ABC's 123's

This presentation focuses on the issues of inappropriate IEP goals and the consequences of the selection of these goals. Traditional "age-appropriate" goals for students with no or little language disregard the natural developmental sequence. As an example, teaching a non-verbal how to write their name isn't functional, and the significance of this skill cannot be explained to the individual. There are numerous examples of age-appropriate skills that are being attempted with learners who simply do not have necessary prerequisite skills. The presentation focuses on 3 categories of errors. 1) Teaching the wrong skills the wrong way, 2) Teaching the wrong skills the right way, and 3) Teaching the right skills the wrong way (best problem). A major emphasis is that the more significant the problem behavior, the more careful teams must be about goal selection. Especially for those with "tarnished" educational histories (bad learning experiences), the selection of goals that "make instant sense" to the individual are likely to produce the best early learning experiences. This in turn will prepare individuals to meet the challenge of future goals that make more sense to all the adults and less sense to the students. 

1. Participants will be able to explain what "teaching the wrong skill" means.
2. Participants will be able to list 3 common teaching problems
3. Participants will be able to describe the best way to determine if teaching is being done correctly.
4. Participants will be able to give 3 examples of teaching the right skills at the wrong time
5. Participants will be able to say which is better and why, teaching the wrong skill the right way or teaching the right skill the wrong way?

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It is becoming increasingly common for behavior analysts, both seasoned and newly certified to over-emphasize antecedent manipulations to alleviate behavior problems. Although it is undeniably helpful to alter antecedent condition to rapidly stabilize and even improve behavior problems, like crack these manipulations provide a big bang for the buck and seem to produce desirable results in little time. Unfortunately, all too often, little attention is paid to the need for the individual to learn adaptive skills that will allow him or her to cope with the occasional bump in the road in the form of minor to moderate aversives. Some antecedent manipulations are so pervasive that instead of expanding the person's world it causes it to collapse in on them creating more specialized physical and social environments that actually reduce the individual's ability to tolerate even the mildest annoyance or inconvenience. The answer is to deal with these problems head on by teaching the skills necessary to allow the individual to negotiate these mild to moderate aversives. It is not that antecedent manipulations are in any sense "wrong" but that they are overused, sometimes to a fault. 

1. Participants will be able to list several down sides of excessive antecedent manipulations
2. Participants will be able to list the six ATES using the Acronym PET CAT
3. Participants will be able to explain when it is reasonable to eliminate an aversive event as opposed to teaching the person to tolerate it
4. Participants will be able to give real examples from their own lives of the six ATES
5. Participants will be able to explain the ethical issues in teaching individuals to tolerate

Whether it's for school-wide rules, group homes, private homes or even for employees at your own organization, good rules aren’t simply something you write on signs, they must reflect careful thinking about expected behavior. In particular, the presentation will focus on the importance of rules that are prescriptive (what you should do) as opposed to proscriptive (what is not allowed) rules. Participants will also learn about the components of rule following including knowledge, skills, and the motivation to avoid any consequences for violating rules (point loss, school suspensions), as well as the motivation to earn reinforcers for complying with rules (praise, points, privileges). There will also be recommendations for the kinds of rules to avoid and the kinds that are more likely to produce desired behaviors and thereby reduce undesirable behaviors. 

1. Participants will be able to explain the difference between prescriptive and proscriptive rules and which is better to use and why.
2. Participants will be able to turn any proscriptive rule into a prescriptive rule by re-writing it with target behaviors. 
3. Participants will be able to analyze ANY scenario where rules were violated to determine why the rules failed to control behavior
4. Participants will be able to construct a short rule that is "a mini behavior plan"
5. Participants will be able to list 3 variables that can affect rule following (not holy trinity, another 3 variables)

This presentation examines the concept of dangerousness and breaks it down into the components of damage potential and the probability of a crisis for a given stimulus. In lay terms, how much of a bad-ass is the individual and have they got a short-fuse? Or perhaps they have an unpredictable fuse that could be long or short depending on the circumstances? This could be even worse. The presentation will also cover individual client/student variables that contribute to “dangerousness.” These include but are not limited to age, height/weight, developmental level, coordination, ability to use weapons, presence/absence of biting, “fighting skills,” targeted attacks to the head and the tendency to pursue victims. There will also be a review of the factors that make other individuals highly vulnerable. Participants will be able to use this information to make better, more informed decisions regarding student/client placement and staff distribution. Information gained can also be used for admissions criteria. 

