics code, even if they don’t know it by heart. The ethics code has been recently updated and these changes are now applicable from January 2022 onwards.

            When starting a new programme, it is important to be aware of section 2 and 3 of the ethics code, “Responsibility in Practice” and “Responsibility to Clients and Stakeholders” (respectively). These sections contain information about the BCBA’s duties, guidelines in setting fees, what is expected of them, etc.

Becoming a BCBA

            If you are interested in becoming a BCBA, all the information will be on the BACB website. They also provide pdf manuals for the different qualifications. There’s a BCBA handbook, an RBT handbook

            We both did our masters online and travelled to our university once a semester to attend lectures – we found that working in an ABA school really impacted our ability to understand the field and our performance in our studies.



Thank you for reading such a long post, we hope it has been helpful in some shape or form.

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren

The Hoot Chronicles XII – AFLS

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Hello everyone,

This episode of The Hoot Chronicles came out on January 17th and you can listen to it on our podcast Chirping with ABA Owls. This should take you to our podcast page or you can listen on iTunes, Podbean and other podcasting apps. 

Every month, we discuss a book or article(s) that we find interesting – This month we decided to go with AFLS, The Assessment of Functional Living Skills. 

The AFLS were developed by James W. Partington and Michael M. Mueller, they consist of 7 different manuals: basic living skills, home skills, community participation skills, school skills, vocational skills and independent living skills and of course, 7th is the guide. 

About the authors: 

James W. Partington, Ph.D., BCBA-D, is the director of Behavior Analysts, Inc., and provides training and clinical services to other professionals, educators as well as to children and their families. He is a licensed psychologist with over 40 years of experience working with children with autism, language delays, and/or other developmental disabilities. 

Michael M. Mueller, Ph.D., BCBA-D, has dedicated himself to practicing Applied Behavior Analysis with children with autism in homes, schools, state residential facilities, group homes, clinics, and other community settings for over 20 years. 

What are the AFLS?

This set of assessments are a way of assessing, tracking and teaching functional living skills, for example, being able to use money to create a budget, learning how to manage your own time, etc. 

Some of the skills included in these manuals are related to hygiene (brushing teeth), others are focused on cooking and maintaining a house, amongst others.

A very pertinent quote on their website is “The more you teach them now, the less you’ll have to do later to support him later!”

The skills to be able to care of one’s self are essential to everyone – A goal we should always work towards is to teach independence skills as much as possible.

Who can use AFLS?

Parents or professionals, it is helpful for both as it can help you understand how much we forget about with independence and the levels involved with teaching different forms of independence 

Their website has different tabs for professionals, educators, parents and caregivers and explains how it can be useful for all those different levels. 

Where can you get AFLS?

Physical books

Creator’s website: https://partingtonbehavioranalysts.com/
Ebay: £72.59
Amazon: £67.35 

In our opinion, it’s better to go to the source for these tools, it’s a better price than other platforms. They also have online training (paid of course) and a section called WebAFLS – you can access the Manual online which provides extra support in recording and deciding targets. It’s $100 for the first year and $60 per year thereafter. Honestly, get the books. 

We hope you’ve found this helpful, we will try our best to publish blog posts as the podcast episodes come out.

You can also follow us on Instagram (@ABA_owls), send us an email on aba.owls.uk@gmail.com or leave us a comment below.

Thank you for reading,

Carla and Lauren