Premature Ventricular Contractions and more

We are looking for a therapist to work with our 6 year old son for
approximately 15 hours per week. The hours are flexible but must be
afternoon/evening and/or weekends. We live in Carrollton, TX. Please email
me privately. If any family in Carrollton is interested in getting together
to co-hire 1 therapist, also email me privately.
Thanks,
Tracy McCain
whcmccain@...

Dear Joyce and Jeff and anyone else who might know,
I'm trying to get my son on the waiting list for the Horizon Program but can't
get an answer at the number listed in the initial message about the program.
Does anyone have the correct address (e-mail) for Joyce or Jeff or whoever is
running the program and in charge of the wait list?
Thanks a bunch,
Rene'
PS: The Horizon Program was described as a DTT-NET school in Austin, TX.

Teaching Language to Children With Autism
A two day training workshop focusing on language assessment and the
development of appropriate and effective language intervention programs for
children with language delays by
Mark L. Sundberg, Ph.D.
September 28 & 29, 2000
Clarion Hotel
3600 E. Cork Street
Kalamazoo, Michigan
With a special presentation by
Jack Michael, Ph.D.
and
October 19 & 20, 2000
Concord Hilton Hotel
1970 Diamond Blvd.
Concord, California
With a special presentation by
Cathy Santopadre
Teaching Language Workshops
P.O. Box 21272
Concord, CA 94521-1272
A workshop for parents, special education teachers and aides, speech and
language pathologists, behavior analysts, psychologists, in-home trainers,
students, direct care staff, program specialists, administrators and other
human service professionals.
The Workshop
Two major challenges faced by those working with children with autism are
(1) determining a child's individual language needs, and (2) developing an
intervention program that specifically meets those needs. The objectives
of this workshop are to teach participants how to:
Use a behavioral approach to language assessment (e.g., mands, tacts, and
intraverbals)
Establish an effective individualized language intervention program which
can be utilized across both home and school settings
Utilize motivational variables to teach language in structured sessions
(discrete trial training), and in on-going daily activities (natural
environment training)
Write language based IEPs and use the most efficient data collection system
Determine if augmentative communication is necessary, and if so, which type
might be best for an individual child (e.g., sign language, PECS, writing)
This workshop can be helpful for all individuals who work or live with
children with autism or other developmental disabilities. During the first
day the focus will be on a behavioral analysis of language, assessment,
augmentative communication, and initial language training. The second day
will focus on more advanced language training including asking questions,
conversational skills, social interaction, and integration. All
participants will receive a 50 page handout covering these topics.
Special guest presentations by Dr. Jack Michael at the Kalamazoo workshop
and by Cathy Santopadre at the Concord workshop will take place on Thursday
afternoons, and will be followed by a social hour with a cash-bar. Dr.
Michael will give a presentation titled,"Unique Features of Skinner's
Approach to Human Language," and Ms. Santopadre will give a presentation
titled "Natural Teaching Opportunities: Parents Can Make a Difference."
About the Presenters
Mark Sundberg, Ph.D. received his doctorate degree in Applied Behavior
Analysis from Western Michigan University (1980), under the direction of
Dr. Jack Michael. Dr. Sundberg is a licensed psychologist who has been
conducting language research with children with autism and other
developmental disabilities for over 25 years. He is the Senior Behavior
Analyst for Behavior Analysts, Inc. and STARS School, serving children with
autism. He is the founder and past editor of the journal The Analysis of
Verbal Behavior, and is the co-author (with James W. Partington, Ph.D.) of
the books Teaching Language to Children with Autism or Other Developmental
Disabilities, and The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills: The
ABLLS. He has published over 35 empirical and conceptual papers, manuals,
and book chapters. He has also given over 250 conference presentations and
workshops on methods of language assessment and intervention for children
with autism and other developmental disabilities, and has taught over 70
