Usually when I do my talk, I make it very interactive. Okay, so very interactive. Number one, para magising kayo. Okay, number two, para matuto tayo. Alright. Okay, I’d like to start the session by giving you a classroom scenario. Okay, kasi mga karamihan sa atin mga SPED, no? SPED teachers, kaya malapit yan sa puso ko.
So let’s start with a scenario and this is a real case scenario. There was a student, at that time he was in grade 5. So this kid, this is the scenario. Every time he sits in the classroom, all of his materials in front of him, he is being hit. He really gets hit. After he hits his things, he sits down. As if nothing happened.
Now, yung teacher na, yung teachers sa school na yun, they tried everything, no? Yung malumanay na pakiusap hanggang medyo pabigat na pabigat na yung ano, yung ano nila, pangbisciplina. Okay, that is the scenario muna. So let’s try to read the behavior before I go into ABA.
So kung kayo yung teachers, or if you are the teacher of that child, what will you do? And what do you understand from that behavior? Okay, ma’am, because your smile is beautiful, go ahead. Now again, there is no right or wrong answer. Okay? There is no right or wrong answer because we can learn from this. And there is no such thing in my class, I always tell my students, there is no such thing as failure.
It only becomes a failure if we don’t learn from it. Okay, ma’am, go ahead. Anong gagawin mo? Pretend ikaw yun, yung teacher. Good morning, everyone. I am teacher Donna. I am a special education teacher for 13 years. With that scenario, given by ma’am Gina, I thought of a situation in one of my students.
The best thing I did to a child was learning by doing. I showed the proper way to behave to a child. Since I have a student with Down syndrome, it’s easy for him to adapt to my instruction, until such time, we learned that patience is a virtue. We cannot stop if we think our feelings are only up to that point.
Until such time, Ma’am Thank you. Very good. That’s from a teacher’s perspective. Okay, later on we will see a shift from ABA. So again, like I said, my heart is close to the teachers. And the patience of Ma’am Donna is very strong. Isn’t that right? But sometimes, because we read the behavior wrong, nothing.
Okay, let’s see first. Ma’am Donna, see. And also everyone, when you teach, whether it’s a child or you’re doing a seminar like this or a workshop, when you correct or you give feedback, you give feedback on the behavior, not the person. That’s why we don’t have a fight. Just the behavior, not the person. Let’s see. M’am Donna said, number one, when you’re assessing a child, you focus on the behavior.
Tanggalin lahat, what you think, what you feel, what you know, remove. Number two, do not compare it to other kids. Focus. And kahit sa ano, even my students, pag mag-take sila ng questions, you focus on the question. Wag kayong magdagdag bawal. So let’s focus on the behavior. Not the child, not other children, but that. So let’s see. Okay.
So this is the child. They did everything. So the patient, Ma’am Donna, was exhausted. The patient was exhausted. They did everything. You will not level up. Now, first of all, look at the behavior. What is the behavior there? Throwing of things. Simple, straightforward. No, I think, I feel. Throwing of things, period, behavior. Now, what triggered the behavior?
What do you think triggered the behavior? Because we have to understand before I start my lecture. What triggered the behavior? Ma’am, what do you think? So you identified, very straight and simple, ma’am, don’ts. You identified the behavior, throwing of things. What triggered the behavior? Maybe, ma’am, in the family background, she did. Ma’am, don’t say that.
Okay, ma’am. Maybe that’s the right thing to do. Okay. Now, that scenario to Ma’am Joy, again, I think, I feel, that’s not about the behavior. Because if that’s what you think, that will frustrate you. So what triggered the behavior? Plain and simple. The books, the materials in front of you. Don’t go too far.
Then what’s the consequence? What do you do after that? What do you do when she throws? Barbara? Ma’am, maybe she doesn’t like when there’s too much clutter. So, I’ll… Is it like this? Yes. One child. Okay.
