Re: .unlearning/ plz help

[Guest guest]

> My kid is 3 1/2 years. Two months backhelearnt

> alpabets, spellings and shapes within a month , but

> afterone month he forgot everything whathe learned

> perviously and became hyperactive. Can anyone tell me

> the reasons for this,

I can not speak if there is anything medically wrong.

I would bring up his " sudden " hyperactivity with a doctor.

Speaking from an ABA point of view, here are some

questions that I would ask:

1. You say that he learned his alphabet, shapes, spelling, etc

within a month. Was that carried across people, visual

stimuli, places, etc? What determined mastery? In Lovaas

based ABA, mastery is often placed at 90% across three

consequetive sessions, two days, two different tutors in

" random rotation " . It is then placed in " generalization " or

" maintenance " . There, all sorts of things are thrown in

such as how far you are from the child when the child is asked

the question, who is asking, etc. So, I guess I would ask if

he learned all of this across all stimuli and locations, etc.

Now, I know that this may seem like " overkill " . I am lucky

in that this generalization issue was not an issue for us.

However, I did witness an interesting event with two children:

one child didn't really know his alphabet. It really blew me

away. He memorized the same flashcards the mother had been

doing by... the the pictures.. He saw the picture Apple and

said " a " as opposed to seeing the letter A. It was pretty wild.

Another child could not distinguish between " show me " and

" tell me " (ie, he could not distinguish between SD's....)

2. As a person who is highly supportive of ABA, I would also

ask if what you are experiencing is a reinforcement issue.

Does he simply not see a reason to answer? What is your reinforcement

for getting it right? Does he find it reinforcing? IS this

compliance versus real cognitive issues?

Again... I would make sure that there isn't a real medical

issue occuring and I am not qualified to make that judgement

(I do know one mom who claims that she lost one year of ABA

after her child's MMR booster shots and.. another mom who told

me that seizures can cause a loss of skills in her child...

I believe them...)

If you have any specific questions on how someone doing ABA

would teach and determine mastery of academics, please feel

free to email me. I am not a certified ABA consultant but I

do have 3+ experience in ABA and have attended numerous

workshops and conferences. Plus, at one point, I worked 10+hrs

a week in my own child's program under consult from certified

lovaas instructors. You can also ask very helpful people on

the Me-list and the list on how they taught skills

and what they did during regressions.