Do teachers’ unions really prohibit non-public agencies from serving as children’s aides in public schools?

Some special education administrators will initially mention this as being a reason why they cannot authorize non-public agency support for a child. It is true that some districts' aides are in labor unions. However, in the past 25 years, working with at least 40 different school districts, the union issue has never affected our ability to serve children in public schools. The issue generally disappears if you ask for specific details about the exact constraints that districts are working under.

Should We Have 30 Programs on Maintenance?

My daughter’s program currently has 11 programs on acquisition, and over 30 programs on maintenance. We end up spending more time reviewing old programs to make sure my daughter doesn’t lose them than teaching new ones. Is this normal?

No. You should probably have no more than 3-5 programs on maintenance at any one time. You should definitely not have to regularly practice all old programs. Your problem is most likely due to poor sequencing in the programming of your daughter’s case.

When programming is done correctly, each new skill is only introduced if it will be used relatively soon in a higher level program. Skills that are not subsequently used in more advanced programs will typically be forgotten (though there is a critical exception to this that we will get to in a minute).

Studying math offers a good analogy to this situation. Each skill taught is used in the next, more complex skill. Counting skills are used in addition and subtraction. Addition and subtraction is used in multiplication. Multiplication is used in division. Multiplication and division are used in algebra. Algebra is used in geometry. Geometry is used in trigonometry, and so on. Children taking algebra don’t have to continually review multiplication facts, because multiplication skills are practiced in the course of doing algebra.

EIBT programming should be conducted the same way. Verbal imitation skills are used to expressively label objects and actions. Object and action labels are used to speak in complete sentences. Complete sentences are used to describe previous experiences. Descriptions of previous experiences are used to carry on conversations (we left a lot of additional skills out of this chain).

Introducing pronouns such as “I,” “you,” “he,” and “she,” too early is a common mistake. Because they are easy to say, they are often introduced before children are able to speak in complete sentences. But guess what? They don’t really have any communicative value unless they are used in sentences. Consequently, children lose them pretty quickly.

Effective EIBT requires the rapid acquisition of hundreds of skills over the course of 2-4 years. This rapid acquisition is sabotaged if programs are not sequenced appropriately.

What’s that exception we mentioned earlier? It’s the real world. It’s fine to introduce a new skill that will not be used in subsequent programming, if the skill will be used in a real-world setting. For example, we may teach a child to receptively label her own printed name, because in preschool, she has to sit on the carpet square that has her name on it.

Do Children “Burn Out” on ABA/EIBT After 18 Months?

I have seen a lot of postings on websites where parents talk about their kids making good progress in ABA programs for a while, but then they start tantruming and their rate of learning falls off. Is this common?

Children may plateau at any developmental level. However, if a child’s rate of progress slows down due to tantrums, noncompliance, or lack of motivation, the cause is most likely poor programming or poor therapy.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of minimally trained EIBT providers out there. They know how to teach discretely, and teach some basic communication skills. However, they do not know how to integrate children into preschools, develop peer socialization skills, or introduce high-level language programs (all critical components of a competent EIBT program). So, they run out of things to teach. Then, they make kids mad. They pointlessly expand previous programs (for example, teaching a four-year old to label every item in every kitchen drawer), or, they try to teach high-level language skills randomly, completely out of any developmental order (for example, expecting a child to engage in a conversation about what they did over the weekend, when the child doesn’t have the verbal skills to tell you what he/she did two minutes ago.).

Many EIBT providers also lack the experience necessary to diversify and naturalize reinforcement procedures as children mature. Tickles, rough-housing and food can be very effective for early stages of an EIBT program. However, their effectiveness decreases substantially for those children who make rapid developmental progress. Two critical changes in reinforcement procedures must occur as children advance through the EIBT curriculum:

1) The types of reinforcers used must be expanded and varied. To maintain a child’s willing cooperation as they progress through hundreds of programs and thousands of hours of instruction, therapists need to use anything and everything that a child finds interesting or motivating. For example, playing outside, trips to the park, movies, videos, video games, toys, trips to restaurants, trips to stores, swimming, etc. Now, you can’t use these reinforcers on a trial-by-trial basis. This leads us to the second critical reinforcement change that must occur over the course of an EIBT program:

2) Reinforcement schedules must be naturalized. Children have to learn to work longer in order to get bigger reinforcers. In early stages, this may mean working for three minutes in order to get to play a video game for three minutes. By kindergarten, this means working for several hours or days before getting preferred activities or items (and sometimes the preferred activity is just going home). Children have to be on roughly the same reinforcement schedules as their classmates, if they are to potentially function independently in an academic setting. The gradual transition to these types of reinforcement schedules has to be an integral part of an EIBT program, and it has to start years before kindergarten does.

Children vary in how much they learn and how much they will benefit from EIBT programs. However, competent behavioral teams can adjust the demands placed on any child so that they can be compliant and cooperative, regardless of their rate of learning.

What does "ABA trained" mean?

My school district tells us that all their classroom aides are "ABA trained." What level of experience should I expect from a person who is "ABA trained?"

Unfortunately, the term "ABA trained," is pretty much meaningless. It can be used to describe a person with a doctorate in applied behavior analysis, or a person who attended a two-day training on discrete-trial teaching, 10 years ago. Typically, you will see personnel closer to the latter extreme.

The best strategy is to define the level of experience that would be appropriate for your child's educational needs (with the help of an ABA professional), and request a person with those specific credentials. For example, you may request, "a person who has received a minimum of six months of training and supervision from professional-level ABA personnel in the development and implementation of token economies in academic settings." Note that in this example, we specified that the person was trained by an ABA professional, for a specific amount of time, in a specific procedure.

In addition to these details, it is also critical to define what level of supervision your aide will receive (how many hours per week, by whom). Even the best aides will require ongoing professional supervision.