Just take her and tell her somewhere that she can’t see. Because she’s in clutter. What do you do? When the child is in trouble, tell her, What? Exactly, what do you do immediately? See, that’s why you don’t go with it. You don’t go with it. When it happens, you address it immediately. You’re going to tell her? Right, exactly. You’re going to tell her? I don’t like to do that. See, again, you just simplified that.
You just simplified that scenario into what? The behavior, throwing of things, what triggered the behavior, the books, what do you do after? It’s either you reprimand or you ask the child to pick up the things. Straightforward. You don’t have, I think, I feel. Straightforward. That’s it. Now, let’s see. If what Mam Barbara is doing is you pick up, pick up the things. Even if that’s what you’re doing, you reprimand, pick up the things or talk nicely, your behavior is repeated. That means you are not really correcting the child. In fact, you are reinforcing the behavior without you realizing it. Okay? Now, the definition of punishment has changed. Punishment is no longer the one that inflicts physical, emotional or psychological pain.
The definition of punishment in terms of ABA is a decrease in behavior. In that scenario, let’s say you already scolded the child. He is still doing it. So there is an increase in behavior. To you it’s a punishment, but for the child it’s a reinforcement.
So without you realizing it, you inadvertently reinforce the behavior. It’s nice? What do you think before I proceed? Now, let’s go back. You go back to your answer a while ago and try to reflect on it. I have to talk to the child first. What’s happening? Go ahead, ma’am.
I have to talk to the child first, what’s happening on him? No, you have to go back because your talking is already ineffective. Your talking now, again. See, now, m’am Donna said, talking, I have to talk to the child first. That is already ineffective because you tried that and it’s still there because… That will only frustrate you because you already talked to the child and still ineffective.
So just reflect on what you know now and what was your answer a while ago. Nothing. That’s okay. So, reflect on what you said. Before we proceed, let’s just get the ball rolling. You’ve already been scolded, you’ve already been told. Just after you know that you are thinking of the people, that they are thinking of the people, thinking of the people, being discussing.
Ma’am, in the next time, you will anticipate what he will do next. You will lessen his reactions because he might be happy with the routine reactions. Again, so what will I do if I am… This is what I did. Okay, this is what I did. I saw it. So there, so what we know up to now, we were able to identify the behavior, what triggered the behavior, and what you did after, that is not effective.
So what did I do? When I found out about those three things, what I did was, initially, I did not do anything. I did not do anything. I continued the lesson. Because when I was given the lesson, that was the scenario. I continued the lesson about what I was doing, but what I did was during the lesson, I was the one asking for help.
Because during that assessment, I found out that that child is very smart. And his mentality is, if you’re smart, you’re not supposed to ask questions. You’re not. Now, his behavior is the way of saying, Teacher, please help me. Because if he uses that, he will. He will wait for the teacher’s reaction. You know that it will escape if he runs away. He won’t run away. If he runs away, I said yes. So I did nothing. His lesson continued with the previous teacher, but during the lesson, I was the one asking for help. Please help teacher. I don’t know. I don’t know. Then he realized that the teacher didn’t know either. So he started asking for help. So what happened there, I replaced the behavior of the things by asking.
That’s called functional communication training. You replace the behavior with a more appropriate one. So, asking for help is more appropriate. But I didn’t say it directly. I said it first. I said it first until he saw that the teacher is also asking for help. When he started asking for help, that was the only time I explained to him the concept of asking for help. You see that? You entered his world without him realizing.
Okay, any lessons learned there? I had a chance to… I am not a SPED teacher, ma’am. Go ahead, please. Yes, ma’am. I had a chance to handle for about five years a Down syndrome Malaysian kid. And she has… Ma’am, what you said a while ago, she had a tendency to throw things.
Whatever things she got on her hands, she would throw. So at first, on my first year, I don’t know what to do. Until I realized, ma’am, what you said, that you stopped and you entered the child without her knowing that you already entered her world. I will discuss that, what are the functions of behavior. So, okay, with that, we can start. Okay, our goal for today is what is ABA? Understand the goals and target skills of ABA.
