Re. Summary of Primary Reinforcer delivery posts & asking vs answrg ques first

[Guest guest]

Hi Fellow ABA'ers,

Here's the fruit of the harvest of all your postings.

May G-d be with you.

Thanks so much,

Larry ( 8 yr old 's , bi-centurion dad )

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Subj: Re. Is child taught to ask questions first or answer questions first

or combo & is child given primary due to manding requirements even if he gave

the incorrect response to the previous Sd

Date: 1/28/2002 9:44:52 AM Eastern Standard Time

From: LR2000

Hi fellow ABAer's,

I was wondering whether we should put emphasis on trying to get my son to ask

questions first (eg. ABBLS F13-F!8 ) or to answer questions ( eg. ABBLS

H16-H23).

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Hi fellow ABA'er's here are the responses I got . Take what you need out of

them & may peace be with you all. Happy Valentine's Day. I only left a couple

of names associated with the postings . I hope those people don't mind . If

other people want credit for their postings pls e-mail me & I'll do so.

We're currently at a point where the transfer trial ideas are very importan &

the shaping DRO'ing is very important for artic drills.

Thanks Again for all your imput & I'm sorry if I left anyone out , but 2 of

our teachers left within 4 weeks of each other & I've been doing triple duth

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Larry ( 's bi-Centurion dad)

he traditional approach is to answer questions before asking them. However,

I would suggest moving on to asking questions as soon as he gets the idea of

answering questions. I found that teaching to ask questions was much harder

than teaching to answer questions. Don't spend too much time on answering a

whole slew of questions. For example, you might want to start with answering

what questions, them move on to asking what questions. After that, start

with the other wh questions, then asking the same wh questions.

good luck

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I don't have the ABLLS in front of me, but these are two different skill sets

to a degree. To ask questions is advanced manding, a question is a request

for information. So, your child should be doing lots of simple mands ( " I

want " ) already. Answering questions is providing a tact, ffc or intraverbal

response to someone else's mand for information.

Mark

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div style='background-color:'><DIV>Hello! Answering should come first. After

your child has mastered answering " wh " questions you can then teach him how

to ask them. These can be overlapped the closer your child gets to mastering

answering. </DIV>

<DIV> </DIV>

<DIV>-Keely Rosedale, M.S., CABA</DIV></div>

<hr>Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: <A

HREF= " 'http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag1_etl_EN.asp' " >C</A>

---------A transfer trial is needed before giving the primary reinforcer if

you think praise is not enough.

Example:

tutor: What's this?

student: ...

tutor: Apple.

student: Apple

tutor: What is it?

student: Apple.

You can also do one or two easy (has to be easy) trials before the transfer

trial.

Example:

tutor: What's this?

student: ...

tutor: Apple.

student: Apple

tutor: Touch your nose.

student: (touchs his nose)

tutor: What is it?

student: Apple.

Hope this makes sence.

--------

It depends on the child & where he is at. When Jon was younger, learning

was EXTREMELY difficult. We're talking 100's of trials to learn a word. He

got primary Sr+ AND social praise for prompted trials. We also used

differential reinforcement. When he got an independent response, he got THE

BEST Sr=+ (big piece of cookie rather than " just " a fruit loop.)

Now his Sr+ schedule has been greatly thinned per Sundberg, et al.

Marilee

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From: jennie@... (Jennie Ladew)

LR2000@...

>

>

>I believe our consultant says to give the primary reinforcer whether its

>prompted or not just to keep things going & the child happy at learning.

>I'm kind of torn on this matter. If you don't do your job right a couple of

>times you get fired right? If you don't win a medal ( & all the money that

>usually follows) during the Olympics people might get social praise for

>having been there but, it's " try again during the " next Olympics " . Then if

>you get it right you win the medal ( & all the money that usually follows).

>

>Well, if anyone can enlighten me I'd appreciate it.

>Thanks again for your responses on the other question matter. I'll write a

>memo to the list summarizing the responses.

>

>Sincerely,

>Larry - 8yr old 's, 1/2 century old dad

Dear Larry,

I thought long and hard about answering this. I'm so worn out. I feel

distressed enough that I have to defend primary reinforcers to the

education world, and I find myself explaining everything and feeling as if

they hear nothing. But your question is of a different nature.

The question is valid and interesting to me. I hope I can do it justice.

First, I personally never compare an atypical learner with typical

learners. Remember, we are comparing kids who find acquisition itself very

challenging. The people in the Olympics are experts at what they do.

They've gone beyond acquisition to being fluent, to being considered the

cream of the crop, the best of the bunch, etc.

