Pairing: Building Relationships in the Classroom

Photo borrowed from Anger Management Resource (http://www.angermanagementresource.com/)

We all have to put in the time and effort to build positive relationships with students. I’ve recently been working with some staff on building positive relationships with the students in their classroom. Pairing, a process of associating oneself with positive reinforcement through consistently matching yourself with positive stimuli, is a helpful strategy to building (and rebuilding) relationships with students.

Whether it’s a home program or within a classroom, pairing can help establish the relationship between teacher and student. I think pairing is a key component at the beginning of any behavioral program and is essential to the failure or success of your program.

One of the basic premises behind a behavioral program is that students will be much more motivated when they are having fun. Therefore, as a teacher or therapist, you must become fun for the student. Pairing is used to help the child get used to the teacher/therapist and look forward to teaching/therapy sessions. A good way to establish instructional control is for teachers to first connect themselves with positive reinforcement. It begins with noncontingent reinforcement. In other words, the student is first reinforced without having demands placed on him or her. This initially could be in the form of a compliment or tangible item (it depends on what is motivating to the student).

In the beginning, the only requirement for getting access to reinforcement (besides the lack of undesirable behavior) is that the student take the reinforcers from the teacher. Technically speaking, the reinforcement is still contingent, as there must be an absence of undesired behavior (tantrums, aggression, SIB, etc.) for reinforcement to be delivered. However the focus for the teacher/therapist is to seek and provide as many positive reinforcement opportunities for the student as possible.

After this is happening consistently (after several hours or even days), the teacher/therapist must gradually fade in demands; slowly increase the response requirement before reinforcement can be given. Eventually the teacher/therapist will be able to gradually present more demands of varying difficulty. Successful pairing will help ensure the reinforcement value of learning is not lowered while at the same time preventing the increasing the value of escape.

Pairing essentially involves 3 elements which must be in close association with each other:

1) The student The learner who is seeking positive reinforcement

2) The teacher/therapist Becomes the conduit by which the student obtains reinforcement.

3) The student’s desires and reinforcers. The student has to want it, or it’s never going to work.

In order to become a reinforcer themselves, a teacher or therapist will have to capture and contrive MOs/EOs and identify strong reinforcers with which they can be paired. Often times this may mean providing limited access to reinforcing items to certain times of day or under certain conditions in order to increase the desire to obtain them. A teacher/therapist may also have to contrive the setting under which this occurs (such as a space with increased likelihood to obtain reinforcement, such as play areas, play centers, etc.). Once this happens, everything associated with the teacher, especially learning itself, becomes reinforcing.

Whether you are a teacher, therapist, counselor, paraprofessional, administrator, or parent; your position alone does not automatically make you a reinforcing person in a student’s life. Pairing is a systematic way to help you establishing trust and connect yourself with reinforcement. It is this association with that solidifies the child’s view of the therapist as fun and reinforcing. The teacher/therapist becomes a bridge between the student and reinforcers.

 

This is a simple description of how the pairing process can be implemented in the classroom or at home. I will expand on this in a future post. This is not intended nor shall it be misconstrued as advice. As always, before engaging in any any major behavior change program you should consult an expert or highly trained professional such as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

 

Question of the Week: Why you do what you do?

This is an informal survey of people working in the field of behavior analysis and positive behavior support:

In 150 words or less, tell me why you do what you do? 

Please post your response in the comment section below.

Science with a heart: ABA & Empathy

Image borrowed from http://www.empathysymbol.com/

There is a common misconception that applied behavior analysis is a cold, heartless, and anti-person field that lacks empathy. However, I argue that intent of ABA is to create behavior change that makes life better. Behavior targeted for change is not chosen for the sake of changing a behavior. Rather it is always chosen under the consideration that the life of the person will be improved because of that change. To that end, the teaching program must not only be effective, but must also be positive and respectful to the learner. I believe that any one of us doing that certainly has empathy.

Early in my career I made the mistake of feeding in to such a misconception. I focused so much on the science of behavior and shied away from the art of behavior. It took a parent one day saying that it didn’t look like I was into it for me realize I was missing something. Suddenly, it occurred to me that she was right, it didn’t look like we were having much fun and I needed to work on my approach. I’ve never been the same since, for the better.

