Mark Sundberg's VB-MAPP

[Guest guest]

Hi, folks. Sorry for the cross-post, but I just finished Mark Sundberg's

two-day workshop introducing the " final " published version of his VB-MAPP

system, and I had to share some quick thoughts with you all. I am so excited

about this tool and really think it's going to impact the way we assess and set

up programming for our kids. After listening to Mark present, getting my

hands on the materials, and talking more about it with him directly, I really

think that the VB-MAPP is something anyone teaching VB should be using. Based

on what I've seen and tried with it so far, I think it addresses many, if not

all, of the concerns/questions left or raised by the ABLLS, provides an

incredibly well-designed, easy, and fairly fast means of getting a picture of

each student, subsequently indicates functional and appropriate targets for

teaching, and puts the analysis back into the ABA being done with students.

Can

you tell that I really like this system?

For those not already familiar with it, you can read more about the

VB-MAPP on Mark's site (_http://marksundberg.com/vb-mapp.htm_

(http://marksundberg.com/vb-mapp.htm) ). Briefly, it includes five components:

1) A milestones

assessment, covering the verbal operants, as well as other repertoires; 2) a

barriers assessment, designed to identify common roadblocks to learning that

require intervention; 3) a transition assessment, which can help in deciding

on the best learning environment for the student; 4) a task analysis, which

fleshes out the milestones into component skills; and 5) the placement piece,

which gives further direction to the outcome of the other four components.

This means that doing a VB-MAPP gives you info about where the student is

developmentally, what common problems may be impeding teaching and learning, a

fine-grain analysis of goals and objectives across skill repertoires, an idea

of

the most appropriate placement for teaching these things, and guidelines for

designing individualized intervention. Another thing I really like about it

is that it's based on the language of typically-developing kids from 0-48

months, denoting when skills are emitted, which embeds the developmental

sequence into the assessment and curriculum design, making it less likely that

students will be working on inappropriate skills, splinter skills, etc.

I could go on about this for quite a while, but hopefully this will be

enough to prompt people to check it out for themselves. Better yet, hear it

from the horse's mouth: I know Mark's doing a number of these presentations to

introduce the VB-MAPP, and highly recommend you go. I have no doubt that

it's going to become an indispensable part of a good ABA program, as it should,

and the sooner folks learn about it, the better off our students will be.

As always, I have no financial interest in this, but just wanted to share my

opinion.

Best,

_________________________________

Burk, M.A.

Consulting Behavior Analyst

_www.BurkABA.com_ (http://www.christinaburkaba.com/)

1 (866) 538-2575