Not only do they do the tasks they do, those skill sets the coaches trained

them in and that they have practiced hours and hours and years for, but

they have a great satisfaction in the tasks themselves. The reward is being

better than they were, and better than their peers and wanting

recognization on a national level and later they dream of recognition on an

international scale. It's a very different sort of thing when you talk

about a kid with autism who does not care about recognition or who is still

struggling with integrating the task or skills, or steps into their daily

lives. They don't dream it, they dread it.

Especially if they don't see the relevance or have any real desire to be

good at it. Clearly the person training for the Olympics who is not totally

and passionately commited to the idea of being a gold medal winner won't be

able to do it. There is too much self sacrifice involved, pain, sweat and

tears. You have to want it with every fiber.

For most things we teach kids who are autistic or have related disorders,

you'd be hard pressed to find a skill that they want to learn with every

fiber of their being. That we want for them. In fact you'd be hard pressed

to find a skill we introduce that they don't resist with a great deal of

their being.

To answer your question here is my personal view on reinforcement.

Obviously DRO is important. If you prompt and you've been at the task a

while, you're not likely to go on and on with praise and feeling, and

write out a big check. ;-)

But in my son's case, lets say we are working on tacts, and this is so

hard for him, and we require echoic training and intraverbals, and

reversals to get those tacts out. Lets say I am teaching him to say CAT

when he sees photos of cats. And I have to prompt. It's instructional, and

that is where we are at. I am going to praise big time, pats on the back,

grins and nods, and offer a sip of Coke or a bite of bagel or whatever he

loves, or usually what we are working on for mands. But, he's going to be

reinforced in a large way. And yes, he was prompted and he was helped. Now

lets pretend he says CAT with just a mouth prompt, I mouth it and out comes

CAT loud and clear. PARADE TIME. GREAT GLEE AND JOY.

And certainly the degree of reinforcement has gone up. Now lets pretend, I

put out a few pictures and I am laying one down and Isaac glances over to

the left and sees a pretty kitty picture and says happily, " CAT!'

Oh God, he is gonna get half the can of Coke, big kisses, and tickles and

there will be no doubt in his mind and probably my neighbors that he did

something very wonderful indeed.

So, we praise and reinforce for prompted trials, but as you suggest, some

times it is low key, and sometimes its a nod, a smile, a pat on the

shoulder, a small piece of cracker, versus a moderate or large piece, or in

the rare circumstances, a whole damn box of crackers. OK, we never have

done a whole box. The kid starts tacting freely for two or three items in a

row unprompted, and he gets the whole box of animal crackers I swear right

now. ;-)

I think that if you are working on pure acquisition, new stuff or hard

stuff, or its new staff that you can reinforce for looking, attending,

joint attention when needing help, because looking to you for assistance,

as long as it is not a cop out, is a first sign of asking for help and the

child is saying, I'm willing to perservere, but I need some guidance now,

okay. Then the kid can get primaries coming fairly often indeed, especially

if you're also doing manding training in there. And you can expand your

mands all the time. You might think well he can ask for a donut. Well, then

start having him ask for the round donut or the donut stick, or the donut

hole or the pink donut or the chocolate donut. You get the idea. But you

can reinforce a LOT for legit stuff there, and feel good about doing it.

Because you are working on one task or skill or subskill, but

simultaneously you are working on language. You just save certain things

for the big deal unprompted stuff or really cool responses. I hope that

makes some semblence of sense.

Jennie

------------

Hi,

Is your consultant having you give your child a primary on every single

trial??

Well, either way, if your consultant really wants you to give primaries for

prompted trials, maybe you could use the primaries to differentially

reinforce

prompted vs. independent responses. If a prompted response gets one primary,

and independent response gets TWO primaries. Ask your consultant how your

child will be motivated to give independent responses when he gets the same

level of reinforcement for being prompted.

Does your child have trouble attending and working for longer periods of

time,

or does he have a history of really disliking the table? Does he have

negative

behaviors at the table like whining, tantrumming, etc? Maybe your consultant

wanted to make sure he gets reinforced simply for being at the table and

allowing the therapist to work with him. Then it might make sense to give

primaries for prompted trials. I have some students who may get reinforced

even when they are prompted because we're just so happy they're actually

sitting in the chair without whining!

Regardless of the situation, getting a primary for prompted trials is not

something that should continue throughout the child's program. The child

should eventually reach a point where they are only reinforced for fully

correct independent responses.

Anyway, good luck, and I hope this was helpful to you!

----------

Ask your consultant how your

child will be motivated to give independent responses when he gets the same

level of reinforcement for being prompted.

---------

Larry,

NO.

The short answer is NO.

Now let me explain. There are actually several subquestions going on in the

relatively simple scenario you just presented.

