How many times have you wished you could change the behavior of the people around you? Whether it be your spouse, your colleagues, your friends, or your children, most of us wish we could change someone's behavior at some point during our day! Well, we are here to share a little secret with you: you can change behavior! That is what the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is all about! The principles of ABA are founded in the idea that all behavior is learned and that all behavior can be modified. And, fortunately, these principles are not a secret! In fact, they are a science! We are here to share them with you! While we are closet (or maybe not-so-closet) nerds who enjoy reading ABA textbooks, we realize that most people do not! Our goal here is to take that information and break it down in a way that is useful to those of you who are not ABA nerds like us! Now let's get down to business...
As a special educator and a psychologist, we work to modify the behavior of our students (and the staff we supervise!) Our goal as Early Intervention professionals is to modify socially-significant behavior. In other words, we work to teach the behaviors that will improve our students' quality of life and we work to decrease the behaviors that may interfere with it. In Early Intervention, behavior modification is about helping our little learners to reach their highest potential. (We also utilize these principles in our personal lives but let's just keep that between us!) Because we work with young children and are often asked for advice in addressing challenging behavior, we have chosen to present this information from that angle. But, keep in mind that the principles and the process below apply to all behaviors (not just the interfering ones) and all people (not just children or individuals with special needs)! Fortunately, the principles of ABA are effective for everyone, including you and us! More specific and detailed information will come later. For now we'll start with the basics! Take a deep breath and get excited! This stuff will change your world (and your behavior!)
Step 1: Stay calm!
Step 2: Identify the ABC's
Step 3: Determine the function of the behavior
Step 4: Place the interfering behavior on extinction
Step 5: Teach and reinforce a more socially-functional replacement behavior
Step 6: Analyze the effectiveness of your intervention
Stay Calm!
Always remember that the first step in effectively modifying an interfering behavior is to remain calm! Take a deep breath and try to think objectively! No matter how it looks, the child's behavior is most likely not about you. It's about the child trying to meet a need. You must do your best not to take it personally. When we make a behavior personal, our emotions begin to cloud our judgement. You can best help the child by staying calm, neutral, and objective.
Identify the ABC's
There are three elements in evaluating a behavior: the antecedent, the behavior, and the consequence. In ABA, these are affectionately known as the ABC's. The antecedent is what happened right before the behavior and the consequence is what happened right after the behavior. You can think of the ABC's as being: before (antecedent), during (behavior), and after (consequence). Behaviorists often utilize specific ABC data sheets to try to track behavioral patterns. This information then helps us to determine the function of the behavior.
Determine the Function of the Behavior
The function of the behavior is why the behavior is occurring. Every behavior serves a function. Everything we do is for a reason. In order to change a behavior, we must first figure out why it is occurring. Different ABA programs and therapists may use different acronyms to describe functions of behavior. In our Early Intervention program, we call them "The Four A's": attention, access, avoidance, and automatic. Although different behaviorists may use slightly different names (or maybe even organize them differently), you can rest assured that we are all basically talking about the same things. We believe that every behavior falls under one of these four categories.
Place the Interfering Behavior on Extinction
In ABA, extinction means no longer reinforcing a behavior that was previously reinforced. Okay, so that was a confusing definition, right? Let's break it down. Every behavior occurs for a reason (the function). If we continue to engage in a behavior, it's because somewhere along the way it got us what we wanted/needed. By placing a behavior on extinction, we are no longer reinforcing it. We are no longer letting that behavior get the child what he/she wants. We must teach the child that the interfering behavior is no longer going to be effective. How we place a behavior on extinction will vary depending upon the function. Here's the important thing: if we are no longer reinforcing the behavior, then the child has no reason to engage in it anymore.
Teach and Reinforce a Replacement Behavior
Extinction is rarely effective without teaching the child a replacement behavior. If we stop reinforcing one behavior but do not teach a more appropriate one, the child is likely to just develop a new interfering behavior to replace the old one. We must teach the child a socially-appropriate way to get what he/she wants. So, we teach that one behavior no longer works (the interfering one) and, at the same time, we teach that a new behavior (the replacement behavior) does work! Make sense?
Analyze the Effectiveness of Intervention
A cornerstone of ABA is data collection. A true ABA therapist will record and graph data on all teaching and intervention plans. If a therapist is not recording data, then he/she is not a true ABA professional! Data collection is important because it allows us to see if what we are doing is working. We do not rely on subjective ideas, thoughts, or opinions. In ABA, we rely on fact (and we always have the data to prove it!) This way we make the best decisions for our students. So, any time you are working to modify an interfering behavior, it is important to record some type of data, no matter how informal, so that you can evaluate the effectiveness of what you're doing. We do not want to waste a child's time with an intervention that's not working. We also want to make sure that we are not causing behavioral harm by accidentally reinforcing the interfering behavior. We, as ABA professionals, are not perfect! We do not have all the answers and we do not always develop a perfect intervention on the first try! If only our jobs were that easy! Sometimes our plans don't work. Sometimes we misjudge the primary function of a behavior. Sometimes we fail to identify effective reinforcers. The list of potential mistakes could go on and on. These things happen, despite our best efforts. With data and analysis, we can identify when this is happening and develop a more effective intervention.
Other Key Vocabulary:
We have mentioned some key terms above that you may not be familiar with. Learning about ABA can feel like learning a whole new language! Let us clarify...
Reinforcement: Anything that follows a behavior that makes that behavior more likely to occur again in the future. Reinforcement increases behavior.
Punishment: Anything that follows a behavior that makes that behavior less likely to occur again in the future. Punishment decreases behavior.
Please remember that this is general and introductory information on ABA, and certainly not anything that we are presenting as our own work. This is a science that has existed for quite some time! We are not presenting new information here--we are just aiming to represent it in a way that makes sense to others! We hope we have succeeded! The world of behavior modification is much, much more extensive than this! After years of being in this field, we are still in the learning process and probably always will be! This post is a starting point for those of you who are new to the field. We will post more detailed information on each of these steps in the very near future (check back in with this post--we will create links to more detailed information as we post it!) Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences, or let us know specific areas in which you would like more detailed information!
Note: You may have noticed throughout this post that we have used the label "interfering behavior". We use this title to indicate that the behavior interferes with a child's daily life. In ABA, we focus on behaviors that are socially-significant. We avoid making value judgements, which is why we avoid labels such as "bad" or "misbehaving".
No comments:
Post a Comment