I stayed up too late last night creating Pinterest boards for our families (you should check out our boards - we found some cool stuff). and I was thinking about the mission for our company. There are so many kiddo's on the waiting list for ABA services that it can be a bit overwhelming. Throughout the years, I hear parents say "I've tried everything and nothing works" so many times, and I can feel their frustration and anxiety over the situation. It might be a kiddo that hits themselves, or throws tantrums at the store, or bites, or any combination of things that make life as a parent just a bit harder. While human behavior is a complicated thing, there is an entire field of us out here to help you! Here's a brief overview of what we know about challenging behavior:
The A-B-C's
Antecedent - Behavior - Consequence
The A (Antecedent) is anything that happens before the behavior, that acts as a trigger for the behavior. (Hint; as adults we're usually looking for something drastic here - but it can be as simple as sensory overload, or a stubbed toe).
The B (Behavior) is the behavior of concern. There's a few that are pretty consistently a concern to parents of all kids - tantrums, hurting themselves or others, and bolting. It's important that when you're identifying the behavior, that you are as objective as possible. When describing the behavior, we want to be able to read the definition to someone who has never seen it and have them act it out perfectly. (Hint; it's important to include the duration of the behavior here and any non-examples)
The C (consequence) is what happens directly after the behavior. Do me a favor here, and remove what you think you know about the word consequence. We are not talking about time outs, or corporal punishment - it is simply what happens directly following the behavior and can include anything (attention from Mom, escape from a task, etc). What's important here, is to know that the consequence is what dictates the future frequency of a behavior. If I throw a chair, and a cookie magically appears in front of me, I'm more likely to throw a chair when I want a cookie in the future. If my boss asks me to do something, and I scream which results in my being sent to time-out (and escaping the task) - I'm way more likely to scream at my boss in the future.
How many times have you tried time out, just to find that it doesn't work and your kiddo is still tantruming/bolting/hitting? That's probably because we didn't consider the function of the behavior when we created the intervention!
My next blog post will cover the functions of behavior in-depth! But for now, process that information :)
Now, I'm a firm believer in creating collaborative teams and teaching parents to do what I do (ask my clients, I always tell them that I want them to know how to teach and help their kiddo if I randomly fall off a cliff one day), and it was this thought process that lead me to start creating my parent training and outreach aspect of the business. I want parents to be able to assess if their current ABA program is effective and appropriate, I want parents to be able to identify and prioritize challenging behaviors and appropriate replacement behaviors for those, and I want parents to be familiar with collecting data, that way if they're on a wait list for a diagnosis or ABA services, they can start to do what the program will do earlier.
Our parent training class will cover the basics of ABA, the functions of behavior, data collection, and lots of collaborative conversations about what interventions work, which ones don't, and how to make sure they're working.
The good news is that this class is open to everyone! Behavior doesn't just exist in kiddo's with a diagnosis, we all engage in behavior and ABA can be applied to parenting and kids of all age. Our classes will be a judgement free zone, we're we'll work together to come up with workable solutions for each family!
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