Know the different methods and approaches in ABA, especially those with neurodevelopmental disability and intervention strategies to improve academic skills. Now, earlier, Ms. Queenie said that it’s atypical. Let’s add that, Ms. Queenie. It’s now called neurodivergent. So, neurotypical for the siblings who don’t have it, and then the neurodivergent. Now, one more thing. Our previous issues here are what do we call them? Children with disabilities? Or special? Or person first? Or disability first? Actually, for me, it’s not like that. I don’t. This is my personal thing. I don’t believe in disability first or child first. It’s simple. How do we call them? Call them by their name. Regardless of disability.
So, let’s start. So, what is a behavior? I’ll define it according to Cooper. So, behavior is the activity of the living organisms. Human behavior is everything people do, including how they move, what they say, think and feel. However, when there is a behavior, most of our behaviors or all of our behaviors are triggered by the environment. So, that’s a partner. May environment.
So we behave the way we behave because we react to the environment. Okay? So let’s start with the basic assumptions. For the same page style. So number one, behavior is individual. So all people exhibit behavior. We all have behaviors. No? You don’t have behaviors, you’re dead.
Number two, behavior is continuous. It never stops and it changes over time. Okay, your crying now may be different from your crying tomorrow because it by your function, not by your reason. And then behavior is determined. So it is determined by its functional relationship with the environment. Okay, in ABA, there is no such thing as it happened out of the blue. You behave because something in the environment triggered it.
For example, you and your student, you have a lesson, your lesson is smooth. Every day, your lesson is smooth. And then all of a sudden, the child cried. The child cried not because out of the blue, she wanted to cry. There is something in the environment that triggered it. It could be that the lesson is too difficult, she wants your attention or she is sick. So, someone triggered the unsub behavior.
And then behavioral variability is extrinsic. So behavioral variability is caused by extra variables in the environment. For example, your student cried again because it was hot or cold. That hot or cold are extra variables that affected the behavior. So those are our assumptions of behavior. Now let’s define ABA. A while ago, we defined behavior. Now we will define ABA.
So ABA is a scientific approach for discovering environmental variables that reliably influence socially significant behavior and for developing a technology of behavior change that takes practical advantage of those discoveries by Cooper. Now, I didn’t understand that. Okay? So let’s try to task analyze it or let’s analyze it for us to be able to understand it. Number one,
It is a scientific approach. So, scientific approach obviously may structure, it’s evidence-based. What else? It’s logical, it’s Merong process. Good, good. We are all defining it together. What? Why do you need those process, the evidence-based? For what? For discovering environmental variables.
Now, again, environmental variables that will affect the behavior. Okay. It’s a bit clearer now. Next, why do we need again the relationship between the behavior and the environment? For what? To influence socially significant behavior. Now, what is socially significant behavior? Okay. Let’s see. Let’s start by saying that socially significant behavior is the behavior that you’re going to teach is important for your client. For example,
We talked about this earlier, right? Here on the table, Mrs. Barbara. Example, this is Mrs. Donna, you designed a program. Mrs. Donna designed a very nice program. It’s like her special kit. Washing of hands. How to wash your hands. We analyzed this, meaning Mrs. Donna already washed her hands. Turn on the faucet. Wet hands, soap hands, rinse hands. Turn off the faucet.
Very nice, well written. And very good, Ma’am Donna taught me. Very good. Now, here’s the problem. The child doesn’t have a grip on their house. weight and a Now, do you call that environmentally supportive? No. So when you design your program, you see to it that the environment can support your program. Okay?
So now, next, developing technology. Now, we need to know the relationship again of the behavior and the environment for what to develop a technology. Technology is your intervention. Okay, your intervention for what? Why do you need the intervention for? For behavior change.
So now you just have to take advantage of all those discoveries. Okay? Alright. Next. Here. So here, in Lehman’s term, we will simplify. This is what ABA means. It’s a set of principles that focus on how behaviors change or are affected by the environment as well as how learning takes place.
