RE: jump start motivation

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

.... jump starting " motivation " . Probably what you are looking for is jump

starting " initiation " . To get someone to initiate, you would transition

from verbal and physical prompts to situational prompts. You would need to

build some number of situations where he is initiating before he would start

spontaneously initiating in an untaught situation.

Basically, you pair the situation with supporting verbal and/or physical

prompts. Fade out the verbal and/or physical prompts until the situation is

the only prompt.

So, for example I want my son to say hi to me when I come home. I walk in

the door and he should say " hi dad " to start a conversation. My walking in

the door is the situational prompt.

(This is the natural prompt that the rest of us know to use as it is polite

for one or the other to start the exchange. If one person does not start,

generally the other person will. We do not choose to do it all the time,

but we recognize it as a standard social interaction.)

I may start with opening the door, raising my hand to the wave position, and

prompting verbally ( " say hi dad " ) for my son to say " hi dad " . I then give

him a favorite reinforcer and may pair it with less favorite but socially

appropriate interactions.

As quickly as possible, shorten the verbal prompt maintaining the physical

hand wave while coming in the door. So " hi dad " may be shortened to " hi d "

to " hi " to " h " to silence. Then fade the raised hand wave by each time not

raising it as high until you are just walking in the door. Of course you

will use wait time and increasing the prompt if he is not initiating

completely. For a lower functioning individual this process may take a

while so be patient.

You could do this with just " hi " to start and vary the people. If there are

several people involved you need to track results to insure consistency

between those participating. You can either start with various people doing

this, or you can generalize to other people once his initiation is

consistent with you.

You need to work on fluency (immediate or quick initiation) if this does not

come automatically.

At some point you can turn the task into him entering a room or other

situation and saying hi. So at school it is " hi Mrs. X " when he gets out of

the car to great his teacher, or " hi everybody " when he walks into the

classroom.

Getting our kids to initiate in social situations is frequently hard since

social interactions are not motivating. You generally need to start with

extra reinforcements but pair with conventional ones. Getting a child to

initiate asking for a cookie or other favorite food is usually quite easy

since the reinforcement is intrinsic.

You can use contrived situations and sabotage to create these initiation

opportunities. These initiations frequently taught in the environments

where they would occur. You may first need to teach supporting skills.

You use at least the basic ABA principles of providing individual specific

reinforcement and reinforcement fading, controlling the stimulation to

insure inappropriate behaviors and incorrect answers are not reinforced, and

providing a support structure to take the individual from where he can not

fail and building him to where he can perform independently.

These initiation skills should be built at home and school.

Look for favorite activities but also work on initiation of important social

interactions. First make sure you have basic initiations of requests for

desired items.

If you meant something else by " jump starting motivation " ... then never mind

what I just said! :}

Best wishes,

-Karl

Accelerations Educational Software

www.dttrainer.com

Message 1

From: " Cochran " Ladyshrink111@...

Date: Mon May 22, 2006 9:20am(PDT)

Subject: Re: ABA/MFE

Thanks, Shane and Roxanne for your detailed answers to my many questions.

Certainly not inexpensive, I can see why so many mothers who opt for ABA

would have to work, at a minimum 1600 a week would put a dent in most

budgets, or you would have to learn to do it yourself, as I said, with young

children, I think is the better way to go.

No takers on how you use ABA to jump start motivation? I do get how you

would increase more concrete skills with ABA, but how does one instill

motivation, a more intrinisic quality? Is this beyond the scope of ABA?

TIA,