college courses on behavior analysis, language, and child development.
Jack Michael, Ph.D. (presenting in Kalamazoo) is a professor of psychology
at Western Michigan University. He has been teaching behavior analysis for
over 40 years, and has received a number of awards including the
prestigious "Distinguished Teaching Award" from the American Psychological
Association. Dr. Michael is considered by his colleagues to be one of the
first persons to systematically apply B. F. Skinner's work to solving the
problems faced by the developmentally disabled, and as a result, he is
considered one of the founding fathers of the field known as Behavior
Modification and Applied Behavior Analysis." In addition, Dr. Michael is
widely recognized as the leading expert in Skinner's analysis of verbal
behavior.
Cathy Santopadre (presenting in Concord) is the parent of Elizabeth, a
child with autism. She is also the client services coordinator for
Behavior Analysts, Inc. She and her husband Ed, participate in a number of
parent training activities designed to teach parents how to help their
children with autism. The Santopadre's, along with Dr. James Partington,
were recently featured on Dateline NBC in a tribute to Elizabeth's
significant progress.
Workshop Schedule
Thursday
8:00-9:00 am Registration
9:00-10:30 am First morning session
10:30 -10:45 am Break
10:45 -12:00 noon Second morning session
12:00 -1:30 pm Lunch break (on your own)
1:30 - 2:45 pm First afternoon session
2:45 - 3:00 pm Break
3:00 - 4:00 pm Second afternoon session
4:00 - 4:15 pm Break
4:15 - 5:00 pm Guest speaker
5:00 - 6:00 pm Social Hour/Cash bar
Friday
9:00 -10:30 am First morning session
10:30 -10:45 am Break
10:45 -12:00 noon Second morning session
12:00 -1:30 pm Lunch break (on your own)
1:30 - 3:00 pm First afternoon session
3:00 - 3:15 pm Break
3:15 - 4:30 pm Second afternoon session
Accommodations
Special room rates have been arranged from Wednesday to Sunday for those
who want to stay and enjoy the area a few extra days. When making your
reservations be sure to mention you will be attending the Teaching Language
Workshop in order to receive this special room rate.
Kalamazoo Clarion Hotel 9/28 and 9/29
3600 E. Cork Street (off I-94 at Sprinkle Rd.)
Call (616) 385-3922 for hotel room reservations or further directions. A
room rate of $65 is guaranteed for reservations made by September 14th.
The hotel provides complimentary shuttle service to and from the Kalamazoo
Airport.
Concord Hilton Hotel 10/19 and 10/20
1970 Diamond Blvd. (off Highway 680 at Willow Pass Rd.). Call (925)
827-2000 for hotel room reservations or further directions. A room rate of
$91 is guaranteed for reservations made by October 5th. For a shuttle
from either Oakland or San Francisco Airports call East Bay Connections at
(800) 675-3278.
For a map, visit Mapquest at www.mapquest.com
Continuing Education Credit
Approval for BCBA credit for Behavior Analysts is pending. Certificates
of attendance will be issued to all participants.
Registration
Locations: Please check one
____Kalamazoo, MI, September 28th and 29th,
registration must be postmarked by 9/19/2000
____Concord, CA, October, 19th and 20th,
registration must be postmarked by 10/10/2000
Workshop Fees:
____ $160 Workshop registration
____ $130 Special parent rate
____ $230 Two parents or members of the same family
____ $90 Student rate (Students must be enrolled in at least two college
courses and submit a copy of their course schedule)
____Group rate $140 each for 5 or more persons
(groups must be mailed together with a separate
registration form for each person)
On-Site registration will be an additional $30
Optional materials: delivered at the workshop
____Teaching Language to Children With Autism or Other Developmental
Disabilities, by Mark L. Sundberg and James W. Partington ($39 pre-workshop
order rate)
____The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills: The ABLLS, and
The ABLLS Scoring Instructions and IEP Development Guide (a two book set)
by James W. Partington and Mark L. Sundberg, ($55 pre-workshop order rate)
____ A Collection of Reprints on Verbal Behavior by Mark L. Sundberg and
Jack L. Michael ($39 pre-workshop order rate)
$____ Sales tax on books for California residents (8.25%)
$_______ Total fees and book orders
Name:

This is an email that I recieved from Mark Sunberg about his upcoming
workshop being presented in Kalamazoo. This would be a great learning
experience for anyone interested.
Krista

