Unit 3 Discussion Exceptional Needs Children

PS340: Exceptional Needs Children Unit 3 Discussion Board Lecture Hi everyone and welcome to the Unit 3 lecture for Exceptional Needs Children. Today we will be talking about behavior change considerations and ABA terminology. We will start off talking about the importance of pairing, ABC data collection, motivating operations, and reinforcement. First, let's talk about pairing. What is pairing? You may have heard of pairing in ABA settings before in applied behavior analysis, pairing is a technique used to help maintain a rapport with the child or adult by combining learning environment with another environment or something that was an established reinforcer. So, items that are already rewarding or preferred might be introduced into a neutral environment so that the child can become comfortable in that learning environment and be able to work and acquire new skills. There are many ways that we can use pairing to benefit our students. Oftentimes, teachers will use pairing if a student has an aversion to a specific task, we can make the student feel more comfortable by introducing things that they already like or are already comfortable with. And use a naturalistic approach to teaching. By using a naturalistic approach and having a child lead play session or academic session, we are creating that motivation so that the child is comfortable and willing to learn. We can also use pairing to repair situations that may have an adverse association. For example, if you start potty training too soon with a child and they aren't ready and they don't like it and they have behaviors. This could create an aversion to the bathroom setting. So this is also something we want to be aware of when we are starting new skills. Evaluating the prerequisite skills so that we're not causing any type of extra behaviors that are unnecessary due to skill deficit. If this happens and there is an aversion to a setting, maybe it's dropping off in the morning, maybe it's toilet training. If there is already an aversion, establish it might be a good idea to revisit pairing and step back from the demands or the, the difficult questions that might, that the student might be struggling with. And we might want to just simply pair or have moments where the child can play with things that they like and establish that as a preferred setting. Again, as you can imagine, this can take time and you can use pairing with different individuals. You can use it across settings are also was a variety of different items. Leading into our next discussion about motivating operations, it's important that we assess preferences and know what our students are motivated by, motivating operations are key to introducing new behaviors and reinforcing those appropriate behaviors. Also, so that we can encourage learning and teach new skills. If our students are motivated to learn, we will be able to teach a lot more. We can assess preferences in a variety of different ways. Using preference assessments as a structured way we can present a variety of items that are available in the classroom for the students to choose from. We can allow the students to pick their favorite things and we can rank them in order. It's a great idea to introduce new things into that preference assessment each week so that we can encourage a variety of different items that students can work for. Now eventually it's a great idea to fade these types of items. And we really want natural and socially mediated reinforcers to maintain the behavior as natural as possible. But in most cases, especially with our younger kids, it is necessary to have preferred items around so that kids can have a balance of play and work. Next, when we talk about reinforcement, we will talk about positive and negative reinforcement. We will talk about how we can reinforce appropriate behaviors in order to set students up for success. So if you ever had heard of copying good, anytime we want to catch our students being good, we want to think about what are they doing? That is preferred. Next up is reinforcement. How can we reinforce appropriate behaviors in order to set the students up for success? Next up is reinforcement. How can we reinforce appropriate behaviors in order to set the students up for success? Well, once we know what students are motivated by, we know what will work to reinforce the appropriate behaviors. We will talk more in future units about the functions of behavior and how we can identify what the student wants. If we know what students want and what they're motivated by, we can then try the environment so that it's learning and productive and motivating for the student. A lot of times when we're working in classrooms and are training teachers, we will try to assess the current systems in place for reinforcements. Do the students have access to preferred items enough throughout the day? Do they have access to teacher attention and praise, behavior specific praise. There are a lot of ways that we can reinforce student's behavior so that it's twisted in a positive note. And we can encourage all of the appropriate replacement behaviors to set the students up for success. Thank you for viewing this lecture. Provide an example of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement in a classroom setting. How can a teacher utilize motivating operations to promote student's intrinsic motivation for classroom engagement or performance? Complete your discussion this week by responding to multiple peer posts. Comment on their examples of positive and negative reinforcement. Add thoughts related to their perspective on how a teacher can utilize motivating operations and intrinsic motivation to change behavior.