Re: tacting and prompting

[Guest guest]

Dora,

Errorless teaching IS the way to start. Even my lead therapist who has

worked with a child who " recovered " through traditional Lovaas sits back and

wonders how much faster that child might have learned it they had done

errorless.

Learning about it is the tough part. I'm hoping someone else on the list

(Rhonda??) has the web links for upcoming conferences involving Dr. Vince

Carbone, Pat McGreevey, Mark Sundberg and Partington. There are many

others who practice errorless, but those four are the ones who seem to travel

and speak the most. Dr. Carbone is our consultant and he'll be in Dallas, TX

and Cincinnati, Ohio in January, St. Louis at the end of March. It is much

easier to understand if you can actually see a presentation, preferably one

of their two day workshops. It can be pricey, about $180 plus travel and

lodging, but it will be the best investment you can make. I know it was for

us.

You're already in a position to start? Can your daughter echo what you say?

If so, start her off with what we call " manding " (think of is as short for

" commanding, or demanding...basically it's a request.) Start making her ask

for everything she plays with, eats and drinks. Say she is probably thirsty.

Take her cup, hold it in front of her and say, " What do you want? Juice. "

Give her the answer right away, that's essentially all errorless teaching is.

Ideally, she'll echo you. That's your first goal. Give her the juice. The

next time, after she echoes, go right back to " What do you want? This time,

hesitate a second to give the chance to respond, and then prompt again and

get an echo. Over time, as you repeat this literally dozens of times, you'll

fade the prompt " juice " and get independent responses from her. (See my other

post on prompting) I think you will find within just a couple of days that

while she may not yet spontaneously request things, she'll initiate much,

much more by tugging on your hand, etc, and then responding to the question,

" What do you want? "

As for teaching family members. Take some photos of everyone, including your

daughter. Laminate with clear contact paper. Teach them much the same way

as described in my post on prompting.

Good luck

Mark

[Guest guest]

Hello

This is all very interesting. Some questions though... where can I learn

more about errorless learning? And what do you use before using errorless

learning? My daughter can't identify most objects (at least not by words)

.... not a bowl, a tree, a person, etc.... She only names a few select

objects (never when asking for the object though), so I'm not sure if

errorless learning would be a good starting point. ??? Heck, she won't

even say her name, or the name of anyone in our family. (Frustrating.)

Dora

>Since you want to use errorless learning, you always provide the prompt the

>child needs until they don't need a prompt anymore. So, on receptive id,

>you point to the picture you are asking for....

> " Give me ______. " , while pointing or touching the picture.....use the least

>prompt that will get the child to give you the card you asked for. On

>tacts, you start out by saying, " What is it? " and with no pause you say the

>name of the item. Then gradually you might fade to just the beginning

>sound of the word, and then when the child starts saying the word the same

>time as you, then you fade back a second.

>

>Lynda

>

>

>>

[Guest guest]

Hi Dora,

Errorless learning/teaching means you give them the answer immediately, you

systematically fade the prompts until she answers correctly on her own.

This way she doesn't get a chance to practice saying a wrong answer and have

to unlearn that before learning the correct answer. Does this make sense?

It's the only way to go in my opinion.We have always used errorless (6 yrs of

ABA), it was especially useful in the early years when my son learned very

little on his own. Hope this helps.Annie

[Guest guest]

Dear Lynda,

We have LANGUAGE BUILDERS and since Isaac had his brain surgeries, and

started the intense home program, he has been whizzing through those cards,

and we purposefully use a couple other sets to, for even better

generalizing since the world won't always have those cards are at his

disposal to work from.

>Since you want to use errorless learning, you always provide the prompt the

>child needs until they don't need a prompt anymore. So, on receptive id,

>you point to the picture you are asking for....

> " Give me ______. " , while pointing or touching the picture.....use the least

>prompt that will get the child to give you the card you asked for.

This drill is going beautifully, but pinch me, because I am so scared it

must be an illusion. This is the child who could point to two or three

OBJECTS last year without any consistency for months and months and that

school did use errorless.

>tacts, you start out by saying, " What is it? " and with no pause you say the

>name of the item. Then gradually you might fade to just the beginning

>sound of the word, and then when the child starts saying the word the same

>time as you, then you fade back a second.

>

>Lynda

>

Thanks. Today when Jay is out with Isaac at Ceramic's, I will try and see

what might be some good beginner TACT cards. He has the BUH and BEEE sound

down in verbal Im, and Ohhh, Ahhh, MMM, and any version of MAAA, MEEE,

MYYY, but can not do any consanants besides PUH right now under command. He

does have more spontaneous language that is here and there right now, some

times even phrases, although not often.

I will try and decide which cards might be the MOST reinforcing.

Now, if we are trying to get these sounds, I guess I am confused, because

initially are we trying to get them mands, but how do we do that without

showing the picture at first? Would I show the TV and say, " What is it?

