Real Progress for Children with Autism: Generalization Strategies Across the Spectrum: Strategies for Successful Generalization in Natural Environments - Softcover

Whalen, Christina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557669546 ISBN 13: 9781557669544

Publisher: Brookes Publishing Co, 2008

Synopsis

Rather than describing autism, etiology, diagnosis, or a specific treatment approach, this book covers generalization, an important aspect of any kind of treatment approach. Generalization is when responses or skills that are not directly targeted occur as a result of training or intervention. Generalization is one of the most important measures of treatment outcome, if a child can learn a variety of skills and use them in a variety of settings, it is the best measure of whether or not an intervention was effective.In addition to the informative chapters in the first half of the book, this book includes naturalistic activities teaching language, play, imitation, social skills, motor skills, academic skills, and cognitive skills. The activities are written in clear language with the intention that non-experts, such as parents and many school staff, will be able to implement these activities in the child's natural environment.This book offers information, practical, easy-to-use activities, and simple data collection for everyday use - all designed to help parents, teachers, and professionals begin a comprehensive treatment program for their child.

About this title

About the Author

Christina Whalen is Founder and Chief Science Officer, TeachTown, an autism-based research company in Washington.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from Real Life, Real Progress for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Strategies for Successful Generalization in Natural Environments
Edited by Christina Whalen, Ph.D., BCBA

Chapter 1: Generalization and Autism Spectrum Disorders
By Daniel Openden, Christina Whalen, Shannon Cernich, and Manya Vaupel
© 2009. Brookes Publishing. All rights reserved.

STRATEGIES GUIDE: TOWARD IMPROVING GENERALIZATION

Antecedent Strategies

When planning for and teaching generalization, consider the following strategies:

• Use interesting, preferred, and functional activities and items.

Students are more likely to engage in an activity when there is natural reinforcement associated with the activity. For example, if you want to teach turn taking in board games, find out what board games the children are playing at school. This way, if there is a group of children playing a particular game, your student will already know how to play and can then join the group.

• Exaggerate and vary affect when interacting with your students.

Your students are the first ones to notice if something is boring. If you are not interested, they may not be either. Your student may not pick up on various moods or feelings if you are subtle. Often, students with ASDs have a delay in affect and have difficulty picking up on the affective states of others. Therefore, as a therapist, it is important to exaggerate your affect so that students may then notice various types of affect in others and better demonstrate affect themselves in different social situations. For example, if you find a missing puzzle piece while doing a puzzle with your student and want to show her that you are happy about it, exaggerate your happiness so that it is clear to her that you are happy about it. Say, “Yeah! I found the piece that goes here!†with a big smile on your face while looking at the child. Reciprocally, when she finds a missing piece, model the same reaction and wait for her to have the opportunity to display her affective response. It is also critical to vary your affective responses as people are not always going to be happy all the time and your time with your student is a good time to model and teach appropriate affect in various situations. This applies to negative emotions as well. For instance, if you are playing a video game with your student and your character gets knocked out of the game, you can model an appropriate affective response such as saying, “Oh no! Not again!†and frowning, but then also demonstrate a return to neutral affect by getting back into the game and saying, “Oh well, I’ll try it again.â€

• Vary your instructions.

The same question can be asked in many ways (e.g., “What is it?†“What do you see?†“Tell me what this is.†“Tell me about this!â€). It is important for students with ASDs to know how to respond to a variety of instructions, questions, and comments to optimize generalization.

• Vary your teaching environments and settings.

• Watch carefully for mastery of skills.

Students will get bored easily if they are expected to continue to work on the same skill over and over again, especially if they have already demonstrated that they have learned it. Once a student masters a skill, immediately move it into generalization. Teach the skill with new materials, in new settings, and with new people and assess whether the child maintains the skill over time.

• Intersperse tasks.

Mix and vary your materials, instructions, goals, and activities. The student should learn to discriminate his or her response based on the question or instruction and then respond appropriately.

• Teach using multiple types of stimuli.

Sometimes it is necessary to use all possible stimuli that are appropriate for your student. For example, teach your student all varieties of fasteners on pants (e.g., snaps, zippers, buttons, hook and loop closures, belts, drawstrings) so that he or she is independent in every setting with his or her own clothing. However, in some cases it is not possible to teach all stimuli. In cases such as teaching every kind of dog, you may need to just have multiple exemplars (i.e., many examples, but not all) to teach the concept of dog.

• Use stimuli that are routinely found in the natural environment.

Optimize generalization by using stimuli from the natural environment in the training environment whenever possible.

• Use natural language.

Think of language and instructions that the students would typically expect during the activity outside of the training environment and in natural settings or situations. Then, when the student is working with other people or in natural environments, he or she is more likely to engage appropriately in the activity.

• Train in natural settings as much as possible.

If the behavior that you are working on with your student is only appropriate in a limited number of situations, then it is likely going to be more efficient and effective if you just work directly in those environments. For example, teaching grocery shopping is much more effective in the grocery store than it is in a mock grocery store. Similarly, if you are working on a play activity, try it on the floor rather than the worktable. If you are looking at books, try doing so on a beanbag chair or in a reading corner rather than just at a desk. By doing this, you will likely be able to determine what other skills need to be worked on when you are in the natural setting, which will help with future treatment plan goals.

