We started our conversation realising that both of our daughters had the same name. We both had two children and we were both trying desperately to understand why our children seemed unsettled, seemingly unable to get along with their sibling. I admit at first I just nodded and agreed with this lady and said I knew what she was going through. “They’re all the same, it’s not just yours don’t worry”. But as I spoke to her and saw the tiredness dull her beautiful face I realised that maybe I could help her. While I very rarely fall back on my training with my own kids (I think I’m too emotionally invested in them to follow through, even though I know it works), I could at least try advise this lady on some of the simpler behaviour modification strategies I’ve learnt during my eight years being an applied behaviour analyst, tutor and supervisor in an Autism specific school. To set the record straight neither her or my children have had any type of diagnosis, autism specific or otherwise. But let me just explain briefly what ABA is and how it works.
Typically developing children learn without our intervention--the world around them provides the right conditions to learn language, play, and social skills. Children with autism learn much less easily from the environment. They have the potential to learn, but it takes a very structured environment, one where conditions are optimised for acquiring the same skills that typical children learn "naturally." ABA is all about how to set up the environment to enable our kids to learn. While I do not want to go into the specifics on ABA right now there are a few principles of behaviour which are tools we as parents can use in our everyday lives to increase the likelihood of a desired behaviour from our children.
There are four basic principles of behaviour positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and lastly negative reinforcement. The most powerful of these principles is positive reinforcement which I am going to talk about today. It can become very easy for us parents to become complacent with our praise for our children. Too often we become so caught up in the humdrum of everyday life that we forget to take a step back and realise the importance of a kind encouraging word. I’ve often felt I can’t get through to my children. The house sometimes feels chaotic, full of noise, fighting, mess and moodiness. It’s times like this when I need to reassess the situation. Ask myself why are the kids behaving this way. What can I do to change the situation and bring some harmony and happiness into our lives again? Here’s what I generally tend to do…
Firstly be concise. Identify the behaviour you want to change, and target that one only. If you try and target lots of little things all at once neither you nor your child will benefit as too often the message for change will be lost in confusion. Generally for me it’s issues with getting out of bed at night and early morning for one of my daughters. The second behaviour is toileting for my youngest.
By targeting the nighttime issue with my first daughter I know that this will decrease subsequent undesirable behaviours she displays during the day, such as moaning, whining etc. which is purely from tiredness. The likelihood of her playing nicely with her sister increases which then has a knock on effect in the household. Less tired tantrums and more play means happy children and happy mammy!
Your’e first port of call to establishing successful behaviour change is choosing the medium of reinforcement which is most valuable to your child. For example many children respond brilliantly to star charts, token economies.
If using a token economy as I just said the behaviour that you want to reinforce must be identified and defined.
A medium of exchange must be selected e.g a token/star/sticker/marble whatever works for you and your child. I tend to use a chalk board and draw a heart on it when the desired behaviour has occurred, i.e when my daughter stays in bed all night the next morning we go down to the kitchen and draw a big star under her name on the board.
Back up reinforcers should be discussed and decided upon which can be ‘purchased’ with the tokens. In other words, set a goal. Once my daughter gets 5 stars she can then choose a treat which has been decided upon before receiving her hearts. This creates motivation and increases the likelihood of the the desired behaviour occuring.
That being said my younger daughter needs a thicker schedule of reinforcement. Waiting five days to receive her back up reinforcer just doesn’t cut it. Once she has earned 3 stars for requesting to use the toilet rather than go in her nappy she can exchange her tokens for a treat of her choice (for me she’s happy to received a polo mint after 3 successful toilet trips).
There are lots of different ways you can present a token economy to a child, using marbles in glass jars and labelling each jar. Once all the marbles have been placed into the other jar through the display of desired behaviour the reinforcer is received. Use whatever works for you. Do not spend lots of money on making star charts it’s totally not necessary. Children love brightly coloured stickers or anything that they can feel they can be a part of. Let them put their stickers on the chart or transfer the marble into the jar. And don’t forget to praise, praise, praise. It’s very easy to implement a plan and then let it go by the wayside after a day or two. The key is to be consistent and contingent. Once the behaviour you were targeting has either improved or disappeared thin the schedule of reinforcement, i.e. give a token for every second correct response or display of behaviour. Eventually you can remove the token economy all together but remember to keep up verbal praise, everyone not just our children respond positively to this. If you have other behaviours you want to target this is the time to identify and target them. Be creative with your token economies and do some reinforcer sampling. Children change their mind just like we do and what may have worked for them last week or month may hold no value to them at all today, so if it’s heart stickers this week that worked it may be something else the next.
I hope that this little blog has helped some people today, I know it’s hard to be the ‘perfect’ parent. Often we have set our expectations too high for ourselves and by doing that we feel we are failing. Let me tell you, you are not. If you are trying your best and even thinking about how you can improve your life and your children well then that’s a step in the right direction. I also want to clarify that I am not a qualified behavioural therapist but I have trained and worked in the area for over eight years in a Special school for children with autism both as an ABA Class teacher and Supervisor of the school.
Good luck and remember the power of positivity is infectious.
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