Hi Listmates. Thanks to everyone who sent advice on sign language. Today, for
the first time, Umar made two different signs with no physical prompting!!!
We are one of several families here in the Gulf region that have recently
started a VB program. None of us have consultants, and those who have
therapists are doing the training themselves. So all of us feel like we are
groping around in the dark a little and need some ideas.
If anyone would be willing to copy and send tapes of VB sessions and/or
consultations, I would be happy to pre-pay the cost of the tape and postage.
Then I would copy the tape for other families here.
As all of us are just starting out and have children who are not communicating
vocally or are just started to do so, we are specifically interested in tapes
showing beginning verbal imitation (how to get an echo when the child has none),
teaching signs, mand training, and--of course--getting instructional control.
Please reply to me directly at maryam22@...
Many thanks!
Maryam

Are there any skilled therapists who could help me transfer from a
lovaas programme to NET for an advanced 7.5 year old in central
London (W9) area? If so, please contact me ASAP,thanks.
Jacqueline.

Workshops at Behavior Analysts, Inc. Their web site has been updated with
trainings.
Jenn
http://www.behavioranalysts.com/
Solutions for Language Training (parent workshop, introductory level;
primary focus on naturalistic teaching): October 16 & 17
Teaching Verbal Behavior (advanced professional workshop; limited to 12;
primary focus on deeper technical aspects and case review): October 18-20
(I think you had to attend their first professional training to attend this
one)
Functional Analysis/Behavior Plan Development: October 23 & 24, **subject to
sufficient participation**

I am in the process of organizing the material from my website and from
other parents into a manual/book/reference on play and social skills.
I have a lot of information, but I would like some input from teenagers and
young adults with autism. When you read their stories on the various
websites, there is a lot of anger and confusion and pain that they express
about social rejection and so forth.
I would like their ideas about what would have been helpful to THEM as young
children to help with their social skills.
Does anyone know how I can contact a group of young autistic people and ask
them some questions about this matter. I don't want to offend them--I get
the feeling from what I have read already that they don't want anyone
'fixing' them. I don't seek to do that. I just want to know what they think
would have made their childhoods better...
If anyone has some direction for me, I would appreciate it...
Melinda
Mom to Mr. Scott and John

Hello listers,
We do not have this book and wonders if it is worthwhile to get it. Does it
contain listing and description of programs e.g. like "Work In progress" or
does it just allow a child to be assessed?
Can parents use this book to do assessment on their own child? Or does it
require someone trained to do so?
Our environment does not require IEP since we are not in the USA.
Thanks
Celine&Leong

TEACHH was developed by Eric Schopler from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. TEACHH is considered a behavioral and
educational program by the New York State Department of Health Early
Intervention Program.
I would recommend to anyone looking into different treatment options for
your children to purchase The Guidline Technical Report developed by NY
State. The cost is only $21.50. This book reviews all of the major
treatments available to children with autism and sites the important
articles, whether they were valid, and how the treatment compares to
others. It is very helpful. The address is: Health Education Services,
PO BOX 7126, Albany, New York 12224. The phone number is: 518-439-7286.
In addition to this, students of TEACHH perform repetative tasks in
little cubicals. The tasks are taught to be performed independently and
the children follow a schedule of activities to complete each task.
There has been a lot of controversy between Schopler and Lovaas over the
years and there are many debates found in journals and on the web.
Here is a website on TEACHH:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/teacch/
Krista

I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this e-mail on to
anyone and everyone. As most all of you know, I have a 5 year old daughter
named
Kelsey Brooke Jones. We are from Southern Minnesota. She has been missing
since 4pm Oct.11, 1999. The police were notified shortly after. If anyone
anywhere knows anything, sees anything, please contact me if you have my
number. The police don't recommend I put my number on-line, but you
can contact the Police, a missing persons report has been filed. I am
including a picture of her. All prayers are appreciated!! I hope I have
covered enough East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast people to spread out the
search for
this little girl. It only takes 2 seconds to "forward" this on, if it was
your
child, you would want all the help you could get. Please.

Dear Listers, DTT-NET has updated its LINK page.
You will find websites for training classes, conferences, sign language,
recommended reading, program supplies, BF Skinner Foundation, and many many
others.
Should you find any sight that is not working, please let us know.
Do you have a sight that would benefit our readers, let us know.
Easy to access the list...
go to: www.egroups.com
sign into DTT-NET
click onto the LINK icon, located on left hand side of page.
We hope you find this helpful,
Rhonda (ramiga@egroups.com), Jennifer (ABAqueen1@...), and Kimberly
(OneLessRck@...)