Now we know the definitions of behavior, the effect of the environment to the behavior, now we are ready to define what is a legitimate ABA. I’m sure you notice, there are many therapists claiming to be ABA, I am this, I know ABA, I can change behavior, I can reverse autism and all these promises. But now, I will guide you, even our online listeners, what is a legitimate ABA?
What is the real ABA? I think that’s what you want to know, right? Now, there’s something called the seven dimensions of ABA. The seven dimensions of ABA came from the research of Baer, Wolfe and Grizzly in 1968. That’s the most quoted research in ABA. Now, what are the seven dimensions? And I’ll explain it later on if it’s one by one.
So, remember the acronym BATCAGE. B for behavioral, A is for applied, T is for technological, C is for conceptually systematic, A is for analytical, G is for generality, and E is for effective. Now, for an ABA to be authentic, it has to have these seven dimensions. Okay, so let’s see. Ano ba ang behavioral?
Number one, you must have a behavior. If there is no behavior, what will we call it? Correct? So now, behavioral. Very important. The behavior should be well defined. It should be operationally defined. That it is observable and measurable. If the behavior is not measurable and observable, again, it’s very difficult for you teachers to be effective. So what is behavior and observable?
Let’s say, Ma’am Barbara has a student. That student is very naughty to the point that it disrupts the class. So, Mambar Bara went to her mother. Mother, your child is naughty. Now, her mother said, Don’t worry, teacher Barbara. I will make her a good teacher. Now, that in itself, the definition of your behavior, you will never be an effective teacher. Why? Because what is naughty? What is good?
Is that observable and measurable? No. So, no matter what you do, you will not be able to address the naughty and the nice. So, how do you address those behaviors? Number one, you have to redefine the behavior into observable and measurable terms. For example, Ma’am, your child is naughty because he is being bullied by his classmates then that behavior, the pinching behavior is observable and measurable. Now, if the behavior increases, then your intervention is not effective. I did not say you. Your intervention is not effective. Then if the pinching decreases, then your intervention is effective. Sometimes, even the husband and wife, they fight, I get angry, that’s it.
You will never be able to agree because what is your anger? So you operationally define that. I am angry with you because you did not date me. That’s it, operationally defined. Right mommy? Relate, right? So that’s it. So number one, you define the behavior. Or first check if the behavior is observable and measurable. If not, then you redefine the behavior and make it observable and measurable. Okay, that’s number one.
Number two is applied. We already discussed that. Applied, it should be socially significant to the client, not to you. Again, example. You have a child, you’re a barbarian, you have a kid. Your child’s noise in class is so loud. Now, do you want the child to keep quiet? Do you want to teach him how to behave in class? Or do you stop him because you’re irritated?
So again, it has to be socially significant. And number two, technological. As a teacher, that is the most important thing for you. What is technological? You have to design your intervention in such a way that anyone can implement that. You think of a recipe. If I have a recipe of a banana cake and I give you my recipe, if you take the… you need to get the taste. Once you get the taste of the right thing, then you did your intervention. You designed your intervention clearly. For example, for example, again, Teacher A is collecting data. Please collect crying, data of crying. Because you’re checking if your intervention is effective or ineffective. So crying, crying. Write that down, Teacher A. It’s absent. She gave it to teacher B. Number one, she didn’t do it in an operationally defined way and not technological. She said, Teacher, please continue my data collection. Because I will be absent for one day. Then she gave it to teacher B. Suddenly, her behavior started to shoot up. Okay? Actually, it’s not because of her behavior. It’s because of data collection of data B. Because data A did not operationally define crying.
