Guest guest Posted May 5, 2001 Report Share Posted May 5, 2001 Mahija, The best place to start on researching experiences with mixing and/or transitioning between Lovaas and VB would be in the archives. Contact one of the list moderators (contact emails on the bottom of most printed out emails from the list I believe) for help in how to do that. Briefly, in our experience using a no, no prompt sequence and VB don't mix very well. If your using errorless teaching practices, the transition is much easier. If you want an in depth discussion, feel free to contact me privately. Making the transition can be scary, and extremely difficult to do without a consultant. Some consultants are more open than others, and since behavioral principles drive both programs your current consultant can still be of assistance. That is of course, whether they truly know their behaviorism and simply haven't been trained to rather rigidly apply a model. On your teaching question. First of all, you need to stop thinking in terms of nouns, adjectives, prepositions, gender, etc. and think in terms of mands, tacts, RFFC/FFC and Intraverbals. Once you do, it gets easier to conceptualize solutions for your particular child. This is what we did for our son and emotions. An emotion is really a label, or a tact, for a rather complex group of social cues. So we reversed things by teaching the cues as actions (another set of tacts) and then building FFC modules off of the actions. That's a mouthful of a sentence, so let me give you an example. We taught Grant crying. The therapist would present the Sd, " What am I doing? " and pretend to cry. ( Please get them to act this out, it's much more effective than flashcards) At first we prompted the response, then faded. Once Grant mastered " crying " we made a tact to FFC transfer. When it was done, it looked like this: T: What am I doing? G: Crying T: What do you do when you're sad? G: Cry. (Of course, the first few times, we had to prompt this). Down the road, you could actually build a category built around the action of crying. I guess you could call it, " When do you cry? " When I'm sad, hurt, angry. " Or you make a category called " emotions. " The Sd could be " Name some emotions " and the child responds with " sad, happy, mad, " The same can easily be done with occupations. In terms of your question, just because a child learns the words for a doctor, or policeman, etc., doesn't mean he'll automatically make the association that they go together, you have to teach them as FFCs and as a category. I guess the question here is if " Name some occupations " would be a novel task for your child, than you haven't really taught " occupations " That's exactly where we were when we started VB. While Grant could label colors all day long, when asked " name some colors " he didn't have a clue how to respond. (Actually Vince may have shown the video of Grant naming colors for the first time in his life. It was the first day my son exhibited any functional language of any type when he manded for video.) Hope this helps, Mark The neat thing for us is that by teaching emotions this way, Grant almost immediately generalized into the natural environment. While he isn't nearly as spontaneous as we'd like, he has seen his sister crying and said " She's sad. " He even reads with emotion now. We did mix and vary these in with other " programs. " Once again, one of the things I recently have come to find immensely helpful is not to think in terms of " programs " but rather " low probability " and " high probability. " What are the things your child will likely answer (high probability) versus what he finds difficult (low probability) and try to keep an 80/20 mix of high/low probability. Otherwise there is a tendency to get into a rut and work on each " program " at a time (mands, tacts, FFC, intraverbals) when you shouldn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 6, 2001 Report Share Posted May 6, 2001 The best place to start on researching experiences with mixing and/or transitioning between Lovaas and VB would be in the archives. Contact one of the list moderators (contact emails on the bottom of most printed out emails from the list I believe) for help in how to do that. Briefly, in our experience using a no, no prompt sequence and VB don't mix very well. If your using errorless teaching practices, the transition is much easier. If you want an in depth discussion, feel free to contact me privately. Making the transition can be scary, and extremely difficult to do without a consultant. Some consultants are more open than others, and since behavioral principles drive both programs your current consultant can still be of assistance. That is of course, whether they truly know their behaviorism and simply haven't been trained to rather rigidly apply a model. On your teaching question. First of all, you need to stop thinking in terms of nouns, adjectives, prepositions, gender, etc. and think in terms of mands, tacts, RFFC/FFC and Intraverbals. Once you do, it gets easier to conceptualize solutions for your particular child. This is what