How Not to Talk to Your Kids.

[Mr.Samsa]

I care what other readers think. I care particularly when a person is very plausible in terms of their manner of delivery, quotes, subquotes etc but less so in terms of substance and I care deeply about something which gives internet an often undeservedly bad name.

You claim this:

I've already earned my qualifications in ABA. I've done work in the area (both in homes and schools, with developmentally disabled people and with "normal" people and with animals), I've met people running these programmes because they are my colleagues, I've been to conferences and presented at conferences, I've read the research and published my own research.

And yet seem unable to offer a simple answer to the question 'What do/or did you do?'. There's a member of this forum who is a private tutor, I'd lay a considerable bet that if asked the same question the answer would roll off his fingertips without hesitation and without the need to say no more was required than the answer 'teach' or 'educate'. Ask me about any job I've do and I can describe with fluent ease to anyone what process it contains, and in any detail required. I could find easily similar current jobs online, people still doing the same things that represent their actions over the internet.

If offering the it's international organisations web page it would be second nature to underline which special interest had been my own, which BTW I have already done - not a problem, nor is it a problem to discuss the realities of that interest as I experienced them.

It is implausible in the extreme to me that, the person you describe yourself as online, would find such a request so difficult to understand and even harder to respond to.

Except that I have responded to your question. I did work in the homes of people with special needs, then I moved on to working with "normal" children in classrooms, and now I'm focusing on the experimental underpinnings of behavior analysis (if you really wanted to know, my latest study looked at whether our concept of reinforcement is coherent or not, and my results suggested that the information hypothesis understanding of reinforcement is more plausible than the traditional Skinnerian account). I've presented the names of researchers who have performed interventions or research which are similar to what I've done in ABA (i.e. Dennis Rose, John Church, etc). And yet you keep bleating on about finding some "organisation" that does some "kind" of ABA.

Out of interest, what "kinds" of ABA do you think there are? This is the problem with your question, there aren't any "kinds" of ABA to choose from.

I suppose, now you are aware of the special interests pages above you can surf through and find something, if so, and if that matches all that's been said so far I will be the very first to concede some level of plausibility - it, at this stage, would not be enough for me to see you as what you claim to be to the extent I would be guided by your advice though.

..You simply wanted me to list what kinds of problems I've worked with? From the "special interests" page, I've worked with: animals, autism, little bit of research into gambling (looking at self-control), feeding disorders (with particular interest in selective eating disorder), and a little bit of verbal behavior - and not on the list, I've done experimental research into classical conditioning, self-control, and some signal detection work.

But obviously the "kind" of ABA didn't change with each problem. The approach of ABA was the same with each problem, just the tools and techniques I used differed.

Of all the people I've met on line this is the first time I genuinely feel I'm talking to a Walter Mitty. Yes - I do bloody care, enough to risk being wrong openly.

I don't know who the fuck Walter Mitty is, but if my extensive knowledge and interest in a pretty obscure field isn't evidence enough of my experience in the area, then I can't provide any other form of proof (since I don't want to put my name out on a public forum). As my best attempt to prove it, I'm not sure if this information is on the internet or not, but after the 2009 NZABA conference in Auckland, Nathalie Boutros won the award for the most entertaining lecture of the conference. Not that any of this even matters - for argument's sake, let's pretend I'm a big fat phoney who tells girls on the internet that I'm a behavior analyst in order to get them in the sack (because it's such a sexy profession). What the fuck does that have to do with whether my claims are accurate or not?

I've backed up my opinions with academic references, with the textbook on the subject, as well as various citations to numerous authors. You have "countered" my claims by pointing out that you've been trained in the Lovaas method. I point out (quite accurately, according to any information on this subject), that the Lovaas method cannot and should not be confused with ABA itself. It is a part of ABA, but not an alternative to it, and obviously not a paradigm or school of ABA (i.e. it is not one of the many "kinds" of ABA).

[laklak]

Interesting thread. However, no one has yet mentioned remote controlled electric shock collars or regular beatings. Where do they fit in?

[floppit]

For christ's sake - I want you to describe the work! Or link to anyone else able to do so. Is that really so obscure? It is the lack of that and ONLY the lack of that after umpteenth posts that felt very unreal.

As to the distinction between 'part of' and 'a kind of' if I'm genuinely supposed to care re that split hair - I honestly don't. I think the meaning of what I've been asking has been clear for a long time.

I have never doubted your interest in the subject, but for the life of me I'm struggling to understand the lack of enthusiasm to actually describe processes you use. What began as actual very real curiosity to hear what parts of ABA you had worked in ended up a bizarrely frustrating to and fro and where and anything EXCEPT that was discussed.

