Behavior Analysts, Inc.

Teach Your Children Well With Verbal Behavior Methodology

Day 1: Teaching Language to Children with Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities

Day one is designed to provide an overview of B.F. Skinner’s analysis of language to parents, educators, and other practitioners. A review of the primary verbal operants (expressive language skills) will be provided along with a videotape review of teaching methods typically used to teach those skills.

Participants will learn a method to assess a child’s language abilities, and how to implement important intervention strategies. A major emphasis will be placed on identifying methods to enhance and utilize motivational variables (establishing operations) to teach language in both structured teaching sessions and in daily activities. Techniques for coordinating the ongoing decision making necessary for effective language intervention, methods of data collection, and techniques for tracking the acquisition of skills will be presented.

Participants will learn:

• Identify examples of B.F. Skinner’s verbal operants.
• Describe how curricular variables affect the motivation of young children with autism.
• How teaching a child to mand for reinforcers results in the development of several other important learner skills.
• Identify methods for developing and maintaining the motivation of young children with autism.
• Conduct an initial behavioral language assessment such as to determine the most appropriate initial language intervention for young children with autism.
• Identify the criteria for selection of the initial words to teach young children with autism who do not have expressive language skills.
• Identify the critical elements of discrete trials instruction.
• Explain how to perform a correction procedure in situations in which the student provides an incorrect response.
• Explain how to develop intraverbal skills
• Identify how the critical elements of discrete trial instruction can be implemented within the child’s typical daily events.

Day 1 Workshop Schedule
8:00 – 9:00 am	Registration
9:00 – 10:30 am	Introduction to the analysis & assessment of verbal behavior (expressive language)
10:30 – 10:45 am	Break
10:45 – 12:00 noon	Beginning language skills (early mands, tacts and echoics)
12:00 – 1:30 pm	Lunch break
1:30 – 3:00 pm	Further development of language skills (RFFC, intraverbals and advanced mands)
3:00 – 3:15 pm	Break
3:15 – 4:30 pm	Teaching language in the natural environment

Day 2: Introduction to The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills- Revised (The ABLLS-R)

Dr. Partington will provide workshop participants with the tools to analyze and track learner skills and develop a comprehensive language-based curriculum. The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills- Revised (The ABLLS-R), is an assessment tool, curriculum guide, and skills-tracking system used to help guide the instruction of language and critical learner skills for children with autism or other developmental disabilities. This powerful tool is now available both in book form and through WebABLLS to parents, teachers, speech pathologists, behavior analysts, and others who design, coordinate, and/or supervise language or skill-acquisition programs.

With the ABLLS-R and/or WebABLLS, you can precisely assess a child’s language and learning skills, as well as identify when, where, and how the skills are being used. Participants will learn how to develop IEP goals and objectives that clearly define and target the learning needs of a student. These tools allow you to pinpoint obstacles that have been preventing a child from acquiring new skills and begin to develop a comprehensive language-based curriculum.

Participants will learn:

• Perform skills analyses to determine a child’s strengths and deficits.
• Continually measure and monitor learning achievements using specially designed skill tracking grids.
• Utilize assessment results for evaluating priorities, determining IEP objectives, and developing curricula.

Day 2 Workshop Schedule
8:00 – 9:00 am	Registration
9:00 – 10:30 am	Introduction to the ABLLS-R
10:30 – 10:45 am	Break
10:45 – 12:00 noon	Scoring the ABLLS-R
12:00 – 1:30 pm	Lunch break
1:30 – 3:00 pm	Using the ABLLS-R to develop an education program
3:00 – 3:15 pm	Break
3:15 – 4:30 pm	Tracking skill acquisition and adjusting program strategies

Day 3: Understanding and Changing Challenging Behaviors for Young Children with Autism: Practical Advice for Parents and Professionals

Parents often have concerns about how to encourage their child to behave in an appropriate manner. Attempts to get a child with language delays to “go along with us,” are complicated by the fact that the child often doesn’t understand what we are trying to get them to do or not to do. Another critical factor is the fact that many of these children are not motivated by the typical praise and recognition that is often used to teach typically developing children. As a result, parents and instructors often find it a challenging task to get the child to do many of the things we need them to do. This workshop specifically addresses practical issues and will give methods for analyzing problem situations and developing strategies to solve those problems. Participants will be able to identify the behavioral patterns that prevent your child from engaging in everyday family and school activities (e.g., sitting at the table and eating with others, participating in learning tasks while doing ordinary daily activities, going to the grocery store without a tantrum, toileting issues, etc.)

Specific Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify the basic behavioral principles used to analyze both appropriate and undesired behavior
• Participants will learn how to increase appropriate behavior by developing positive instructional control, and teaching alternative behaviors
• Participants will learn how to observe behavior to determine why a behavior is or isn’t occurring and its probable function(s)
• Participants will learn how to structure situations so as to encourage desired behavior and avoid unwanted behavior
• Participants will learn how to use simple but effective data collection procedures

Teaching Language Skills During Daily Activities

Children with autism have communication delays that usually require intensive language intervention. During the everyday activities of daily living, parents have many opportunities to teach language skills to their children. This half day presentation is designed to help parents and practitioners who work with families identify how the training of a variety of language skills (based upon Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior), can be incorporated into these daily activities. Participants will review videotapes of young children with autism in a home setting which will be used to demonstrate specific methodology for developing and maintaining the student’s participation in language development activities.

Participants will be able to...

• Identify how basic language skills can be taught to young children with autism in the context of on-going daily activities.
• Describe several examples as to how parents can maintain the motivation of young children during the language instruction.
• Identify how to sequence daily events such that the child’s participation in targeted language activities results in reinforcers that are typically delivered non-contingently.
  

Day 3 Workshop Schedule
8:00 – 9:00 am	Registration
9:00 – 10:30 am	Review of behavioral principles Defining behaviors, functions of behavior (why they do what they do)
10:30 – 10:45 am	Break
10:45 – 12:00 noon	Solutions to problems (pairing, instructional control, and teaching alternative behaviors) Data collection, case scenarios, and specific question and answer
12:00 – 1:30 pm	Lunch break
1:30 – 3:00 pm	Selection of targets for training in the natural environment
3:00 – 3:15 pm	Break
3:15 – 4:30 pm	Video examples of NET training Designing and implementing NET programs

What our participants have said about The ABLLS:

“Outstanding—a real contribution to the field.”
- J. Morrow, Behavior Analyst
Sacramento, California

“Great conference—I enjoyed many of the challenges that it evoked in my current thinking.”
- R. Lepak, Speech Pathologist
West Bloomfield, Michigan

 

Upcoming Dates

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