Description: Being skilled in delivering an ABA based treatment intervention begins with understanding principles of learning, knowledge of behavioral teaching strategies and access to a curriculum of skills. However, this is not enough to be able to carry out treatment proficiently, or to individualize treatment for individual children or to deal effectively with even the common problems that arise. This workshop will cover many common problems and strategies for addressing them that were used in a successful replication of the UCLA model of Intensive Behavioral Treatment. Common problems include resistance and oppositional behavior, rigid beliefs or actions (e.g., winning or loosing, having to be first), aggression, inattention, slow learning, failure to generalize skills to the natural environment, parental problems (e.g., not following recommendations, lack of involvement), sibling problems (e.g., conflictual relationship or avoidance), school problems on the bus, in the classroom (non-compliance, inattention, not completing work), and on the playground (e.g., not knowing how to join a group, being teased or bullied), poor social conversation skills (staying on topic, initiating/changing a topic, reading others social cues), understanding others perceptions (e.g., perceiving accidental, unintended, or chance outcomes as deliberate slights). Strategies used to address these issues will be demonstrated using vignettes and video clips, and include Interactive Play (involves carefully reading the childs behavior and play), to build a positive relationship, recognizing signs that the program demands are too difficult and knowing how to modify them, eliciting the childs reasoning, Video Modeling and other visual strategies, Role Playing, use of motivational systems such as Tokens/Points/Response-Cost, use of Social Stories, Foreshadowing, and rules, school observations/working with teachers, gradual exposure and assigning a task to reduce anxiety in new situations, Skill Streaming Groups, Error Correction, and providing replacement language. |