1. Participants will be able to use a matrix to identify 4 levels of dangerousness based on probability of injury and probability of attack 
2. Participants will be able to list at least 4 variables that make individuals more dangerous according to the definition used for the presentation
3. Participants will be able to list at least 4 variables that make individuals more vulnerable
4. Participants will be able to objectively state why any 2 clients/students should not be grouped together/treated in same area
5. Participants will be able to make minimum staffing recommendations based on their current policies/resources/permissible crisis management procedures 

This talk will provide tips on working with individuals who are highly motivated to escape from academic tasks in classroom settings and will cover the following topics:

1) Using reinforcers effectively; including finding reinforcers, rate of reinforcement, reinforcer interruption, differential reinforcement, and increasing tolerance to reinforcer removal and to delay of reinforcement, 2) how to analyze WHY a child wants to escape from a task, and 3) how to alter “educational discriminative stimuli” to decrease the probability of escape. Participants will also learn what to do with task avoidant juggernauts. Participants will also learn about the "Sd voice" (discriminative stimulus), which some may call a "poisoned cue" and how to fix this very common problem.

1. Participants will be able to easily explain the basic formula for producing escape using a see-saw analogy
2. Participants will be able to list 4 quick fixes for escape
3. Participants will be able to identify at least 3 problems that can happen when using reinforcement and how to fix these problems
4. Participants will be able to explain the concept of reinforcer interruption (as opposed to first task then SR+) and why it may prove a better strategy for increasing on-task behavior. 
5. Participants will be able to explain what the Sd voice is, why it is actually an S minus voice, and how to fix the problem

There is often great contention about the proper placement for students in public schools, most of it centered around whether or not to place a child with special needs into a general education classroom or a "self-contained" unit. The concept of inclusion is a good one and exists for good reason. The problems arise over black and white interpretations of what is best for each individual. An EXCLUDED child in an INCLUDED classroom working on a "curriculum" that is in no way functional, or equivalent to what the other students are doing was not the intent of PL94-142. This presentation will cover travesties on both sides. Children languishing in included classrooms, and children "cheated" out of general education classrooms over minor behavior problems. Participants will get an overview of the problems using real examples as well as a way to rate how well a child is likely to do in a general education setting. Participants will learn the concepts of soft and hard prerequisites as well as a list of pros and cons of included classrooms. There will also be a discussion of how to determine parental expectations of outcomes from included vs. a self-contained classroom, e.g., "my non-verbal child might start talking if they're around talking peers."  

1. Participants will be able to list several “pros” of an included classroom 
2. Participants will be able to list several “cons” of an included classroom
3. Participants will be able to explain what is meant by “geographic inclusion“
4. Participants will be able to explain why it’s not a great idea to try to adjust a 4th grade science lesson for a child with zero language skills.  
5. Participants will be able to describe the problems that are most easily remedied when teachers object to a child in their general education classroom

This presentation examines the assumptions made by the DSM-V revised about mental illness and then takes a behavioral perspective on the issue. There are numerous assumptions about the nature and etiology of mental illness, and most of these assumptions, in one form or another, end up blaming the brain on the problems we see. In a manner of speaking, the brain is responsible for what we see but only in as much as it is involved in all our behavior. Regardless of differences in the brain that may or may not be causal in nature, mental health diagnoses are absolutely, positively NOT made on the basis of structural or neurochemical abnormalities. They are in fact based on behavior or lack thereof. In fact, the popular trend now is self-diagnosis. So now we have diagnoses that are almost entirely based on the verbal behavior of the person with the alleged disorder. Even when diagnoses are rendered formally, with checklists and questionnaires and perhaps even direct observation and interaction with the individual, there is still no structural or neurochemical marker used to make a decision. This presentation will cover problems and pitfalls in diagnosis and then cover the important variables to attend to when we encounter an individual with any given diagnosis.  

