aba is applied behavior analysis there's
four common misconceptions
what's the what's the biggest
misconceptionnI've already talked
about it ABA is only for students or
children diagnosed with autism a big big
misconception ABA is applied to you know
we you know actually you know you've
heard about positive behavior
interventions and supports right
PBIS which is a big push for that now
looking at your PBIS numbers in your
your you know your office discipline
referral data it's a big thing that we
do a lot of that research comes out of
you know comes from behavior analysts so
ABA is not just about autism
aba is only for kids who have problem
behaviors we hear that a lot
he doesn't need a BA he doesn't need a
behavior intervention plan he doesn't
need that because he's not engaging in
problem behaviors see that a lot there's
no problem behaviors no ABA needed ABA
is only for kids who are engaging
aggression self-injurious behavior
disruptive behavior we'll get into a
little bit more of that in terms of the
application later in order to implement
and put ABA principles in practice you
don't have to be a b c b a or a b c a
viet in fact you actually don't even
need to be a b c b a b c a b 8 to
conduct a functional behavioral
assessment in new jersey in other states
where there's a lot of these CPAs when
there's a lot of due process litigation
do you want to have a b c VAR b c ba do
these kind of things yes more likely
than that but you don't have to I know a
lot of great school psychologists who
write really good fda's but the bottom
line is that we have a lot of power
professionals that we trained to
implement behavior plans you know
they're not BCD HDC ApS or registered
behavioural technicians so you don't
have to be there's nothing in them ready
you know regulatory code nothing in the
statutory code some states do they have
licensure requirements they have other
things they have they have provisions
with regard to you know who can provide
ABA services in schools who can get up
fbas and things like that
New Jersey doesn't have that and a
federal law doesn't mandate that mandate
that so the bottom line is you can
implement and utilize ABA principles
under the training of a b c VAR b c a b
a and that's important to remember
misconception number four probably one
of the most probably one of the more
common ones that we hear a lot what do
you hear about when you talk when you
have it when you're trying to put a
behavior in finished place what a
teacher is often say that's bribery
you're just bribing them yeah of course
they're behaving for do you ever hear
that you're feeding them M&Ms you're
giving them the iPad of course they're
behaving for you it's not bribery it's
called a reinforcement and the other
thing we often hear is why should I be
rewarding that child for something they
should already be doing or it's not fair
to the other students I do a lot you
hear that all the time don't you I do so
many workshops for teachers and less and
less anymore because now I'm training
other people to do present a specific
teachers in power we have to meet the
individual needs of the students some
kids need or what we call extrinsic
motivation not all kids are a trinsic ly
motivated to read or work on their
writing because they know that and they
realize that later on they'll be able to
read higher-level books that will appeal
to their interests or not a lot of kids
are motivated to do their work so that
they get good grades so they get that a
and they come home and somebody says all
you got an a that's awesome some of that
a lot of that is intrinsic motivation
right not all kids are intrinsically
motivated especially our most
challenging so when we talk about
bribery reinforcement it's not bribery
it's positive reinforcement the other
thing I'll tell you is if you ask some
of the students in the classroom this
happens all the time maybe this is
something that you guys can do in your
district sometimes and when you have a
really challenging student who is
allowed two breaks where he can go on
the computer go on the iPad for 10 or 15
minutes or is allowed to take walks
around the hallway things that the other
students are not allowed to do right ask
this first of all observe the students
and then ask the students okay students
are very understanding especially at a
young age they get used to it how many
classrooms do you have where you have
kids who are screaming or engaging a
problem behaviors the other kids just
are able to ignore it
continue working it happens all the time
sometimes you'll ask the students and
the students will say I'm okay with him
going on the iPad even though I wish I
could go on the iPad three times a day
because you know but Bob Billy really
needs that right now
you know like they'll tell you and
sometimes lead to go a little further
and say I'm so happy that he's allowed
to have that extra privilege because now
he's not disrupting me so I can learn
I've had kindergarteners tell me things
like that so and the other point of it
is that reading support reinforcement is
meant to be temporary when it's
implemented correctly it's used on a
short-term basis to build fluency in
appropriate adopted behavior skills and
then fade it out