Some time ago there was a post about the distance ABA programme at UNT.
I've done a search at the UNT site but did not come up with anything. Could
someone post me the details please? I need this for a therapist.

Therapists/shadows urgently wanted London NW8 for our 4 1/2 year old.
Please email privately.

Structured play is often used in conjunction with DTT to teach play
skills. The child and trainer will sit on the floor and the trainer
will help the child manipulate toys appropriately. Tangible reinforcers
are used and most of the activities are trainer directed like in DTT but
the commands are not given in discrete trials. Due to the nature of the
task it is difficult to repeat a target response over and over again
until it is mastered so the entire play task is completed and
reinforcers and prompts are used when appropriate.
My knowlegde of the TEACHH literature and protocal is not as extensive
as my knowledge in DTT so I am sorry if I mispoke but I was under the
impression that the program was based on a picture schedule and teaching
children to use that as an aid to complete tasks independently. I know
that the overall idea is that they are making the environment less
confusing for the child (which I don't agree with I would rather help
the child to adapt to the environment), but the program does teach a
child to do a task independently by giving an external prompt to the
child and I would assume they use reinforcement to encourage the
children to complete the tasks. Also the people that put the program
together have been at the behavioral conventions. So most of the
success of the program would be due to its behavioral components, not
its cognintive base. I guess that is why I classify it as a behavioral
treatment package.
Could you give some feedback on this Joe if I am not correct? Thanks,
Krista

I've discovered that my son is much more likely to sing when he's involved
in a gross motor activity. Had a blast this weekend spinning him around in
a laundry basket on the kitchen floor. Whereas I normally have to pause to
prompt him to fill-in a word to the song he was just singing along without
the prompts!
Michael Burkhart

Not long ago Rhonda posted information about the Learning and Language Center
in North Miami (TLC). Anyone out there have first hand knowledge about the
school?
Janet

Hi all. I have just joined this list and I am hoping to find
information on setting up a program for an older child. My son is 14
and in the past has not responded to therapies due to his extremely
short attention span and tendencies to perseverate on specific
objects. He is also very low functioning, estimated to be at a 9-12
month level. however, we have been making great improvements the
past several months with dietary interventions and his teacher
reports much better attention to tasks at school, better recognition
of people (therapists, helpers, etc) and a beginning of vocalizations
as greetings used appropriately. I see this at home as well, and he
is much more interested in people around him lately. I am hopeful
that he will now be able to respond to this type of program but I'm
not sure where to begin. Have any of you begun this approach at such
a late age? Or would any of you have general suggestions? My son is
non-verbal and does not have pointing skills. He expresses himself
through facial expressions, some vocalizations that are starting to
become more consistent. He will reach for things he wants. I would
really appreciate any direction you could give! Thank you so much.
Cathy

Therapists/shadows urgently wanted London NW8. Please email privately.

Hi list~
Just wanted to post the following info:
There is a family near the Raleigh, NC area that is looking to hire a
therapist to work with their son. They live about 15 mins south of Raleigh.
They are just starting an ABA program and will be using Dr. Partington and
Sundberg's work to guide it. They are on the waiting list to go to Behavior
Analysts and hopefully will be able to go out there soon. Please email me
and I will forward it to them if you are interested or know anyone who is.
Thanks!!
Jenn
ABAqueen1@...

My son can identify rec and exp lot of labels,he can also mand for a lot of
items ,but he still doesn't do them spontaneously,like it says in the
Partington book if he sees ana aeroplane he should be able to label it
without asking to do so.Does anyone have any ideas on this.Please let me
know.Thanks.