The vast spectrum of skills that ABA is used to teach certainly requires empathy to teach. Procedures have been developed to teach social emotional skills including empathy. Certainly in order to teach empathy skills, a teacher must have and be able to model them, right? As service providers we need to remember that although we use the science of behavior, we are working with people, and therefore empathy is a must!

Let’s Get Ready to Tumble? (ABA-style)

Recently I spent some time observing my daughter’s cheer squad practice before a competition. All the girls and even the coaches showed clear signs of frustration throughout the practice. Several girls were continuing to struggle learning dance routines and tumbling maneuvers they had been working on for months.

Suddenly I thought that surely there would be a great deal of behavior analytic literature relating to sports performance. A search of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis does provide a list of about 30 articles relating in some way to the use of applied behavior analysis principles for enhancing sports performance (You can see that list here).

In my opinion, there is a lot of potential for the use of behavior analytic principles and procedures to teach sports related skills that involve complex behavior chains. There are some promising treatment packages currently out there, such as TAGteach, that have been used in several sports related applications. There is some empirical evidence supporting it at this time, such as Stokes et al (2010), however I would like to see additional research on it.

That being said, I am definitely intrigued by the prospect of using ABA procedures in teaching tumbling and gymnastics. I’m a big fan of using my own kids as test subjects (I don’t think my daughter remembers being clicker trained to discriminate colors when she was 6 months old).

Always fascinated by the vast spectrum of possibilities for the field of applied behavior analysis!

ABC’s of Behavior for Kids

This photo taken from http://johnnyholland.org/

Can elementary-aged kids learn to make good choices by teaching them the “ABCs” of behavior? In my opinion, absolutely! As I’ve mentioned before, it’s all about teaching children patterns. A good place to start is by explaining the “ABCs” of behavior. Kids learn that there is always an Antecedent, or trigger, for a particular Behavior. For every behavior, there is a Consequence. Students may not be able to control the antecedents, but they can learn to control their responses to them. Then, by their responses they can either gain access to favorable consequences, or escape and avoid negative ones.

Most children naturally desire more control over their lives, and effective parents and teachers show them how. Learning to make choices about their behavior helps children gain the independence they want. A key element in all this is teaching students what is considered appropriate or acceptable behavior, and what is considered as inappropriate behavior. For a lot our kids, this may be their first time learning how and why they should behave differently. For others, they have learned through experience that misbehavior has gained access to or escape certain conditions.

Therefore, you have to establish what is and is not acceptable from the beginning. A good recommendation is to discuss classroom and rules of the house:

• What specifically do they look like when performed properly?
• What should you hear when performed properly?
• What are the expectations for when they go from one place to another or one classroom to another?

Clear and simple explanations with their examples and non-examples leave nothing open for misinterpretation. To accomplish this, video modeling, role-play, and contrived real-life situations help make this information tangible for the students. You can also pre-plan or debrief scenarios and real-life events using behavior maps. A behavior map provides a visual of the antecedent-behavior-consequence chain. You then guide them to identify what to fill in for each part of the map, the trigger, their behavior choice(s), and the consequence obtained.

From here on out it’s a matter of follow-up. You can pre-teach situations in which they must use the skills they have learned to gain positive outcomes. Once in those situations you can reinforce through praise or providing access to those desired outcomes. Initially some form of tangible reward will help to reinforce the behavior. Many people use token economy systems to provide immediate feedback, tokens can be later exchanged for backup reinforcers (prizes, activities, etc). Over time, tangible rewards can be faded out and social rewards faded in until eventually “good” behavior often becomes reward itself.

Now I make this sound easy and like it happens overnight. Unfortunately, behavior change takes time and patience, as well as being fairly systematic in your approach. There is a degree of precision required, and before starting any major behavior change program you should consult an expert or highly trained professional such as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

What did you say?: A lesson in keeping it simple

The other day I attended an ARD to help a HQT present her G&O’s for an IEP to some parents of a student with OHI. An LSSP presented an FBA identifying escape motivated behavior maintained by R- and draft BIP that included DRO strategies. The parents brought a OSP who inquired about IHT and OT. Everyone agreed and the parents were given PWN and the IEP was implemented.

