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Introduction to Developing Instructional Strength. How to more effectively and efficiently organize your child's home or school program. Presented to POAC-NV on 10 Sept 05 by Tamara J. Genarro, M.Ed., BCABA. It Begins With You. Wh and How Questions - for Parents Who? Why? What? When?
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Introduction to Developing Instructional Strength How to more effectively and efficiently organize your child's home or school program Presented to POAC-NV on 10 Sept 05 by Tamara J. Genarro, M.Ed., BCABA
It Begins With You • Wh and How Questions - for Parents • Who? • Why? • What? • When? • Where? • How?
Who Can Have the Most Dramatic Impact on My Child’s Skill Acquisition? • You can! Why? • You are the greatest living expert of your child. • You have the greatest and most consistent opportunity to make effective decisions for your child. • You are likely to be highly paired with reinforcement. • With the exception of your child, you have the most to lose if your child fails to acquire skills. • Teachers are often not given sufficient training to effectively and efficiently teach your child. • Others?
Why Should I Take a More Direct and Active Role in My Child’s Education? • You want to feel the extreme pleasure when your child learns a new skill as a result of your instruction. • You want to know how to change things in a situation if behavioral issues arise. • You want to know how to troubleshoot difficulties encountered by other people who work with your child. • You want to learn about your personal strength in overcoming difficult situations. • Others?
What Should I Teach? • Begin by assessing your child. • Know your child’s strengths and weaknesses. • Target deficit skills to stabilize knowledge and skills across instructional domains. • Maintain your child’s strong skills to avoid losing valuable knowledge. • Provide sequential skills that serve as foundation or prerequisite skills for advanced learning. • Others?
When Should I Teach? • Arrange teaching opportunities during 40+ hours per week. • More consistent instruction provides more opportunity for acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of skills and knowledge. • Teach when a learning opportunity presents itself, whether planned or unplanned (provided that the prerequisite skills are present…otherwise, narrate). • Others?
Where Should I Teach? • Teach wherever you are when the learning opportunity arises. • Learning happens at the table, on the floor, in the community, etc. • Teach in locations in which your child is comfortable, secure, and happy. • Transfer strong skills that have been taught in isolation to environments that are more stressful, less reinforcing, or in some way less desirable. • Others?
How Will I Acquire the Skills That I Need to Make the Greatest Impact on My Child’s Education? • Join online newsgroups. • Attend support group meetings. • Sign up for specialized workshops. • Ask questions. • Pay attention to the answers. • Apply your knowledge to new situations. • Learn to think and act for yourself and your child. • Others?
Goal Sequencing • Academic, social-communication, and/or self-help goals are often chosen in a particular sequence to provide advanced learning opportunities. • Scatter skills may prevent a child from participating in an activity due to insufficient overall skill consistency across domains. • This may be especially true and critical for children who lack body control or motor imitation abilities. • Level out overall skills and knowledge while maintaining higher level skills and knowledge.
Planning Sequential Goals Over Time • Know your child’s strengths and deficits • Introduce goals that will support relatively uniform skill acquisition across domains. • Know your child’s motivation • Write a list of the 10 most and least favorite items/actions/activities, etc. • Capitalize on your child’s motivation by providing instruction in a fun format. • Group project
MOST Bubbles Movie Balloon Tickles Music High fives Pickles Etc. LEAST Back rubs “Good job!” “NO!” Singing by Ms. Jane Sitting w/ hands folded Being strapped into a seat Finger painting Etc. Identify Your Child’s MOST and LEAST Reinforcing Items, Etc.
Pairing With Reinforcement • Link something the child likes with something the child doesn’t like or is indifferent toward. • Dislike or indifference takes on the properties of the something that your child likes. • Refer to list of MOST preferred things • even if the child’s preferred thing is to work at the table. • Done all of the time in the media. • This is how all of us learn to like things.
Different Goals Are Linked to Each Other • What does motor imitation have to do with receptive language? • Body control develops proximally to distally. • Block imitation develops toward joint control • Joint control is linked to higher level communication and problem solving
How to Organize Instruction and Data to Optimize Learning • Learn how to teach • Begin instruction only after being paired with reinforcement • Arrange instructional materials before beginning the teaching session • Know your teaching style • Know your instructional tolerance • Take Probe data • Graph results • Promote accountability
Know Your Teaching Style • Loud versus quiet? • Table versus floor? • In-home versus field trip? • Plan for instruction during unavailable times? • Visual schedule versus scheduled stim or down times? • Know the ramifications of your decisions so that you can later live with the outcome.
Know Your Instructional Tolerance • It is okay to do a short or long session • Gradually build up your time in direct and indirect teaching • Try adding 10% to instructional time per week • OR - dive in if that is more your style • There is not one right way to approach instruction with a child • In all cases, have fun! Your child will have fun, too!