Can you not grasp why that looks so odd? To most of us saying 'I worked for an organisation similar to X' or 'I was self employed accredited X working directly in schools offering X to achieve Y, we did this by.....' A medic might describe whether they work alone, part of a team, in a hospital, in homes, I've a friend who's a nurse practioner covering out of hours care in the community, I know she visits people at home, I know she assess's their medical needs, I know it was a role done by GPs AND I know where it's difficult, problematic, the practicalities of the idea. To describe your job is not unusual or invasive.

Maybe it is a brain fart on my part but I'm stumped to imagine how on earth that requires giving my name or even any real effort. To say what you do is the most simple thing in the world.

[floppit]

Interesting thread. However, no one has yet mentioned remote controlled electric shock collars or regular beatings. Where do they fit in?

Dunno... but if I catch you can I fit one?

We haven't mentioned Watson and Little Albert either.

[irretating]

Floppit, you say you care what other readers think. I don't profess to know much about ABA; I've only got a bachelor's in psych. I'm not seeing what you're getting at in your exchange with samsa. My $0.02.

[Mr.Samsa]

For christ's sake - I want you to describe the work! Or link to anyone else able to do so. Is that really so obscure? It is the lack of that and ONLY the lack of that after umpteenth posts that felt very unreal.

This makes no sense, but sure. I've done work with autistic kids, for example, I worked with one kid in a school where my main job was simply to find out what kind of reinforcement would work best in a token system set up by the teacher. So over the course of a couple of sessions I set up a preference assessment, followed by a reinforcer assessment, and then I used a progressive ratio schedule to determine the breaking point of the reinforcers to figure out what item would be the most effective in aiding the kid's behavioral change. This was part of a small team. I've also worked in schools, again as part of a small team, where we were asked to help identify children with problem behaviors, determine what's causing them, and then fixing them. There was one girl with serious off-task behavioral issues so we ran a functional analysis, determined what the cause was, and then we implemented I think an extinction procedure and differential reinforcement of other behavior which effectively changed her behavior. I've worked a fair bit in labs as well, originally as a lab assistant when I was still in college working with rats and pigeons, and then I started running my own experiments with the university. I've also trained puppies and helped dogs with behavioral problems.

Is that more detailed, or do you want me to run through a case-study of every person and animal I've worked with?

As to the distinction between 'part of' and 'a kind of' if I'm genuinely supposed to care re that split hair - I honestly don't. I think the meaning of what I've been asking has been clear for a long time.

The problem is that you think it's a hair split. The point is that the Lovaas method is no different from a functional analysis or peer modelling - it's a tool that serves a purpose. To describe it as a "kind" of ABA is nonsensical. Hence why it's ridiculous for you to ask me to find an organisation that uses my "kind" of ABA. There is no kind, they just use the methods of ABA in their work - whether that be FA, the Lovaas method, or whatever.

I have never doubted your interest in the subject, but for the life of me I'm struggling to understand the lack of enthusiasm to actually describe processes you use. What began as actual very real curiosity to hear what parts of ABA you had worked in ended up a bizarrely frustrating to and fro and where and anything EXCEPT that was discussed.

Can you not grasp why that looks so odd? To most of us saying 'I worked for an organisation similar to X' or 'I was self employed accredited X working directly in schools offering X to achieve Y, we did this by.....' A medic might describe whether they work alone, part of a team, in a hospital, in homes, I've a friend who's a nurse practioner covering out of hours care in the community, I know she visits people at home, I know she assess's their medical needs, I know it was a role done by GPs AND I know where it's difficult, problematic, the practicalities of the idea. To describe your job is not unusual or invasive.

Maybe it is a brain fart on my part but I'm stumped to imagine how on earth that requires giving my name or even any real effort. To say what you do is the most simple thing in the world.

The problem is that I described what I did - I told you that I had worked with kids with special needs, "normal" children in educational settings, and in the lab with animals. This is the equivalent of the medic saying they worked as part of a team with sick and injured people. You were asking what "approach" I used which makes as much sense as asking a medic what "approach" he uses - he doesn't use an approach, he just uses medicine. The approach changes depending on the circumstances, so unless you want a run down of every case then of course you're going to be met with vagueries.

