Re: teaching in the natural environment/Mark/Patty

[Guest guest]

This is for the Grant's mom,

I read the post about how you incoporate tacting into every day situations.

I love that idea. Now, if you child does not readily give you the answer do

you prompt? If you do would you try this same trial several times in

successive days and then fade the prompt? I know Brentton who is quite verbal

(but only for his own purposes) would not be able to label the things that

you son does as far as categories and what you need to make or do things. I

guess my question is since he has not picked this up yet I am wondering how

this would work? Is it the repeativeness of it if you do it every day? He

does learn things, but it tends to be things that are presented in a very

systematic way. With this style of learning (typical ABA) it tends to leave

huge gaps. I figured we could fill in some of the gaps the way you are

doing.

Any help would be appreciated.

Stacie

[Guest guest]

At 03:11 PM 1/8/00 EST, Pac1363@... wrote:

>From: Pac1363@...

>

>Lynda,

> How is it going? Mark and I do alot of teaching with Grant in the

>natrural environment. We count on the therapist to do most of the table

>teaching, though some also do great at moving it to the natural

environment.

>I kind of let Grant take the lead and look for learning opportunities. One

>thing we do is go for walks. Grant loves to walk so as we go I have him

tact

>trees, grass,dirt etc. I may say what are some things you see outside and

>point to things around us. I constantly comment on what we see. We are

>working on a " what do you see?'' program at the table and I work to talk

>about stuff in that way when we are out of the room. One of the best places

>we do therapy is at the store. There are tons of stuff to tact. You can

>easily build categories " name some fruits? " while you are in the produce

>department. You can even sneak in RFFC. " something red, that is sweet,

that

>you eat is? " (holding up an appple.

> I also watch Grant at play. If he is playing with the house and puts

>the doll in the bed I say " what is the doll doing?'' and prompt sleeping.

>Poor Grant can't get a bite to eat around the house (when we are up to it)

>without working. " What do you want? sandwich? " sandwich. " What do we

need?

>bread " bread. " How many pieces? " one two. " What else do we need?

>mayonaise " mayonaise. " What color is the mayonaise? " white. " What else

do

>you want on you sandwich? cheese " cheese " and...bologna " bologna. " Now

>what do we need? cut sandwich " What are some things you put on a sandwich?

>(pointing to bologna, cheese, mayonaise, bread). Do you see how it could

go?

> Mark does the same during breakfast and sneaks in what are some things you

>eat for breakfast? he has an eggo, poptart and cereal out and points to

>them. Then he asks " what do you want for breakfast? " Then poor Grant has

to

>tell us what is needed to make whatever he wants (bowl, spoon, milk, pour

Dear Mark and Patty,

Of course your child is much further along with tacting and language, but

do you know if you would tact with sign for instance as you go for walks

even though you do not plan on actively teaching that yet?

Jennie

[Guest guest]

> I read the post about how you incoporate tacting into every day

situations.

> I love that idea. Now, if you child does not readily give you the answer

do

> you prompt?

yes, you would prompt. also know if this is a target or goal you are

actively working on. if not, just prompt it and move on to something

else... do not insist the child continue to say the word or label the

object... until you can fade the prompt in the same sitting. It might look

something like this for us: We are walking past a swimming pool (which is

reinforcing to Zach to begin with) and I would say. " Look a swimming pool.

What is it? " Zach does not say anything. I say " swimming pool " and may

repeat it until he says it back. When he says it back, I would say " what did

you say? " and he would respond " swimming pool. " Thus, making the last sd

" what did you say? " an independent response, even though all the others were

prompted. Then I would move on..... as we walked away or walked past another

pool, I may do it again and hopefully over time the my prompts will fade to

the point that when we walk by the pool, Zach says " swimming pool " on his

own without me even asking " what do you see? etc. "

I

> guess my question is since he has not picked this up yet I am wondering

how

> this would work? Is it the repeativeness of it if you do it every day?

yes it is the repeativeness of it each day... but you would have maybe 5 or

so targets to work on. That does not mean you would not try and lable some

other things in the environment but for those 5 targets you would " contrive "

situations that would allow you to ask the questions more times through out

the day. For apple: I may go by the produce department a few times during

my shopping spree, pull the apple out of the shopping cart and start talking

about it, point to someone else who has an apple in their cart and talk

about it, point out someone who is eating an apple, get little sitter to eat

an apple for a snack and ask about it, put the apple eye level in the frig

so that when Zach opens it to get a drink out, he sees the apple and we will

then talk about the apple, go to the library and look through books and

point out the apples, go to teachers tools and point to the posters with

apples on them ... teachers tools is a supply store, etc.