The crying of the other person, even whining, complaining, she put it there. See, you see there is discrepancy. Why? Because the behavior is not operationally defined. I think you’re seeing the importance now. Now next, conceptually systematic. Conceptually systematic meaning, all your interventions should be evidence-based. Okay? And then analytical, there has to be a functional relationship between again, the behavior and the intervention. Okay, your behavior should. Your behavior improvement should be because of the intervention. Now, one of the most important things in ABA is that your behavior and intervention should match. Your behavior or the need of the child and the intervention. If it doesn’t match, forget it. Forget it. You can’t address that behavior.
Okay, and then generality. Again, you know about SPED, the hierarchies of learning. I hope you know that. SPED, what are the hierarchies of learning? You have skill acquisition, fluency, application, or generalization, or mastery, then later on, adaptability. Now, let’s… You already taught the child that there’s skill acquisition and fluency. Now, you’re a teacher, SPED.
You already taught her ABC. She was good at ABC. She even knew how to go backwards. Then one day, mommy came to you. Teacher, it seems like you’re not teaching my daughter. She doesn’t know ABC. But it’s not true. The child has a mastery. She knows it. However, there, you failed to teach generality. You stopped at the mastery. The generality should be, he can recite the ABCs to teacher A, teacher B, teacher C, at home, and anywhere else. Only then you can say that there is learning. If the child is able to generalize, across person, across setting, across time, and across behavior. Okay, and the last, obviously, effective. There has to be a significant change. There.
If you have a violation, then it’s not ABA. So now, where are you in the dimensions of ABA? For example, you’re an ABA therapist, where are you in the world of behavioral analysis? Let’s look at that, there are four dimensions of ABA. I won’t go into detail, but I’ll just tell you where you are.
Now, everything, all of ABA started with the radical behaviorism of BF Skinner. I will not let BF Skinner enter anymore. So, radical behaviorism. So, what is radical behaviorism? Those are the theories of ABA. So, that’s where the philosophies and theories came from. Now, what is theory? The theory is, in real life scenario, you can say, this kid is good.
But that’s just a theory. You still have to prove that that child is good. So that’s the theory. So the ABA comes from the theory of behaviorism. Of course, you have to prove that the child is good. Prove that ABA is effective. So they tested it in the lab. These are the tests they did in the lab. In the lab, the pigeons, the cats, the dogs. So because of that test, they saw that there are two behaviors.
This is the respondent and the operant conditioning. So now, they were able to prove now it works. That’s the same with the child. I will make a parallel example. So that child was observed in the classroom. If he’s good, he was observed. However, this is because you observed the experimental analysis in the lab. So both in the lab and the classroom, that is a very contrived and controlled environment. So what they did with radical behaviorism,
When they saw that the animal worked, they tried it on humans. They applied it outside the lab. That is ABA. So like you, after observing the child inside the classroom, you observe the child outside. Like in the playground, in the canteen. And then in ABA, you saw it was effective on humans, then you can bring it to the children directly. That is the behavior service delivery. That is the ABA-T.
That is after your training, you learn about the concepts of ABA, then you can now apply it directly to the child. So now, if you see that the child is good, then you can say, Wow, the child is good, I can let him play with other kids. So those are the dimensions, the domains of ABA. So being a certified applied behavior analyst, you are there in the behavior service delivery. Now,
Now, you know where you are. So let’s go to, go directly, you have a kid already. So first, in order for you to address a behavior, you have to identify the target behavior. Now, when you identify the target behavior, you have to do an indirect assessment. Okay? So what is the indirect assessment? First, you have to ask. Ask the parents, ask the caregivers, ask the persons involved in the caring of the child.
There you have to identify the target behavior. However, the results, the data collected are not 100% accurate. Why? Because this is subjective. Okay, that’s subjective. And then once you identify, you check what behavior can you address. Like I said, you have to ask yourself, is the behavior observable or measurable? So observable, if it’s visible, noticeable, recognizable and obvious. Okay, or in short, they are the overt behaviors. Now check if it’s measurable, quantifiable, accessible, computable or resolvable. Again, if not, you can redefine the behavior. Now, is this the next question? Am I addressing behavior or not? Because if it’s not behavior, you can’t address it.