1. Participants will be able to describe the difference between having a mental health diagnosis and having kidney stones 
2. Participants will be able to describe the differences between the measurement used in determining a mental illness category and the measurement used to determine whether or not someone has high blood pressure
3. Participants will be able to correctly restate the following: "He hallucinates because he has schizophrenia."
4. Participants will be able to describe how all clinicians make mental health diagnoses (i.e., what controls their verbal behavior of rendering one diagnosis over another).
5. Participants will be able to break down mental health diagnoses into their observable behavioral components

The DRO Schedule (differential reinforcement of other behavior) has been used in behavior analysis for over 40 years and it proves to be a procedure that just won't die. The concept is not new and it was not discovered by behavior analysts, in fact it was probably discovered hundreds or thousands of years ago. It based on this premise. Don't do bad things, and good things will happen. It's even woven into our most beloved Christmas songs "Oh, you better not pout, you better not cry, you better not shout, I'm tellin' you why." Other than providing a veiled threat of "no toys for you," the song isn't very helpful as it doesn't tell children what they should do and this is part of the problem with the DRO. Participants will learn about what this schedule does and doesn't do and how it's misuse can actually make problem behavior worse.

1. Participants will be able to explain how the DRO was initially used
2. Participants will be able to list at least one certain thing the DRO is good for
3. Participants will be able to explain how the DRO is frequently, accidentally turned into a punishment procedure
4. Participants will be able to list alternatives to the DRO
5. Participants will be able to describe the repertoires and history necessary for a "month-long DRO" to be effective at preventing problem behavior. 

The diagnosis and treatment of trauma and has received much attention in the last several years. This presentation will provide a behavioral perspective on the definition of trauma (specifically what was called PTSD), and the necessary and sufficient conditions that may produce it. A key point is that trauma is not something inherent in the stimulus but may be an interaction between the stimulus, the context, and the history/skills of the person. There will also be a discussion of common causes of misdiagnoses, an examination of standard treatments and how they may align with ABA principles, and suggestions of additional strategies based on ABA.

  Participants will be able to:

1. List the main features of trauma (PTSD)
2. Distinguish the primary difference between Reactive Attachment Disorder and PTSD
3. Participants will be able to explain how language and concept development could      differentially affect the presentation of PTSD
4. Participants will be able to explain why consistent avoidance of any one event or      person is not necessarily evidence of trauma
5. Participants will be able to explain the concepts of resiliency and protective factors      and how the relate to the development of PTSD

The concept of "picking a fight" is not a new one, but it is most certainly a social concept. The reason it's called "picking a fight" and not "face smashing" is that picking a fight is all about provocation that will justify the fight in the eyes of the attacker and those in society. The problem occurs most typically in individuals with very good language, good self-control, and an understanding that their aggressive behavior is more justified if there were an argument. The talk will focus on differences between instrumental and affective aggression and how your strategies may have to fluidly change based on where their aggressive behavior lies on a continuum from more operant to more respondent. The presentation will also cover the topic of “attention” and why it may prove problematic. Participants will also learn about physical “signs of damage” in aggression but also emotional signs of damage in social interactions. Treatment options will be discussed in terms of addressing the MOs for seeking confrontations (and signs of damage), as well as options for what to do once confrontation seeking has already started.

1. Participants will be able to give examples of affective vs. instrumental aggression
2. Participants will be able to describe some pitfalls to the concept of "attention"
3. Participants will be able to give several examples of physical and emotional/social signs of damage
4. Participants will be able to give several examples of "socially acceptable" signs of damage
5. Participants will be able to briefly describe how to get an individual to switch from dangerous signs of damage seeking to more appropriate forms