we did for our son and emotions. An emotion is really a label, or a tact, for a rather complex group of social cues. So we reversed things by teaching the cues as actions (another set of tacts) and then building FFC modules off of the actions. That's a mouthful of a sentence, so let me give you an example. We taught Grant crying. The therapist would present the Sd, " What am I doing? " and pretend to cry. ( Please get them to act this out, it's much more effective than flashcards) At first we prompted the response, then faded. Once Grant mastered " crying " we made a tact to FFC transfer. When it was done, it looked like this: T: What am I doing? G: Crying T: What do you do when you're sad? G: Cry. (Of course, the first few times, we had to prompt this). Down the road, you could actually build a category built around the action of crying. I guess you could call it, " When do you cry? " When I'm sad, hurt, angry. " Or you make a category called " emotions. " The Sd could be " Name some emotions " and the child responds with " sad, happy, mad, " The same can easily be done with occupations. In terms of your question, just because a child learns the words for a doctor, or policeman, etc., doesn't mean he'll automatically make the association that they go together, you have to teach them as FFCs and as a category. I guess the question here is if " Name some occupations " would be a novel task for your child, than you haven't really taught " occupations " That's exactly where we were when we started VB. While Grant could label colors all day long, when asked " name some colors " he didn't have a clue how to respond. (Actually Vince may have shown the video of Grant naming colors for the first time in his life. It was the first day my son exhibited any functional language of any type when he manded for video.) The neat thing for us is that by teaching emotions this way, Grant almost immediately generalized into the natural environment. While he isn't nearly as spontaneous as we'd like, he has seen his sister crying and said " She's sad. " He even reads with emotion now. We did mix and vary these in with other " programs. " Once again, one of the things I recently have come to find immensely helpful is not to think in terms of " programs " but rather " low probability " and " high probability. " What are the things your child will likely answer (high probability) versus what he finds difficult (low probability) and try to keep an 80/20 mix of high/low probability. Otherwise there is a tendency to get into a rut and work on each " program " at a time (mands, tacts, FFC, intraverbals) when you shouldn't. Hope this helps, Mark Cyr " Children with autism are not learning disabled, they are teaching challenges. " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 7, 2001 Report Share Posted May 7, 2001 Dear List, For those of you doing a VB program and pretty commited, I'd like to ask a question about a topic I rarely see addressed here at all. I wonder if it's just not considered as important, or if people are not addressing it in their programs or what! While I think Isaac's making better language gains with VB than he has ever done with anything else, period, and is able to listen, and enjoy many new things, I am not sure how this fits for other skill development, and nobody ever discusses it. Does anyone else work on self help areas, chores, and independent tasks? Is this usually done incidently with you all or do you teach specific components? I realize my son is older, but I rarely see the variety of issues discussed here that I used to on the ME list, less these days, and I wonder why? It's not a negative commentary, as again we are pleased and intend on staying with the Verbal Behavior Methodology. But, I do wonder about other issues, and I'm feeling kind of puzzled about it. Jennie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 8, 2001 Report Share Posted May 8, 2001 Mark, I just recently heard about the VB methodology. My son is 3 1/2 and was just diagnosed with autism this spring. We knew he needed help much sooner and got him started in an early intervention program at age 2. Other than O/T (floor play) and speech therapy, has never recieved ABA. He was very non-compliant at first. It was a big step for him to allow anyone in his space. After 1 1/2 years...he now works well with therapists, and follows directions at home and at his special needs preschool (provided by the school system) with little prompting. I feel he has made good progress so far. He now echos what I say and uses language mostly to request things, I believe he understands some language or he wouldn't be able to follow directions so well, however he has no expressive language yet. If I ask him what happened at school, he is unable to tell me anything. I am not pleased right now with the minimum services he is recieving through the school system. His speech therapist at school just has him repeat what she says with snack reinforcers. In my opinion repeating words is not teaching functional language. For example: She has him repeat " up " and " down " but he does not