Applied Behavior Consultants

A behavior excess is a child’s way of communicating with you. Once you’ve determined the function, it’s important to teach a replacement behavior that is more socially appropriate. There may be other related skill deficits to teach as well, such as waiting, tolerating a non-preferred activity, acceping no, etc. Take a look at our skill teaching posts from last week for ideas on how to teach replacement behaviors and related skill deficits!

This week we’re talking all about how to decrease behavior excesses! Behavior excesses are behaviors that occur too often (tantruming is a common one). In order to decrease a behavior excess, we have to know the function. Once we know the function, we can teach a replacement skill and chance the consequence to avoid reinforcing the behavior excess!

Anytime we introduce a prompt within skill-teaching we want to make sure that we have a plan to fade out that prompt the prompt hierarchy helps us accomplish that. When teaching a skill, we always want to use the least intrusive but most effective prompt. For example, if your child is able to put on their shirt with just gestural prompting, we don’t want to use a full physical prompt, as this could lead to prompt dependency. Make sure to only reinforce the least intrusive prompt used (we’ll explain this further in a video tomorrow)!

Teaching new skills is hard. It takes persistence and patience, and behavior doesn’t change overnight! Remember ... the hard work now will be worth it when your child becomes partly or fully independent with a skill. Interfering thoughts are super common for parents to have, especially when trying to teach their kids a new skill. It’s important to recognize when you’re having interfering thoughts because they can discourage parents from teaching. Comment below with interfering thoughts you have about teaching your child new skills!

Think of all the parts of your day when you are having to help your child with a task. Getting them set up for distance-learning? Making a snack? Making sure their clothes aren’t inside out? These are all skills that you can teach your child to increase their independence and give you more free time!

The FA Model is based on the idea that every behavior has an antecedent and a consequence, and that these can be the key to figuring out WHY a behavior happens. Are you wondering why your child throws tantrums in the store? Perhaps the antecedent is you telling your child they can’t have ice cream, the behavior is crying and screaming, and the consequence is you eventually buying them ice cream. Looking at the consequence, it is easy to see why the child tantrums tantrums are being reinforced with ice cream! To decrease this behavior you will have to change the consequence. (We will talk more about how to do this next week!)

Fading artificial reinforcement (e.g. giving your child Goldfish after they urinate in the toilet) to natural reinforcement (e.g. your child feeling bodily relief after urinating) ensures that once you are done teaching, the behavior will maintain in the natural environment under natural contingencies. Comment below with your questions!

We use reinforcement to increase behaviors. How do we know our reinforcement is working? We should see an increase in the behavior we’re reinforcing. ~ In order for reinforcement to work, it’s important to follow these four principles of reinforcement. Don’t see an increase in the behavior you think you’re reinforcing? Try to troubleshoot one of these principles!

Reinforcement is a powerful tool because when you give reinforcement for a behavior, that behavior will increase! Reinforcement can come in many forms so keep the acronym STATE in mind when thinking of what to use. To see what might be reinforcing to your child, you can ask them, show them an array of reinforcers and see what they pick, or use something they’re already engaged with. Comment with questions!

SEPTEMBER SERIES: PANDEMIC PARENTING! Parenting is hard but parenting in a pandemic is next level. And with all of the changes in schedule, behavior excesses are likely increasing in children. In this series we will show you how to use the science of behavior analysis to overcome everyday parenting challenges. ABA: it’s not just for autism! This science of behavior change can be a useful and straightforward parenting resource. This series will cover how to effectively us...e reinforcement, how to teach practical skills, and how to decrease inappropriate behavior. Additionally, a BCBA will also share her own ABA-based parenting tips that can be used with any child of any age. This first week we will learn all about how to use reinforcement. Stay tuned for a post tomorrow on the 5 types of reinforcement! See more

Everyone cozy in Santa Clarita Valley for pajama day! @ Applied Behavior Consultants

BAY AREA: It’s important to keep our kids #safeathome right now, but distance learning is new for everyone. We can now consult with you to set your child up for success, using ABA to: set up the learning environment to maximize results increase on-task behavior increase motivation and more! (determined on an individual basis)... This service is open to ALL children. If interested, DM us (or email the East Bay office at www.abcreal.com/locations). Tag a friend who could use this service to help with #distancelearning!

Black lives matter. We stand with our staff, clients, and community at this time and always, and we’re listening. #blackouttuesday