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The Hoot Chronicles XIX – The Checklist Manifesto

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Hello everyone,

This episode of The Hoot Chronicles came out on 17th October 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 moved away from autism, went into the medical field and covered The Checklist Manifesto by Dr. Atul Gawande

About the author

Dr. Gawande is a surgeon, writer and public health leader. He is currently serving under the Biden-Harris administration as Assistant Administrator of Global Health Development at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

There is a quite vast list of accomplishments, which you are welcome to read about in Wikipedia or on his website: http://atulgawande.com/ (but just as a warning, when I opened this last website, it said the connection was not protected). 

Who should read this book?

Anyone. The way the book is written allows it to reach pretty much every reader in the world.

What is covered in the book?

Through his own experiences, Dr Gawande shows us how checklists are important in a variety of contexts and how he brought them into his own practice as a surgeon.
The book explores how situations as complex as flying a plane, building an edifice and performing surgery, can be aided by a checklist. This is not to say that checklists are perfect, as anything, they can be flawed. However, it is important to carry on perfecting them so they can support people. Even though the book delves into the use of checklists in a professional environment, they can be used by anyone in any setting.

Dr Gawade discusses how he worked on a project with WHO (World Health Organisation) on developing a surgery checklist that could be used on a global scale – I’m not sure if they had a behaviour analyst on this project, but from reading the book, probably not.
They tested the checklist in 8 different hospitals across the world in rich, poor and middle class environments. After 3 months of the pilot study starting, nearly all hospitals reported that the checklist helped them correct errors in procedures, prevent errors from occurring and deaths from surgeries decreased by 47% !
At the end of the trial period, they asked the people who used the checklist to fill out an anonymous survey. 80% of the people surveyed found the checklist easy to use, 20% didn’t. But when asked “if you were having this operation, would you want the checklist used?” and 93% said yes! Social Validity – super important in ABA!

The book highlights a few key features a checklist should have: Pause points (when the checks happen), Communication (aka teams talking to each other) and focusing on important and critical steps (as opposed to going through every single little one).

The book also explains how they perfected the checklist for the surgical setting – revising what was needed to stay, keeping it brief, quick and efficient, simulating situations and training staff.

Where can you get the book?

Physical book
Ebay: £ 4.43
Amazon: £8.18
Book Depository: £8.18
Blackwell: £8.18
AbeBooks: £3.74 (not including shipping)
World of Books: £4.19
Waterstones: £9.99

Online version
Apple Books: $10.99
Audible: £19.99
Not found in: Google books (only a sample).

Extra Resources and Links

https://www.who.int/news/item/11-12-2010-checklist-helps-reduce-surgical-complications-deaths

https://www.who.int/news/item/04-12-2015-who-checklist-targets-major-causes-of-maternal-and-newborn-deaths-in-health-facilities

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa0810119

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

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

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

The Hoot Chronicles XVI – Pill Swallowing

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Hello everyone,

This is June’s episode of The Hoot Chronicles 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, Lauren will take us through an article called: Behavioral training for pill-swallowing difficulties in young children with autisitic disorder by Ghuman, Cataldo, Beck and Slifer. It was published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and is from 2004. 

What is the topic?

This study targeted the increase of pill swallowing behaviours in children aged 5 years old and upwards.

Who should read this article?

Anyone who works in the field of behavioural analysis, people who work with individuals with ASD, parents who need advice on how to encourage pill swallowing and other professionals and carers.

Contents

The therapists who ran the study used multiple teaching strategies to teach these children to swallow pills, which included instructions, modelling, gestural prompts, physical prompts and visual aids (a small poster with an actual example of each of the increasingly larger practice pills).
They (the therapists) gradually moved through the different sizes based on a set criteria of mastery, when they were confidently able to swallow pills of a certain size they would move to a bigger size pill. The child would receive reinforcement after successfully swallowing the pill. 

If you’re curious about extra comments on this article, you can always listen here.

Where can you get the article?

There are various online platforms, such as google scholar, wiley library, research gate, etc. 

We found this particular article in the research gate website and in the National Library of Medicine. 

Ghuman, J. K., Cataldo, M. D., Beck, M. H. & Slifer, K. J. (2004). Behavioral Training for Pill-Swallowing Difficulties in Young Children with Autistic Disorder. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 14(4), 601-11. doi:10.1089/cap.2004.14.601

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

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

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

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