know what they mean. I was cutting his hair last night and told him to look down.....he looked up, then when I told him to look up he looked down. I am going to start VB with as soon as I can learn how. I am convinced it will help. I particularly like the fact VB is a more natural way of using ABA and it also works immediately on generalization. I am at the infancy stage of starting a VB program in my home this summer. We just ordered " Teaching Language to Children with Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities " by Mike Sundberg and Jim Partington. We also ordered a video. Please, if you could share any helpful information with me about how to start the VB program, how many hours to start with, combinations of other therapies that work well with this program, I would very much appreciate your help. You sound so knowledgable about the VB program. I feel I am at an advantage because has not had ABA, therefore, I will not have to reteach a new program, this should be an easy transition. I refuse to accept the " bear minimum " my son has more potential than that! Sue Re: [ ] Lovaas ABA to VB The best place to start on researching experiences with mixing and/or transitioning between Lovaas and VB would be in the archives. Contact one of the list moderators (contact emails on the bottom of most printed out emails from the list I believe) for help in how to do that. Briefly, in our experience using a no, no prompt sequence and VB don't mix very well. If your using errorless teaching practices, the transition is much easier. If you want an in depth discussion, feel free to contact me privately. Making the transition can be scary, and extremely difficult to do without a consultant. Some consultants are more open than others, and since behavioral principles drive both programs your current consultant can still be of assistance. That is of course, whether they truly know their behaviorism and simply haven't been trained to rather rigidly apply a model. On your teaching question. First of all, you need to stop thinking in terms of nouns, adjectives, prepositions, gender, etc. and think in terms of mands, tacts, RFFC/FFC and Intraverbals. Once you do, it gets easier to conceptualize solutions for your particular child. This is what we did for our son and emotions. An emotion is really a label, or a tact, for a rather complex group of social cues. So we reversed things by teaching the cues as actions (another set of tacts) and then building FFC modules off of the actions. That's a mouthful of a sentence, so let me give you an example. We taught Grant crying. The therapist would present the Sd, " What am I doing? " and pretend to cry. ( Please get them to act this out, it's much more effective than flashcards) At first we prompted the response, then faded. Once Grant mastered " crying " we made a tact to FFC transfer. When it was done, it looked like this: T: What am I doing? G: Crying T: What do you do when you're sad? G: Cry. (Of course, the first few times, we had to prompt this). Down the road, you could actually build a category built around the action of crying. I guess you could call it, " When do you cry? " When I'm sad, hurt, angry. " Or you make a category called " emotions. " The Sd could be " Name some emotions " and the child responds with " sad, happy, mad, " The same can easily be done with occupations. In terms of your question, just because a child learns the words for a doctor, or policeman, etc., doesn't mean he'll automatically make the association that they go together, you have to teach them as FFCs and as a category. I guess the question here is if " Name some occupations " would be a novel task for your child, than you haven't really taught " occupations " That's exactly where we were when we started VB. While Grant could label colors all day long, when asked " name some colors " he didn't have a clue how to respond. (Actually Vince may have shown the video of Grant naming colors for the first time in his life. It was the first day my son exhibited any functional language of any type when he manded for video.) The neat thing for us is that by teaching emotions this way, Grant almost immediately generalized into the natural environment. While he isn't nearly as spontaneous as we'd like, he has seen his sister crying and said " She's sad. " He even reads with emotion now. We did mix and vary these in with other " programs. " Once again, one of the things I recently have come to find immensely helpful is not to think in terms of " programs " but rather " low probability " and " high probability. " What are the things your child will likely answer (high probability) versus what he finds difficult (low probability) and try to keep an 80/20 mix of high/low probability. Otherwise there is a tendency to get into a rut and work on each " program " at a time (mands, tacts, FFC, intraverbals) when you shouldn't. Hope this helps, Mark Cyr " Children with autism are not learning disabled, they are teaching challenges. " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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