TV! " and then have him point to a TV card in a field of three or four and

then slowly pause and see if he says TV, and then he can have TV as the

reinforcer? I am just unsure how to get him to say these things

consistently. Do I work on TACTS first under control since the manding is

so inconsistent and fairly good with PECS, but even then he prefers to lead

me to the item or bring it to me.

Jennie

[Guest guest]

>You're already in a position to start? Can your daughter echo what you say?

>If so, start her off with what we call " manding " (think of is as short for

> " commanding, or demanding...basically it's a request.) Start making her ask

>for everything she plays with, eats and drinks. Say she is probably thirsty.

Hmmm.... how to explain this? Laurel (my daughter, age 3) does echo but not

if prompted/asked to. She echoes things she hears on the radio, the tv, and

what people say (as long as she isn't interacting with that person.. not

that she interacts much at all). She has a huge vocabulary, all of it

echoed but no original speech.

Back before we found out she was HFA we tried to make her ask for basic

things like " water " " eats " etc... didn't work, in fact she got worse and

that was the start of her six month long refusal to eat and drink just

about anything. It took the following six months to get her nutrition level

back up, with the help of a dietrician.

Maybe we did it wrong. Maybe that's just normal for HFA kids. Or maybe

she's just really stubborn. I've no idea. She's been know to refuse to

drink liquids (actually, she only drinks water) for up to two days if

prompted to verbally ask for it instead of shaking her cup at me. We've

started using reinforcers like m-m's, dinner mints, gardetto's.... so far

they don't seem to be helping, almost like she has decided she'd rather not

do what is asked of her in exchange for her favorite goodies.

Any ideas on handling such stubbornness? Maybe some compliance therapy?

We'd love to start working on her speech but are afraid she'll pull another

semi-fasting stunt.

>As for teaching family members. Take some photos of everyone, including your

>daughter. Laminate with clear contact paper. Teach them much the same way

>as described in my post on prompting.

Great idea! Once we get to a safe spot for teaching speech I'll definitely

do it. It would be nice to finally hear her say her own name or even say

" mama " ...

Thank you!

[Guest guest]

DC,

Don't give up. When Grant was diagnosed at 3.2 months, he was EXACTLY like

Laurel (and he still video talks a ton...might say constantly, but that's a

whole other issue) He had a repetoire of close to 30 songs, complete with

the dance routines that went with them. He could (and can) mimic anything.

Since we don't want to starve Laurel, does she LOVE videos? If she does you

might want to try this. Let her watch the very beginning of an absolute

favorite video. (This is called contacting the reinforcer, it's an easy step

to forget, but if you don't know what you're going to get, it's tough to be

motivated). Then, turn the video off. Ask her " What do you want? "

Immediately prompt with " video " If you want, you can be more specific,

saying Veggie Tales, or Sesame Street or Barney. If Laurel echoes you, turn

the video on. Of course, this could be as successful as the food scenario.

Another thing to do is if you aren't making her mand for her reinforcers in

therapy, start making her do it now. She will probably generalize quickly.

I have another question for the list. As I was trying to type this, Grant

probably initiated about 15 times. Most of it came in the form of " I want

help. " which is his generic default when he can't do a task (like reach an

object) or he's unsure of the word. I finally figured out he wanted his

paintbrushes. How can you teach him to at least point? This constant

playing of twenty questions is running us ragged since he now loves to

initiate. Any suggestions?

Mark

[Guest guest]

Mark,

I am surprised that your son does not point. I thought pointing was a

prerequisite to verbal communication, which your son has already

demonstrated. There are two types of pointing close up and far away, I

think technically they are distal and proximal (need a spell check). One

point is to something he can actually reach. And the other is more of a

joint referencing follow my finger to that thing and I know your thinking

what I'm thinking kinda point.

Our son can point, he was taught to point prior to his learning how to

verbalize words. I put up all his toys high on a shelf. He would walk

over to the shelf and grunt and cry for something and I would hand over

hand shape his little finger into a point and start pulling toys down for

him to point to. I also got on my knees and demostrated a good index

finger point. I often made him point to which food he wanted. Which I

knew what he wanted but I set up choices for him to practice pointing.

His pointing comes in handy when we go to the toy store and he can't reach

something high he points to it for me to take it down, he investigates it

and I put it back. This is a good way to kill a few hours when your

therapists don't show.

At 08:58 PM 12/19/99 EST, you wrote:

>From: Markc612@...

>

>I have another question for the list. As I was trying to type this, Grant

>probably initiated about 15 times. Most of it came in the form of " I want

>help. " which is his generic default when he can't do a task (like reach an

>object) or he's unsure of the word. I finally figured out he wanted his

>paintbrushes. How can you teach him to at least point? This constant

>playing of twenty questions is running us ragged since he now loves to

>initiate. Any suggestions?

>

>Mark

>