Just starting receptive...need advice

[Guest guest]

We had the same exact problems with my son's receptive programs. We would get

one mastered and once we put it up with the second one mastered it was a

guessing game.

Here is what we have done and we have had imazing results. First I must say

that we tried the verbal cues and position prompts but it did not work.

We found that our items on acquisition needed to be put up against each other

from the start. We did this by having a group of items on acquisition so

instead of working on car, we worked on car, cup, ball, shoe, book, etc., all

at once. Our field was 3 and we randomly rotated the items on acquisition

with unknowns and each other. This way we eliminated any discrimination

errors right from the start.

This has really helped us. We also found that he responded better when we

each used our own natural voices. We all talk the way we normally would no

more rehearsed words like ballllll or cuuuuup.

Carole

[Guest guest]

We started a receptive program about Jan 1st. We began with a familiar item

(toy car) and two uninteresting distracters. We say " car " and he is to hand

it to us. He learned this quickly and we did the same for a second item

" movie " (video tape) which he also learned quickly. The hard part is when

we put both on the table. We are using positional prompts and trying to

fade them out. If we start with " car " closest to him and continue to ask

for it while we fade the positional prompt then he does OK, but if we switch

to ask for " movie " when all items are equidistant then he does not do much

better than 60%.

Has anyone out there used verbal prompts in this kind of a program? That is

say " car " in a high voice and " movie " in a low voice to help him

differentiate. What alternate strategies have worked for beginning

receptive programs. Our son has " matching " mastered so I'd think we are

ready to do receptive language. Yet we have been going for over a month and

he still does not differentiate between two items.

Suggestions?

-Dave (davide@...)

[Guest guest]

Dave,

This is exactly how my son is doing now. I posted a few days ago regarding

my son's receptive language problem. We use sd " touch~ " by the way.

Are you working on manding? I feel like the manding needs to be established

before you start to work on receptive objects, but I could be wrong.

Satoko

>From: Eland <davide@...>

>Reply- onelist

> " (submit) (E-mail) " < onelist>

>Subject: [ ] Just starting receptive...need advice

>Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 18:23:55 -0600

>

>From: Eland <davide@...>

>

>We started a receptive program about Jan 1st. We began with a familiar

>item

>(toy car) and two uninteresting distracters. We say " car " and he is to

>hand

>it to us. He learned this quickly and we did the same for a second item

> " movie " (video tape) which he also learned quickly. The hard part is when

>we put both on the table. We are using positional prompts and trying to

>fade them out. If we start with " car " closest to him and continue to ask

>for it while we fade the positional prompt then he does OK, but if we

>switch

>to ask for " movie " when all items are equidistant then he does not do much

>better than 60%.

>

>Has anyone out there used verbal prompts in this kind of a program? That

>is

>say " car " in a high voice and " movie " in a low voice to help him

>differentiate. What alternate strategies have worked for beginning

>receptive programs. Our son has " matching " mastered so I'd think we are

>ready to do receptive language. Yet we have been going for over a month

>and

>he still does not differentiate between two items.

>

>Suggestions?

>

>-Dave (davide@...)

>

>

[Guest guest]

,

I replied your post on the me list. There are a number of strategies you

could use. When Colin did what you describe, we discovered that he was what

is sometimes called " a single channel processor. " That is, he was capable of

processing auditory and visual information but did not process them

simultaneously. So when shown movie and car and given the SD Touch Car,

Colin would have disregarded the SD and just touched whichever one he wanted

because he was a compliant 3YO who knew the idea was for him to touch

something. This tendency to prefer visual stimuli and disregard auditory

cues is fairly common.

My post on the me-list describes how we used a barrier to isolate the

auditory cue. Colin soon learned to pay attention to it, think about it and

THEN look at the visual array and pick out the target item. Once he got the

procedure figured out, he was fabulous at receptive labeling. He went from 0

to thousands in less than a year. I don't think the NET method recommends

teaching a lot of labels apart from using them in other kinds of drills but

this was back in 1994/5. Our program was supervised by a Lovaas replication

site and I think this technique is used with some UCLA programs.

Anyway, this advice is worth at least what you paid for it.

[Guest guest]

Dave,

If you choose to use a discrimination teaching strategy, you always prompt on

the switch. You then fade your prompt from there. For example, if you are

using positional prompts, when you switch to asking item " A " again, give a

positional prompt. Then fade that out. You can try and only prompt that lst

switch trial. You can also give a slightly louder SD to prompt the fact that

you have made a switch. It is usually not recommended to use a high voice or

low voice though because this is not the natural way we talk.

Tammy