Essentially, of the jobs I've done, I've usually worked in a small team and we've been presented with an individual that is having some kind of difficulty (e.g. self-injurious behavior, lack of imitation, inability to make eye contact, off-task behavior in the classroom, etc), or we've been tasked with helping a teacher set up their classroom to reduce problem behaviors of the students and increase achievement and on-task behavior (e.g. helping set up token systems, setting up the good behavior game, instructing them on what kind of ground rules need to be put in place, etc). Then, we've used the tools provided by ABA to correctly identify the problem behavior, measuring it at a baseline and then measuring the difference after intervention usually with the use of a multiple baselines design or something similar. Then sometimes after work we'd have a beer and shoot some pool.

[laklak]

Interesting thread. However, no one has yet mentioned remote controlled electric shock collars or regular beatings. Where do they fit in?

Dunno... but if I catch you can I fit one?

Promises, promises...

[floppit]

OK - maybe it is me, typically something where the person on a tangent can't see. I don't know.

What I'll try to do is go back a few paces and explain where I'm coming from. I'm not against ABA but I believe it is powerful and requires in depth knowledge to apply well, knowledge that's in short supply in the general public, actually both Samsa and I would agree it is a pretty obscure field.

My concerns were based on past experience and to be clear, yes, I have learned something from this thread; after reading the international ABA link Samsa offered my view of ABA has changed, I was wrong. That said, my concerns were still based on it's effectiveness and the lack of general awareness needed to make that effectiveness something that works well. A powerful means to teach a child to read needs to be coupled with the knowledge of the best time to do it, likewise for most things from potty training to sharing. Some posts back (perhaps Samsa will do as I have done and go for a re read) I gave an anecdote of a child going through extinction bursts. Samsa accurately labelled the reason for the increased tantrum but his concern that this event was because the tutors/parents were unaware of this was not my concern, my concern had been to place any communication on extinction one should be certain that an alternative is available - for this child there was no means other than to tantrum to express his distress and make his tutors stop and THAT is what needed to happen, without that, continued extinction runs the risk of leading to a state of learned helplessness and is INAPPROPRIATE for a severly LD child with very limited communication in the first place. But yes, the consultant was crap!

At the point where work beyond DTT was being discussed my main motivation was one of curiosity, curiosity for ANY powerful means to train children that didn't have the difficulties inherent in home run DTT ABA for LD children. When Samsa cited research for imitation I moved instantly to the method and found something equally precise and cautions that it needed to be in the discussion. My point being that I wanted to learn about the application METHOD that avoids problems with complexity, Samsa did miss this and as I understood his reply wrote off the concern under it being research protocol.

My reservations regarding ABA have never been over whether it's valid to research or apply (carefully!!), just that the pragmatics of the latter make caution necessary because of it's very clear and well evidenced power to change behaviour, I think that it changes people.

The issue over whether Samsa is doing this work has only arisen because I don't understand why my asking for a description was so complicated. I might come to accept it was, but, right now I still don't.

[floppit]

BTW - I didn't post bollocks fast enough but posted prior to reading or it happens again!

[floppit]

This makes no sense, but sure. I've done work with autistic kids, for example, I worked with one kid in a school where my main job was simply to find out what kind of reinforcement would work best in a token system set up by the teacher. So over the course of a couple of sessions I set up a preference assessment, followed by a reinforcer assessment, and then I used a progressive ratio schedule to determine the breaking point of the reinforcers to figure out what item would be the most effective in aiding the kid's behavioral change. This was part of a small team. I've also worked in schools, again as part of a small team, where we were asked to help identify children with problem behaviors, determine what's causing them, and then fixing them. There was one girl with serious off-task behavioral issues so we ran a functional analysis, determined what the cause was, and then we implemented I think an extinction procedure and differential reinforcement of other behavior which effectively changed her behavior. I've worked a fair bit in labs as well, originally as a lab assistant when I was still in college working with rats and pigeons, and then I started running my own experiments with the university. I've also trained puppies and helped dogs with behavioral problems.

Apparently sense being made wasn't needed as you have finally described what I was after! Have you any desire or interest in us now going back a few posts to where the conversation lay when I entered? Now I have some idea of the content/method of the 'work with normal kids' it would be much easier to discuss.

[floppit]

I should add - should have added instantly, that the above highlighted quote was something that I believed would not be forthcoming when writing that without it I flat did not believe I was talking to someone working in ABA. There's nothing in that description that fails to ring true and I no longer believe you're a Walter Mitty Samsa (oh... go look it up).

My somewhat dated memories of behaviourists is of a rather passionate and pedantic group whose past is filled with vitally important research and numerous examples of getting 'carried away'. I think (not exactly to my credit) I share those attributes.