Listers,
I have a therapist who works with us over the summer who will be returning in
the fall to attend the University of Utah. She has worked with us both last
summer, the Christmas holiday and this summer. Her name is Emily Heugatter.
Her Salt Lake cell phone number is (801)674-7368
Some more details, most of her experience this summer has been in NET
training and she excels at it. Vince Carbone was pleasantly surprised at her
ability given her relative lack of experience and training and complimented
her on her teaching at our June consult. Emily will be a sophomore but will
immediately strike you with her poise and a confidence which exceeds her
years.
Regards,
Mark

Does anyone know of a website that has special recipes for picky eaters? ex.
A vegetable waffle.
Lisa

How have any of you taught the concept of "being quiet" or "quiet voice"?
We've been working hard for the past 18 months to get our son to the point
where he now spontaneously tacts and mands and initiates short
conversations; this happens intermittently with squeals and babbling (the
babbling is becoming more and more like words -- sometimes he babbles the
ABC's or songs he knows). But this constant noise will cause a problem in
Kindergarten this fall. My consultant is afraid that if we start rewarding
"quiet" then he'll stop making progress in verbal programs. If anyone has
faced this problem, please let me know how you handled it. Thanks! Deanna

You guys may already know this, but I saw it posted on another list. THe
STARS school website has changed to:
www.behavioranalysts.com

Louisiana Families for Effective Autism Treatment presents a two day Work
Shop on ABA ,"How it is done."
When: September 29 and 30 8:00 am to 4:00 PM
Where: Covington La. Courtyard by Marriott 504 871-0244
$130.00 per person $200.00 per parent couple
Space is limited. To reserve a place send checks made out to LOU FEAT to,
Louisiana Families for Effective Autism Treatment
1003 South Monroe
Covington La.
For more information 504-867-8961 or email jimjimdeb@...

testing dtt-net e-mail
Rhonda Miga
list owner

Gee, with all that build up, I hope everyone doesn't think anything
stupendous and miraculous has occurred, although hey, it is pretty amazing
to me and I am thrilled!!!
Did I mention thrilled? As many know we are working on literacy with Isaac,
who is very interested, works hard on this, but is not hyperlexic. We had
been wondering if we could get more words out of Isaac using word cards as
cues.
And this last couple days I made a big pile of the big index cards in red
marker of every word I have heard in the last two months, at least two,
ideally several times. Jay, my therapist only took four of them and his SD
was, READ _____ and he underlined with his finger the word. Jay said, READ
"Mommy" and Isaac softly said and pointed, "Mommy!" and Jay went to the
next word, READ "Eat" and Isaac said, "Eat" with a bit of the T sound, and
then Jay said, "Read "Bye" and Ize said, "Buh-eye," and then, Jay said,
READ, "Happy" and Isaac made it into a three syllable word, LOL, HA-PAH-EE
but he said it. Jay shuffled them and Isaac said them all again one more
time, although BYE was very soft and the B sound was just barely voiced,
but it was there. Hey, it was only once, but who else would understand the
elation I am feeling, or that my therapist shared. Just maybe, Ize will not
just learn to read which is what we are hoping, but it will help his echoic
and help him TALK better.
Jennie repeating this tomorrow same four words and adding in a couple or
two new ones as well, easy ones.

I tried to forward a message about a trainer in Oklahoma. For some
reason her message did not attach properly so I have pasted it into my
message. Her name is Lynn and she is looking for work in an ABA program
with children with autism.
I am a graduate student at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Ok.
I am
seeking a part time position working with developmentally disabled or
autistic children. I have approximately two years experience in
discrete
trials training,and have experience with LOVAAS, Project PACE, and the
Errorless methods of discrete trials training. I have worked as both a
team
member and team leader.
I am willing to travel 30 minutes each way, and pay is negotiable. If
you
are interested, please e-mail me at : lynnmichaluk@....
If your are interested in working with Lynn please contact her at her
email address.
Thanks,
Krista

This message has information about a person trained as a behavioral
technician that has moved to Oklahoma and is looking for work. If you
are interested please contact her directly.
Krista

< Hi! Can I send this to other list I am on? thanks, Lois
Yes, please do so Lois. That would be great! If you don't mind me asking,
what other lists are you on?
Maria

In a message dated 7/10/00 6:48:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time, ReRe759@...
writes:
<< Hi!
I'd like to take this opportunity to invite those of you living with an
adolescent with autism to subscribe to AdolescentsWAutism@egroups.com for
information and support. Adolescence is such a challenging time in
development for the average child which makes it super challenging for those
of us with adolescents with autism and other anxiety-related disorders. I
am anticipating a network of families who would be willing to share with and
learn from others on topics such as diet and eating habits, leisure and
social skills, education and learning styles, behavior and medication,
personality, etc. Looking forward to your posts.
Sincerely,
Maria Divins

Additional therapist needed for 5 year old boy in Omaha, Nebraska.
IN-home therapy as well as possible shadowing position for the fall.
Please reply privately to:
ApplPckr42@...