Response Strategies

When working toward generalization, you can use the following techniques to help maximize your student’s success in everyday life:

• Increase your student’s proficiency in the newly acquired goal.

If the student has recently mastered a goal in the training environment but is not exhibiting that skill in the natural environment, try increasing your student’s performance of the target skill in the training environment (e.g., improving student’s response time). Increasing a student’s proficiency in the training environment ensures a stronger response, which will then provide a better chance at success in the natural environment. For example, when babies have become proficient at crawling from one place to another, it is often quite difficult for them to make the transition to walking. Because they often fall down and get frustrated, they are more likely to just crawl to the desired item or location. But, after working with a baby in the training setting (e.g., short jaunts between mom and dad), you will likely see a quick transition to walking in other environments because the baby has built up confidence and proficiency in the training setting with mom and dad.

• Amplify the target response or make the target response more obvious.

You will need to analyze whether the target response is reliably providing access to the natural reinforcers found in the generalization setting. If you find that the target response is not providing access to reinforcement, then you will need to change the target response in a way that will ensure access to natural reinforcers. For example, if your student is not getting a listener’s attention by simply saying the listener’s name, then teach the child to tap the listener on the arm while saying the listener’s name.

Consequence Strategies

After your student responds to generalization training, you can use the following techniques to address consequences and reinforcement:

• Eliminate training reinforcers completely and thin your reinforcement schedule.

In the training and acquisition environment, eliminate training reinforcers or any reinforcers that are considered to be artificial (i.e., not directly related to the desired behavior). Compare what should reinforce the behavior naturally with what is reinforcing the behavior in the training setting. Gradually fade out the artificial reinforcers while thinning your reinforcement schedule so that it better reflects what is found in natural settings.

• Use varied and natural reinforcers.

Natural reinforcers are directly and functionally related to the activity or desired behavior. For example, if a student loves to swing, try teaching all of the language associated with swinging (e.g., “push me,†“my turn,†“go higher,†“get down,†“underdog,†“spin meâ€). Because the consequences associated with these requests are naturally reinforcing, appropriate requests during a swinging activity are likely to increase.

• Plan for consistency of caregiver responses in the natural environment.

It is helpful if everyone involved in the student’s treatment plan (e.g., parents, caregivers, extended family, school staff) receives training and information on how to effectively respond to your student across settings. For example, everyone will know to answer the student’s most commonly asked question (e.g., “When were you born?â€) only if the student asks an appropriate social question first (e.g., “What did you do this weekend?†or “Having a good day?â€) in order to increase the frequency of appropriate social questions from the student.

• Reinforce only generalized behavior.

Sometimes it is necessary to systematically plan to only reinforce behavior that has not been demonstrated before. For example, if you are trying to teach your student to explore more playground equipment, you may need to only provide reinforcement when the student tries a new piece of equipment.

• Program for naturally occurring consequences.

Often, a student’s target behavior is not necessarily observed due to subtleties in social interactions and natural reinforcers are provided by the event itself. For example, the possibility of a social punisher motivates most adults to avoid engaging in certain inappropriate behaviors (e.g., being frowned at if we bump someone with our grocery cart, our conversation partner interrupting us if we dominate the conversation too much, someone hanging up on us if we are being rude on the telephone or walking away if we are being disrespectful). These are natural consequences to inappropriate behavior and may need supplemental training so that your student understands that other people typically do not respond well to these types of behaviors.

• Teach your student to solicit reinforcement in structured and natural settings.

Teach your student to follow a target behavior with an additional behavior that will normally elicit social approval both in the structured and less structured setting. In a structured environment such as playing a board game, your student may easily give up his or her turn for another student if he or she has learned to consistently and spontaneously seek desired praise from the teacher. You will also need to train in less structured settings such as taking turns riding bikes at recess and seeking reinforcement from playground staff.

• Teach self-reinforcement.

If reinforcement is sparse or unidentifiable in the generalization setting, consider teaching your student to self-reinforce for accuracy of his or her own behavior. Remember that self-reinforcement can be difficult, and portability is key. Often, just the training involved in teaching self-reinforcement increases the proficiency of the target behavior. For instance, an older student is learning to stay on task on his job. He carries a vibrating timer that is pre-programmed to vibrate at varying times throughout his work session before his first break. At each intermittent timing, he checks in with himself to determine if he is on task (i.e., he was taught to ask himself each time the timer went off, “Am I on task?â€). If he decides that he was on task, he gives himself a star on his “on task chart.†At the end of his work session, he adds up his stars and if he has enough stars, he buys himself a soda to drink during his break. It is important to note that before this program was implemented in the workplace, the student first learned how to selfreinforce his own behavior with his instructor during his one-to-one work. The program was then introduced in his classroom with his teacher before moving it to his job setting.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing Co
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1557669546
• ISBN 13: 9781557669544
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256