VB classroom cross post

[Guest guest]

I'm sorry I forgot which list the responses I got came from so wanted to

include it here as well:

Hi list,

Wanted to thank all who so graciously responded to my post on the list and

privately re: VB classroom. t, you are an inspiration and in fact

video of your son's home program was one of my first introductions to VB and

was shown at workshop I attended way back when in NY and I found myself

referring to your website quite a bit. I really appreciate the time you

took to respond in such depth. I suppose I should have given a bit more

info. about my " unique " son and in particular, how he has shown us he learns

and the usefulness of his intensive manding program. My son is largely

non-vocal and not echoic whatsoever (in his ability to respond to a more

formal echoic program). The only time ANY vocals were EVER produced by him

were in the process of an intensive manding program with sign. This was the

ONLYway to get a peep out of him (besides auto-reinforcement procedures

which were used for items he wanted but had no sign for at the moment) The

more signed mands we contrived/captured each day .. the more opportunities I

and others had to differentially reinforce his vocal production directly and

bring them closer to parity. By keeping data on differential reinforcement

procedures and the specific sounds we were getting per mand we could see

that his vocals were getting very close to becoming real full words. If he

wanted a piece of a puzzle, we'd wait until he signed it ... we'd say puzzle

(1st echoic prompt) ... move it closer ... say puzzle again (2nd echoic

prompt) ... just before handing it to him .. again say puzzle (3rd echoic

prompt). We noted after each echoic prompt what he in turn said and over

time the vocals shaped up. The slight delay in reinforcement was a bit

aversive and we found him trying to copy what we were saying more exactly in

order to hurry up the delivery of the reinforcement. He had some things

that he would mand for 40 times in a row ... and although not very

functional in any play sense it gave us the opportunity to work directly on

vocals in the only way he would tolerate. I've seen video of a little girl

who was only interested in putting buttons into a cardboard box .... mom

would have her mand for the buttons over and over until and you could see

her vocals improving over time until at last she learned to say button as

clear as day. Once she got this full word and got that button RIGHT AWAY ..

she saw how powerful it was to really try to say the word more like it was

being said to her and then of course realized the way to get anything is to

say the name of it as best as possible. If my son remotely sensed that a

demand for vocals was coming he would shut down and never ask for the item

again .. it had to be disguised in the process of manding. As for our data

keeping it was very simple, as for collecting numbers on mands we carried

the clickers, one for prompted, one for spontaneous. At the end of the day

when we were no longer working with my son we simply recorded the numbers on

a sheet of paper and later in the evening filled in the graph paper up to

the line of that number ... giving us a visual representation of how well we

were able to contrive/capture his EO. We kept data on the diff.

reinforcement of vocals as well after we handed him the Sr+ we jotted down

what he'd said in the column under " echoic prompt 1 " " 2 " " 3 " so we were able

to see that he was better able to provide a closer approximation after only

the 1st echoic prompt and then occuring with the mand itself which he

produced before any prompt from us. I'm sorry I'm rambling on ... just

wanted to give a better picture of how we used data to guide his individual

program. Also most mands came quickly under the prompt of only the item

being present and many many were able to be asked for when not in sight ...

and he simply wanted it, but it was hard work but nothing less than what was

required. SHort of reaching down his throat and pulling the sounds/words

out (which I would have if I could have). Oh the joys of

mothering/teaching!

ann