But it does not mean that I would not point out other things in our day and

get Zach to respond in one way or another to them (touch, what is it, what

do you see, how many, those are...,etc.) And it does not mean that I will

not stop to talk about the red bike that caught his attention when walking

down the street... just because bike is not a target word of ours.

Hope this helps to see how you can contrive learning situations in the

natural environment throughout your day. You want to look closely at the

environment and make sure you are seeing all the " apples " out there.

Sometimes when we are in a hurry we do not pay attention to the man eating

the apple or notice the sign on the corner that says apples for sale. ...

but if we start looking for these " naturally occurring " things through out

our day... the opportunities seem to increase.

Rhonda

[Guest guest]

Stacie,

I'm Grant's dad. Since Rhonda has already responded let me just second what

she said. You go ahead and prompt. In your case, it sounds as if you could

make the assumption that every item presented would be novel. Therefore I'd

immediately prompt. So on a walk you might stop and ask

What is it? Flower (immediate prompt)

What is it? (One second delay) Flower

At first, you can go ahead and reward an echo. Or if Brentton has a strong

echo, come back with the second Sd right away and try to get an independent

response. (Which is what we do with Grant since he echoes almost 100% of the

time when we're teaching a novel item for the first time). Make sure you

have reinforcement with you in some shape or you can just as easily encourage

nonresponding in the natural environment as at the table. Patty will correct

anything I've said incorrectly.

Mark

[Guest guest]

Rhonda,

Thanks for the detailed letter. I think after reading that I have

discovered something. Since Brentton is so often to himself we don't go out

of our way to point things out to him. This could explain his huge gaps in

his knowledge. He does not have the language ability or maybe just

motivation to ask about things that don't excite him. Is there a way to see

if we just expose him to these things and not demand the verbal if he is

picking the knowledge up? I am wondering how much he is picking up around him

during his day to day life. Due to his structured routine he does not go to

many places so that cuts down his opportunities, however I am very interested

in seeing how much he is picking up if we were to start presenting stuff like

that. Not necessarily work for the verbal response at this point, I am more

interested in seeing what he picks up and retains. THe reason why I am

interested in this is because all a long I have felt that if it does not

relate to one of his perseverative topics he does not pay attention or retain

it. I really would like to try this experiment but I am not sure how to see

if he did indeed retain info w/o requiring a verbal response.

Any one know?

Stacie

[Guest guest]

>

>Any one know?

>

>Stacie

>

Stacie,

I think it is very hard to answer sometimes for kids we have not met, but I

know that generally Sundberg and Partington, Carbone and McGreevy and other

strong ABA proponents pushing NET and VBA would stress the LANGUAGE rather

than the idea of retaining bits of knowledge unless they are shared or

accessed in a functional way.

My kid could once name every Star Trek New Generation Charactor there was,

but had stopped referring to either sister or teacher at school, etc., by

name, and I suppose had I had a way to verify, I might have learned he knew

quite a bit about the show, but it was definitely not functional in an

every day sense.

If you want to learn about his comprehension, I think there is a lot ways

to probe, but I am not sure what you were asking. ;-)

Your child might surprise you, but I am often dismayed at how much our

kids, across the spectrum do NOT pick up, unless they are obsessively

interested or taught directly. I also think the reason many of us want the

verbal or equivilant response is because it also is requiring socializing,

tacting, emotional development, joint attention, increasing attention span

and so forth. If you just try and figure out what he is learning or has

learned by himself, which might turn out to be a pleasant surprise, he

still hasn't moved forward on the MOST important skill, communication and

engaging another person.

Jennie, opinion only. ;-)

[Guest guest]

JENNIE,

I may have asked that question wrong. I do want to increase Brentton's

knowledge but first we must get to what it is that he knows. We are just

trying to figure out if the reason why he has these huges gaps in his

knowledge is due to the fact that he does not pick up or chooses not to pick

these things up, because they are unrelated to his obsessional interests.

Also, for now we would be happy to just increase his knowledge period whether

it be receptive or expressive. Due to his apraxia and other processing

problems it is much easier for him to learn receptively than it is for him to

learn expressively. For an apraxic child demanding a response even if it is

prompted can be place more pressure on them and then they can not get the

response out.

So, I guess what I was asking is I would like to see if we start presenting

more things to him if he would retain them. If he does not then we would

know that it is due to the fact that it is not relevant to him so he sees no

need to retain it.

As soon as I get the Sundberg book (teaching language) which should be in a

few days we will read up on this method and TRY and implement it.

I am probably still not making any sense.

It is LATE

Stacie