Appropriateness of DTT over NET for my daughter

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Hi All,

I have been a member of the list for a while but haven't posted,

although some of you may know me from the VB list (only posted a few

times) and other lists. We are in Africa, and are mostly doing this

by ourselves, with an ABA/PRT/PECS specialist who comes twice a year

to consult.

My question is about the appropriateness of DTT over NET for my

daughter Lulu. Lulu does not have a Dx of autism, but was tested for

three autism-related syndromes (Rett, Angelman and Cerebral Folate

Deficiency) early on. Her severe behavioral issues have all improved

drastically with the help of ABA and PRT programs and biomed. She is

completely non-verbal, using PECS and simple signs as she cannot motor

plan complex ones with her fingers or with fluid movements (she has

global oral, speech and motor apraxia).

With biomed, Lulu has become HIGHLY social and currently derives an

enormous amount of motivation from social interactions. She is an

attention seeker, and although much of her former seeking behavior was

negative (self-injury, tantrums, grabbing, etc.), it is currently far

more positive since implementing behavioral learning theory techniques.

My question stems from the fact that the more we use NON-FUNCTIONAL

ABA PROGRAMS such as matching, sorting, block imitation and the like,

the more resistant my daughter becomes. It has gotten to the point

where I really wonder if the non-functional nature of the tasks has

led to avoidance and escape modes.

Lulu just really very clearly hates the activities that are

non-functional – it's so difficult to get her to do them. On a good

day she just immediately signs for " finished " , on a bad day grabs and

throws things – a real behavioral regression for her.

However, if we do a FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE-BASED PROGRAM that is more

natural and, significantly, more interactive, she LOVES it and signs

for " again " over and over. That kind of material is entirely engaging

to her.

An example – if we do a 3D to 3D, 2D to 2D or 3D to 2D program for

matching colors, she hates it, is distracted, wants to escape, her

performance is spotty. However, if we do a more functional

language-based program like " Give me red block. " or " What color is the

bird? " while reading Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See, she loves

it and does not want to escape, and will want to do it over and over

again.

Until now, we have mostly used praise and " fun " as the reinforcer,

although we have recently begun to introduce the PECS-style " I'm

working for " token system, which she complied with immediately –

didn't even have to start with one token, but went immediately to

three. Reinforcers include preferred objects, going outside, etc. Only

rarely do we use food – and I mean really rarely. Yes, in the

beginning when we trained her to use PECS, we did it at snack time.

But since then, no food to speak of. The reinforcers are very

motivating for her, and we let her choose the reinforcer she wants to

work for from a choice board with lots of choices, or she can point to

something in her environment that she wants that it not on the choice

board. We go with what she wants, and incorporate her choices into our

program as they come up – so we do a bit of natural environment stuff,

even though she sits at the table for part of her two hour sessions.

We also do a lot of interspersal training, allowing her to take

" breaks " to do something else that is more natural and fun, and then

coming back to the DTT sessions.

I've read tons of stuff on compliance training, controlling the ABA

instruction. We love and follow Schramm's seven principles – we

keep control over her preferred objects, keep it fun, follow through

with what we say, give easy directions and reinforce, consistently

reinforce good behavior, respond to her priorities, withdraw

reinforcement for bad behavior. Although we are far from perfect, we

don't feel that we are missing any one suggestion in any of the good

ABA books in terms of gaining her compliance. We feel that we are

doing what we need to be doing, but that we just can't get Lulu to do

certain, specific kinds of tasks. We have recently noticed that all

the ones where she displays extreme avoidance/escape behavior are the

non-functional tasks – you know the ones – the ones that just seem

UNNATURAL or CONTRIVED.

I just get the feeling that Lulu is resistant to the non-functional

DTT programs FOR A GOOD REASON – and that is that they are not

appropriate for her. I wonder if what we need is a more NET-based

curriculum. I am just a mom trying to do the best I can in a difficult

situation, so I could be off here. But I am wondering if VB-style NET

training in verbal behavior might be better suited to my daughter's

needs. This is just based on what I have read and observed in my

daughter. I really don't have enough practical experience in NET

versus DTT – to date we've never specifically used NET and I don't

know what resources there are on NET other than the videos at DiffLearn.

Lulu clearly needs more functional language use anyway – she craves

this -- and we are gearing up to start a more language-based

curriculum for her.

Does anyone have any comments or thoughts on this for me?

Any consultant here want to make a week's trip to Africa to help us

out with our program?

Thanks in advance to anyone who stuck with me long enough to reach the

end of my email!

Best,

Theresa