So yeah, I'm sorry.

[Warren Dew]

Interesting thread. However, no one has yet mentioned remote controlled electric shock collars or regular beatings. Where do they fit in?

Did you miss all the references to "reinforcement"?

[Mr.Samsa]

This makes no sense, but sure. I've done work with autistic kids, for example, I worked with one kid in a school where my main job was simply to find out what kind of reinforcement would work best in a token system set up by the teacher. So over the course of a couple of sessions I set up a preference assessment, followed by a reinforcer assessment, and then I used a progressive ratio schedule to determine the breaking point of the reinforcers to figure out what item would be the most effective in aiding the kid's behavioral change. This was part of a small team. I've also worked in schools, again as part of a small team, where we were asked to help identify children with problem behaviors, determine what's causing them, and then fixing them. There was one girl with serious off-task behavioral issues so we ran a functional analysis, determined what the cause was, and then we implemented I think an extinction procedure and differential reinforcement of other behavior which effectively changed her behavior. I've worked a fair bit in labs as well, originally as a lab assistant when I was still in college working with rats and pigeons, and then I started running my own experiments with the university. I've also trained puppies and helped dogs with behavioral problems.

Apparently sense being made wasn't needed as you have finally described what I was after! Have you any desire or interest in us now going back a few posts to where the conversation lay when I entered? Now I have some idea of the content/method of the 'work with normal kids' it would be much easier to discuss.

Well there are a number of ways to work with "normal" kids, like in the educational settings I mentioned (e.g. the "good behavior game"), or you can start in the homes of parents. People like Matt Sanders have set up programs that basically teach parents the correct way to raise their kids (or, to be more precise, the best way to raise your kids that reduces/eliminates behavioral problems, increases happiness of parents and kids, and increases children's achievement in schools, etc). The best example of this is the Triple P program which has proven hugely successful and has now been implemented worldwide.

Importantly, with the Triple P program in particular, the behavioral methods used are primarily preventative, rather than fixing or changing them after-the-fact; that is, there is no discrete trial training involved at all, yet it is still an example of ABA.

I should add - should have added instantly, that the above highlighted quote was something that I believed would not be forthcoming when writing that without it I flat did not believe I was talking to someone working in ABA. There's nothing in that description that fails to ring true and I no longer believe you're a Walter Mitty Samsa (oh... go look it up).

Ah, I assume you're referring to "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"? I thought you were referring to a member of Rationalia or something, because I think I've seen someone with that username. Makes sense now

My somewhat dated memories of behaviourists is of a rather passionate and pedantic group whose past is filled with vitally important research and numerous examples of getting 'carried away'. I think (not exactly to my credit) I share those attributes.

So yeah, I'm sorry.

No problem

I apologise for my comments too. I was getting frustrated because I felt like I was answering your questions but there was obviously some misunderstandings going on.

Interesting thread. However, no one has yet mentioned remote controlled electric shock collars or regular beatings. Where do they fit in?

Did you miss all the references to "reinforcement"?

I don't get the joke.

What does reinforcement have to do with shock collars or beatings?

[floppit]

I've not forgotten this i've just been stupidly busy. I did read the links though and i've heard of triple p, just not as aba. Do you distiguish at all between any behavioural priciple being applied and aba?

[Mr.Samsa]

I did read the links though and i've heard of triple p, just not as aba.

Really? That's interesting. The creator (Matt Sanders) has done a lot of work in applied behavior analysis and I think the majority of his research is published in JABA, and a popular topic at ABA conferences. Even though I know that other areas use it as well, since I only ever see in it reference to ABA I sometimes forget that it's not solely an ABA tool.

Do you distiguish at all between any behavioural priciple being applied and aba?

In a sense, yes. I obviously wouldn't call a mother giving her kids candy for good behavior an "applied behavior analyst" but technically she is. I think the problem is that ABA is both a practice and a field. So there is the systematic approach of professionals who gain their qualifications and adhere to the guidelines of their associations etc, and these people are Applied Behavior Analysts, and there are people who know a little about what they're doing (say, when training a dog) and since they are applying behavioral principles to produce positive changes to a socially significant behavior, this makes them applied behavior analysts too (or, I guess, people who use applied behavior analysis).

The distinction is similar to someone who sits in science class dropping objects and measuring how long they take to hit the floor - they are doing physics. Of course, it seems weird to call them "physicists" because that term refers to people who do physics as well as academics who have spent years working towards their PhD and building supercolliders etc., but technically they are doing physics in the same way the laymen would be using applied behavior analysis.