I read 's book the VB Approach

[Guest guest]

Hi Folks,

I just returned from giving a workshop in Buenos Aires and speaking at an Autism

Congress in Santa Fe, Argentina. Man what a beautiful country! The trip back

to Germany

is extremely long but it gave me the chance to finally sit down and read ’s

book " The Verbal Behavior Approach. "

To be honest, I was secretly hoping I would

hate it, so that I could say that my book Educate Toward Recovery is a much

better option for people interested in starting, updating, or looking to

evaluate a VB program. However, after

reading her description I have to say that I was very surprised. Not that the

book is well organized, written and helpful (I have met at ABA int. and

through email

contact find her to be very knowledgeable, conscientious and of similar focus

to myself). However, what I was

surprised about was how complimentary our two books end up being to each other.

Even though we are covering the same

overall topic (the VB approach to ABA)

it was interesting to me how two different practitioners can organize and offer

very different sets of valuable tips and guidance and perspective. Where ’s

book lays out a very simple to

understand explanation of the teaching aspects of VB and discusses basic

functional behavior planning, my book delves further into how to address and

overcome the barriers and trouble spots that parents can encounter with earning

instructional control in a VB program as well as talking clearly about the

ethical use of extinction and punishment procedures.

Even among the many base topics that we

share in common, I found many useful nuggets in each section of her book that I

did not highlight in my book, while seeing several places that ETR is able to

offer many valuable insights and tips that were not mentioned in ’s book.

Overall, I was extremely pleased to see

that both books together make a very nice compliment to each other and offer

the same target audience (parents, teachers, and therapists of children with

autism and/or language delays) a well-rounded, and easy to understand look at

modern ABA/VB.

I am definitely going to recommend ’s

book to my readers, consulting team and English speaking families. In fact, I

have added her book to both the text and references section of the latest

version of ETR recommending it as a valuable read for families looking for

further ideas and perspective on VB.

I still feel comfortable recommending ETR

as the best available one-stop shop for understanding the how and why of ABA/VB

for people who might only have the funds or time for one resource. However, for

families interested and capable

of reading both books, I think ’s book might even be a better book to read

first. With ETR valuable as a way to address the myriad problems and

inconsistencies

that might appear as a family begins implementing their new ABA/VB

program.

Again, this is just one person’s opinion

and hardly objective, but I was just wondering if others have had the chance to

read both books and also see them as being complimentary takes on a very

valuable

approach to teaching.

PS.

I am absolutely NOT fishing for any comparisons or interested in

participating in any discussions over why one book might be better than the

other (I suspect that answer would be different for different reasons for

different people). I just wanted to give

her props for writing a good book and see if others who have read both

also feel as I do that The VB Approach and Educate Toward Recovery are very

complimentary to each other and together (with the Sundberg and Partington

books and a few others) help complete a must-have set of reading resources for

people supporting the education of children with autism.

_________________________________

Schramm, MA, BCBA

Author of Educate Toward Recovery:

Turning the Tables on Autism

www.lulu.com/knospe-aba

www.knospe-aba.com

_________________________________

[VerbalBehavior] Research on Cold Probe Data

Hi all,

There was a request from re: research on cold probe data and other

techniques used within a VB approach. With some help from Regina F., we were

able to track down a recent dissertation on this topic by Dr. Cummings (a

former doctoral student of Dr. Jack ). I also recommended that

read Dr. Greer's book called Verbal Behavior Analysis and to check out all the

other references available on Regina's web site.

Also, a 2005 article I published in AVB used only cold probe data to teach

tacts.

Barbera, M. L., & Kubina, R. M. (2005). Using transfer procedures to teach

tacts to a child with autism. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 21, 155-161.

You can download this article by going to my web site: _www.vbapproach. com_

(http://www.vbapproa ch.com) (author page--under publications)

Below is the info about the work of Dr. Cummings. I wanted to pass this

info to the VB list serve for anyone else who is interested.

Have a great weekend,

____________ ______

Lynch Barbera, RN, MSN, BCBA

_www.vbapproach. com_ (http://www.vbapproa ch.com)

Cummings, A. R., & Carr, J. E. Evaluating progress in behavioral programs

for children with pervasive developmental disorders: A comparison of

continuous and intermittent data collection. Journal of Applied Behavior

Analysis.

(In press).

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

Abstract from UWM

Candidate: Anne Rena Cummings

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Psychology

Title: Evaluating Progress in Behavioral Programs for Children with

Pervasive Developmental Disorders: Continuous versus Intermittent Data

Collection

Committee: Dr. E. Carr, Chair

Dr. Jack

Dr. LeBlanc

Dr. Gaynor

Dr. Nickola

Date: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 9:00 a.m. -11.00 a.m.

3715 Wood Hall

Abstract: It is well documented that intensive behavioral treatment of early

childhood autism can result in significant improvements in adaptive

behavior. The typical teaching format in such programs is based on the

restricted

operant (aka, discrete trial) in which the performance of an exemplar skill

follows a clear instruction and precedes programmed reinforcement or error

correction. Because of the often intensive nature of behavioral treatment, it is

not unusual for thousands of learning opportunities to be presented each week.

There currently exists a professional debate regarding the frequency of data

collection necessary in autism treatment programs. One side of the argument

favors collecting data on every learning opportunity for a complete assessment

of child performance. The other side favors intermittent data collection to

facilitate more efficient instruction. Unfortunately, little published

empirical evidence exists to inform the debate. Thus, current study was

designed to

evaluate continuous (i.e., trial by trial) versus intermittent (i.e.,

first-trial only) data collection systems across a number of curriculum areas in

behavioral treatment programs for children with pervasive developmental

disabilities. In our study, 6 children were taught numerous exemplars in 2-4

curricular areas using established behavioral procedures. The exemplars within

each

curricular area were randomly assigned to one of the data collection

conditions. Each condition was evaluated based on the number of sessions to

reach a

mastery criterion for an exemplar and the percentage correct score for that

exemplar at a 3 week follow-up assessment. Our results indicate that type of

data collection generally failed to substantially impact acquisition rates or

maintenance performance. Although the experimental preparation employed in

this study is not representative of all teaching circumstances, our data

suggest

that collecting data on only the first trial of a session might be a

reasonable tactic.

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