Hi Jennie & all -
Yes, I'm one of the usually "silent ones", however, I may have some ideas to
contribute here. We have a couple of programs now that incorporate Visual
Cueing/Reading to address a serious apraxia problem. The first one we call
"Verbal Im - Single Sounds". This was designed with input from the school's
SLP who has some apraxia knowledge. We had been having Kevin imitate single
sounds (as an echo) like:
bee-bee-bee
bye-bye-bye
bee-bye-boo etc.
It was often difficult to motivate Kevin to do this work although it's
something the SLP feels he needs on a daily basis. So, a couple of months
ago, we came up with the idea of making visuals to go along with the
program. We used Boardmaker and came up with "sound strips" with 3 to 5
repetitions of each sound. For each sound, we would have the word in a
large font and the picture. So, in the first example, it would be 3 PECS in
a row having a picture of a Bumble Bee, with the word "bee" in large font
above it. Kevin can then "read" the sounds. In Kevin's case, he is
hyperlexic and would be able to do it with just the word/no picture, but we
felt like the picture made the task much more interesting for him. After a
couple of months of this, we are starting to take the PECS strips away and
work on the pure echoic about half the time. It was recently pointed out to
us that using this method is not Echoics at all but a Tacting program.
Well, all the tacting experience seems to have really strenghtened the
Echoics. So, that's one thing to try. Evenually, fade all your visuals.
We also have a second program called "Verbal Im - Words". Again, we were
using picture cards for this so it was more a rapid tacting program rather
than an Echoics program. We now do this program sometimes with and
sometimes without the photos. We record the data as Tact or Echoic and
don't consider a word mastered until it is mastered as a pure Echoic (no
picture).
With these two programs and an emphasis on lots of manding, Kevin's
expressive language has improved more in the last few months than ever (he's
6 & has been doing ABA almost 3 years). We still have a long, long way to
go, but I'm feeling more positive. Hope this is helpful to someone.
Mary in Mass.

Dear Silent Ones,
I have a question. We are working on some sight word reading and soon some
phonics, very basic and very slowly, but there is nice progress on the
sight word reading. That said, we wondered, if anyone has used sight words
as a cue for echoics versus just saying it and hoping the child will repeat
it.
I do not know why, but three times lately, Isaac echoed the word when I was
showing him the sight word. We were matching and doing the SD with the word
in the instruction for review, and after I would hold it up and say, CUP or
whatever.
And Isaac echoed CUP. Now, he has a MUCH harder time echoing just for the
heck of it or even as a mand than he seems to when he has the visual cue
there in sight word form. Any thoughts on me making a small ringed flip
book with words I have heard him say, many already in our sight word
vocabulary list anyhow, and seeing if this would be a good way to get a
better echoic and reliable imitation of a verbalization?
I was thinking of having a small picture of our front door and the word
HOME and CUP and KITTY, CRACKER and a few others I know he says
spontaneously fairly often, but not reliably for an echoic?
Jennie

Hello listmembers,
My son has
done OK in the RFFC/FFC - multiple exemplars stuff and we have followed the
quick fire, immediate prompting method. However there are other parts of his
speech that need to improve which are attacked in ABA programs using the
Statement-Statement or statement-statement-question approach. Is there some
thing equivalent to this approach in the S/P/Carbone methodology ?
Also has anybody tried RFFC to teach "tense" and past/future events like
Point to the one you ate for
breakfast, point to the one you will eat for dinner etc. etc. It might work.
Thank you
Uttiya

Hi all, I recently wrote in about support letters for my son Bradley. I set
up a message board to make it easy to write a letter of support. :o)
thanks. Kim Murphy
http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb1137461
***********************************************************************
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the
affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure
the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in
others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a
garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

At a recent conference, Dr. Partington said that they are aware the website
is down and are working to get it running again. This was a few weeks ago,
though it sounded that it would be back up by now.
Steph

Hi list~
You can find out all you want to know about touch math and even get free
samples on their web site.
www.touchmath.com
Jenn in North Carolina
Senior Therapist
DTT-NET Moderator

For those of you who have been asking:
TCLC has updated it's website at www.tclc.com and will continue to have
updates throughout the month of August and then routine updates on the 15th
and 30th of each month thereafter.
Regards,
C. A. Thomas, Ph.D., BCBA
Executive Center Director, TCLC
www.tclc.com
"Behave, as if you could help it."

