Wed 28 Jun 2006
Today was our meeting with Jay who we haven’t seen in awhile. His visit, although short, was a great thing for all of us. We mainly discussed three important issues…
The first was using extinction to eliminate the tantrum behavior. We all decided that going out the back door to the yard area would be the best place to take him in the event of a tantrum. This is a fairly neutral ground so little reinforcement is accessible. The drill is, once Tony has a tantrum over something that he can’t have (that is if we can’t redirect first) then we are to whisk Tony away to the back yard area and let him cry it out. After 30 seconds we are to attempt to approach him. If he calms down, the tantrum is over and we can go back inside. If he doesn’t calm down when we approach after 30 seconds or if he gets louder, we will back away until he calms down. Jay asked us to keep strict data on the duration of these tantrums. We hope to see a decrease as a result of the tantrums, although an extinction bust (a increase in tantrum duration) may occur initially.
The second issue we discussed was Tony’s crayon fetish. We have had a problem with Tony manding for new boxes of crayons (the old ones just don’t do it for him anymore I guess). Jay’s idea is to remove all crayons from Tony’s reach and then deliver them contingent on good behavior or completing a task. This way, the therapists and parents can have better control over delivery of reinforcement. Tony will be able to ‘earn’ crayons throughout the day instead of having them as a free-access item. Marlaina does have issue with this method, however. She believes that it is possible that Tony uses the crayons as a coping mechanism for his anxiety. Thus taking them away would only bring about further anxiety and stress. Jay, do you have a comment about this idea? She still wants to go with your route first to try it out.
Lastly, we went over the ABLLS for Tony. I have spent the last couple weeks assessing Tony and I think we are all pleased to see actual data that proves Tony is learning!! I was especially pleased to see such a leap in his receptive language abilities. Jay would like to see better stimulus control used while we are implementing the program. One thing that we are going to concentrate on is Tony’s ability to follow direction. We are to start out by asking him to come to the table and sit down, then consequently reinforce his compliance by following direction. We brainstormed about this idea and decided that a mystery bag would be a useful tool for reinforcement. This would be a bag full of toys, both old and novel toys, that would be different every day. Much like the exciting bags carried by Jill and Brittany (AKA Bebe). We also decided that individual crayons could be distributed as reinforcement.
Thus ends our meeting with Jay. I think that although we didn’t get to go over the specifics of the new program, we had a lot of important issues discussed and questions answered. I look forward to our upcoming meeting!
July 1st, 2006 at 5:03 am
Hi Tony bloggers:
A few comments……First, nice job summarizing our meeting the other day Whitney. I think you captured the three major areas we discussed, and it’s nice to have it down so that we can refer to it for consistency in implementation. Did you guys get a stopwatch to measure duration of tantrums (and for timing the 30 sec.)?
With respect to crayons and stress. How do we know that Tony is stressed? Probably by the outward behaviors that we observe (e.g., tantrums, crying, screaming, etc.). These are the extact behaviors we are attempting to replace by teaching appropriate alternatives. The extent to which Tony is successful at gaining access to reinforcers will determine the rate of problem behaviors, which thereby reduces stress. I guess we see stress really as a conglomerate of behaviors that need to be analyze accordingly. Once new appropriate behaviors are developed through reinforcement and teaching, Tony will display lower levels of problem behaviors (e.g., stress). If crayons are a reinforcer, then let’s use them as such to teach other behaviors. If he has free access to them, it diminshes their value as reinforcement. Certainly, this will not be easy in the short run since he has had free noncontingent acess to this reinforcer, but if this continues where is it going? I hope this is helpful in looking at the crayon issue.
I will remember the ABLLS kit next Friday so that we can have fun with Tony on some new things.
Talk to you later.
Jay