First, the thousands of mands a day thing isn't going to " make " a child

" conversational. " The purpose of doing that many mand trials a day is to

pair socially mediated communication (language) with reinforcement. You're

teaching the child the power of speech. He talks, he gets. In other words,

he talks, he gets reinforced. That will increase the likelihood of success

when you work on the other functional categories of language. (tacts, ffc,

intraverbals)

Second, the procedure for correcting a child when he makes an incorrect mand

(an incorrect request for that primary reinforcer you're working with, would

look like this based on trials we still do with Grant on occasion with M & Ms.

Holding a green M & M, I ask: " What do you want? "

Grant: I want the red M & M " (An incorrect response...remember, the response

is tailored to your kid, for some it might just be asking for the color with

one word. " What do you want? Red " )

I immediately re-present. " What do you want? " and immediately provide the

full verbal prompt, " I want the green M & M. "

Grant: Echoes the prompt

Me: " What do you want? "

Grant: Independently says, " I want the green M & M. "

Now, if you're working on some other skill, like tacts or ffc and as part of

your procedure are making the child ask for their reinforcement when they

have satisfactorily completed a set of trials, the situation is a bit

different. If the child gets a tact wrong, for example labeling a cat as a

dog, you go through the procedure I outlined above only substituting " What is

it?, or " This is a? or This is called a? " for the " What do you want. " If the

child has historically always got " cat " correct, I'm probably going to throw

in three or four MORE Sds before reinforcing him so that he is differentially

reinforced to make independent rather than prompted responses on mastered

material.

Hope this helps.

Mark Cyr

Grant's dad.

" Children with autism are not learning disabled, they are teaching

challenges. " -Vince Carbone

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I cannot believe they are recommending you reinforce an incorrect or

prompted response " just to keep things moving. " We may just be lowly

parents, but even we know that doesn't make sense from a behavioral

standpoint.

That said, if you are presenting a novel item or task, a prompted response is

fine. (No surprise there) BUT, you always re-present the Sd and try to get an

independent response. The child may not have it yet, so if they echo the

prompt the second time rather than making an independent response, then I

would probably move on so I wouldn't " kill " my reinforcer. (Making the work

so difficult or frustrating that the child basically comes to the belief it

isn't worth it and goes into stim or non-response mode). Also, if I keep

getting prompted responses, I extend the number of trials a bit. The next go

around, as soon as I get an independent response (even if it's the first

trial) I reinforce. Bam, the child is differentially reinforced and learns

independent is preferred over prompted since independent responses get them

to reinforcement more quickly than prompted.

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First of all, I would want to know what type of learner the child is before

I would say to reinforce a prompted trial or not. If a child is able to

perform the correct response independently immediately after a prompted

response, I would NOT reinforce the prompted. However, if the learner

typically has a longer acquisition period, I would reinforce prompted

responses and gradually shape the behavior using differential reinforcement.

You have to be very good at fading your prompts and reinforcement when

reinforcing prompted trials because it can lead to prompt dependence. (You

can also adjust your requirements for the same learner but with different

drills - harder drills get more reinforcement).

-------------

Hi,

Is your consultant having you give your child a primary on every single

trial??

Well, either way, if your consultant really wants you to give primaries for

prompted trials, maybe you could use the primaries to differentially

reinforce

prompted vs. independent responses. If a prompted response gets one primary,

and independent response gets TWO primaries. Ask your consultant how your

child will be motivated to give independent responses when he gets the same

level of reinforcement for being prompted.

Does your child have trouble attending and working for longer periods of

time,

or does he have a history of really disliking the table? Does he have

negative

behaviors at the table like whining, tantrumming, etc? Maybe your consultant

wanted to make sure he gets reinforced simply for being at the table and

allowing the therapist to work with him. Then it might make sense to give

primaries for prompted trials. I have some students who may get reinforced

even when they are prompted because we're just so happy they're actually

sitting in the chair without whining!

Regardless of the situation, getting a primary for prompted trials is not

something that should continue throughout the child's program. The child

should eventually reach a point where they are only reinforced for fully

correct independent responses.

Anyway, good luck, and I hope this was helpful to you!

----

One other good post that I couldn't locat said do 1 or 2 transfer trial(s)

before delivering the primary & suggested to keep the transfer trial(s) very

easy. Very Bright woman.

I've been more sensitive to what I use as transfer trial(S0 since then &

think it's something to be considered seriously. Sorry, I'm tire & I'd reall

have to dig some more for the post.

Again, thanks to you all of you for your wonderful posts . I believe it puts

an important body of knowledge together that could only be done in a forum

such as this.