If you cannot define it, you cannot address it. So how can you tell if it’s a behavior or not? Because if it’s not a behavior, forget it. Now, the dead man’s test, you can use the dead man’s test. By Ogden Linsley. What is the dead man’s test? If a dead man can do it, it isn’t a behavior. And if a dead man can do it, then it’s a behavior. So let’s simplify that. For example, walking. Okay, walking.
Can a dead man walk? No. Then it’s a behavior. You can address that using ABA. That’s all. When in doubt, anxiety. Does a dead man have anxiety? No. Anxiety? Then it’s not a behavior. However, anxiety is not observable and measurable. You redefine it. Okay? And then getting wet in the rain? Okay. A dead man. Can he get wet? Yes. Therefore, it’s not a behavior.
Now one of my students said, Teacher Gina, no. Because the dead man is already underground. It’s not wet anymore. Okay? So now pinching, kicking, obviously a dead man cannot do it. It’s a behavior. So when in doubt, always go back to that dead man’s test. Okay? Now, next. Now, you collect data. So here in the data collection, this is your direct assessment. You directly observe the child.
to validate your data model in the indirect assessment. Because here, you are already objective. You collect and gather data. And then, why do you need to collect data? Because here, you need to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the child. And then, when you have determined that, then you can come up with a hypothesis. Then, when you have a hypothesis, then you can say that, yeah, I can design now my behavior intervention plan. Now, let’s say, not all behaviors need intervention.
Then, when you have the data, you can say, Yes, this behavior is worthy of intervention. Or, this behavior is not worthy of intervention. Then only then you can design your program. Okay? So in designing a program for ABA, it’s very easy. Actually, your goal for ABA is three. Do you want to increase the behavior? Decrease the behavior or maintain the behavior? That’s it. Increase.
Decrease or maintain and in your goal in designing goal napakadali din. You just have the context behavior and criteria Context where do you want that behavior to happen in class at school in school at home? There and then number two annoying target behavior more criteria is the level of mastery for example saying polite words.
So for the child to be able to say polite words in, for example, the name of the child is Mario. Okay, for Mario, when Mario is inside the classroom, then he should use polite words at least four out of five opportunities. It’s just very easy, context, behavior, and criteria. So there, this is an example. Do you want the child to raise his or her hand? Behavior, context, classroom, criteria at least three times per session. Okay? Now, you’re ready for your intervention? You see, you don’t just do the intervention right away. There is a process. You collect data, you observe the child, you come up with a hypothesis, then design a program. Then in your intervention, you will use the three-term contingency. We will not discuss this in depth because we don’t have time.
So we have Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence. That’s what we did earlier, how to identify the target behavior. What is your behavior? What is your target behavior? The target behavior must be very, very clear. Otherwise, you will be lost. Clear, operationally defined. And then, what is your antecedent? What happened before the behavior? There are two, but I will not discuss that because it’s too technical.
SD and MO but in layman’s term, what triggered the behavior? And then what did you do after the behavior? Or what did the child do after the behavior? Then once you have that, then you can come up with your intervention. These are the examples of interventions which I will not discuss. I wanted to show you that there are specific interventions depending on where you are. Depending on the temporal contiguity, meaning temporal contiguity, how close the behavior is. So if it’s before the behavior, there are your antecedent interventions. If the behavior is already existing or it’s there, or you want the behavior to increase, then that’s the skill acquisition. If you want to reduce the behavior, that’s also the case. So if you see, ABA is very structured.
So, anong gusto mo? You want to prevent the behavior? Do you want the behavior to increase? Do you want the behavior to decrease? So, iyan. Merong mga interventions. Now, what is the importance? Ano yung importance ng ABA? Why is ABA important? Number one, it’s evidence-based that is proven effective to improve behaviors such as communication, social skills, and academic performance.
Now, here before I end, my important reminders, please operationally define the behavior and then practice ABA ethically. Okay? So, that’s all. And if you have any questions, I hope you learned something.