If you don’t understand what I just wrote then I have a problem. If you do understand everything I just typed then you probably have the same problem as me. As Behavior Analyst, and long time special education teacher, it is tempting to use a lot of official and unofficial jargon in my daily work. Special Education is racked with acronymns and the field of applied behavior analysis uses a lot technical jargon, so I’m doomed to be misunderstood, right? One of my goals over the past few years has been to work on how I present my position in a manner that is easy for parents and teachers to understand.

A secondary goal has to disseminate accurate information (hence this blog). When I use a lot of acronyms and technical jargon my message gets missed. I find that I have to often rephrase my message in simpler ways multiple times. When I do not, the learner will interpret my message the best they can, that’s how the chain of misinformation begins. That is not the fault of the learner, but rather my fault as a teacher to properly explain the concepts. That being said, at times it can be difficult to explain behavior analytic concepts in simplistic ways without losing the essence of the concepts themselves.

The same goes in special education, when we use a great deal of jargon with parents partly due to maintaining procedural integrity. However sometimes our message gets lost. We then have to take time to explain what we just said, instead of just getting it right the first time. (On a side note, this can cause parents to become hesitant to ask questions for fear of getting a technical answer, and that too is not helpful)

Some of my weaker relationships were created when I used more formal and technical language in my work. There was a disconnect. Over the years, I have discovered that my most trusting relationships with parents and teachers have come about because I’ve been able to speak in terms that we all understand and modeled the principles in action.

Whether a parent or teacher, what are some things a professional has said or done to better help you understand behavioral concepts?

It’s a Positive Negative!

I frequently encounter educators using the term “negative reinforcement” as a synonym for punishment. Because the word “negative” is used, people often think this term means it is something “bad”. This is far from the truth. Don’t let the “negative” part fool you. In negative reinforcement, an unpleasant stimulus is withdrawn from the equation, once the desired response is generated. Reinforcement is actually a good thing. Let me demonstrate with some examples in a school setting:

Example # 1: A student is told that he will exempted from doing his homework if he helps out other students in a peer study group.

In this example, the undesirable stimulus of ‘doing homework’ is removed, when the child helps in peer study group. The helping of peers was the response that was expected of him.

Example # 2: A class is told that they will be kept after school for extra time to work on a project unless they forgo fifteen minutes of their lunch break for a week.

This is another form of the negative reinforcement in the classroom. Here, the stimulus that is taken away is the inconvenience of spending time after school. The class sacrifices a part of their lunch break and the project gets completed on time.

Example # 3: A teacher decides to assign students to a study hall period as a make-up work period for all students who do not complete their assignments. 

This is a commonly used negative reinforcement example at school. With the prospect of avoiding the unpleasant experience of study hall (or detention) being removed, the student will make sure that they complete their assignments on time. This is what the teacher required and wanted in the first place.

Example # 4: A teacher tells students that for every specified number of problems completed correctly, the total number of problems is reduced.

This is another popular example of negative reinforcement however this one involves work reduction. By demonstrating mastery or fluency of the work, the teacher removes the total amount of work the student needs to complete. This provides motivation for students to work not just to complete tasks but to complete them with accuracy.

Example #5: Students ask the teacher repeatedly to play a movie on Friday. In order to end the continuous requests to watch a movie in class, the teacher provides the students with a movie.

Teachers’ behaviors also frequently operate under negative reinforcement. The stimulus being removed is listening to the frequent requests from children. When she provides the students with the movie, she no longer hears requests from the students.

In order for all of these examples to be considered as reinforcement, we will have to assume that contingency in fact led to an increase in the desired behavior. If the desired behavior did not increase, then by definition it is not reinforcement.

My Four-Term Contingency of the Day: Beef Jerky

Antecedent: I had just come home from work. I had eaten an early lunch so I was rather hungry.

Discriminative Stimulus:  A bag with a few pieces of homemade beef jerky is on the table.

Behavior: I eat the remaining pieces of beef jerky.

Consequence: I am no longer hungry.

Sometimes even good intentions, such as portioning food, can fall victim to establishing operations. In this case, a state of hunger provided a strong evocative effect on beef jerky eating. Had I maintained a regular meal schedule today, I probably would have been able to pass by the beef jerky and not give it a second thought. However under a state of deprivation, that beef jerky became irresistible. But now the beef jerky I was trying to save for my snack tomorrow is gone. My state of deprivation was so powerful that I decided that eating in the short term was more important than rationing in the long term.