You can also contact Behavior Analysts, Inc at
BehaviorAnalysts@...
The number on a business card I have is:
707-447-7738
I am sure they can give you the number to the school.
Jenn

Hi,
We have an interesting development in that my son is starting to
use spontaneous language and everytime he does we reinforce
heavily which is what should be done BUT the language that
is spontaneous is not related to what we are teaching in DTT. It's a
teaching issue, I think, that we have really conditioned him not to
speak without first being given some kind of SD/prompt. If we fix
this, I think
we're going to move faster but I seriously seeing him thinking...'I'm
waiting for you to talk first'...but things we aren't working on he
isn't
conditioned to 'think' that way. Also, those things are typically
reinforcing like an object/toy he wants to play with, commands for
'come on', 'up' and 'down', etc all having been learned in NET. I'm
not sure what it is but the more casual the teaching the more he
seems to be picking up. Any thoughts?
Andrea

Has anyone used Touchpoint Math? If so, please let me know what you thought
and if you'd want to sell your materials. Thanks Annie

Hi everyone. I'm Terri in Santa Cruz, and my little guy just turned 7 on
Saturday (happy birthday, Zane!). We've been doing ABA since age 4.5, more
or less, and we still technically have a classic ABA program, although we
do very little work at table, do lots of multiple drills in one play
session, and seem to be moving toward the natural environment in our own
twisty way, just to keep doing what Z needs, and keep it fun (lots of
resistance to standard table drills in the last six months, so gotta do
something else anyway!).
Anyhow, Zane is now making spontaneous conversation, on topics he wants to
talk about, but his overtures are "weird". He'll make a sentence with a
pronoun for the subject, and you're supposed to just know what the subject
is, or a sentence that is missing lots of the context info that tells you
what he's talking about. Some of his sentences are darn near non
sequiturs. Example, he says to me out of the clear blue sky: "Did you see
the part when he went to the moon?" Well, if we read his mind and know he
watched Wallace and Gromit's video A Grand Day Out half an hour ago, we can
probably guess that he's referring to the video and that "he" is either
Wallace or Gromit. If he says this to someone (grandma, or a kid at summer
camp) who doesn't know all his toys and videos, or who isn't used to how he
talks, it sounds very weird, and they don't know how to respond. My
questions are
1. How do we work on this in the program?
2. What do we do when he does this in everyday conversation? Should we
a. answer him, inserting the subject ("Oh, it sounds like you're talking
about Wallace and Gromit. Yes, I saw that part of the video")
b. correct him ("Zane, when you talk to someone, tell them what you're
talking about. Say 'Did you see the video where Gromit went to the moon?")
c. just interact with him without correcting, in order to encourage him to
use his language a lot and not shut it down?
In the past, we've corrected certain pieces of his language A LOT, i.e.
pronouns (at 7yo, everyone's still "he" :-) and we've just lately stopped
doing this, because we were afraid it WAS shutting down his desire to
communicate things, to be corrected so much, so now I'm leary of this
constant correction.
After so long, I am DELIGHTED that he's interested in having conversations,
and is initiating them, and I think this is good progress, just not sure
where to go from here, as he doesn't seem to have a clue how to really
converse in a normal way. It has occurred to me that the lack of context
(taking into account what others know about the subject) has to do with
theory of mind. We are working on in this in the program, with
Sally-Ann-type play drills, but it seems a long road. Help on this is
welcome, too.
Any advice or wisdom from anyone else who has walked or is walking this
part of the road would be most welcome!
Thanks,
Terri in Santa Cruz
mom to Zane, 7yo hfa

Hi-
I've heard about this book, Teach Me Language. I'm interested in other's
impressions of it. How does it compare to "Teaching Language to Children
with Autism and Other Related Disabilities" by Sundberg and Partington?
Thank you,
Kim

Dear Janet, basically when Zach started running, I would get him and take
him back to the spot he ran from and we would walk. Considering we have
worked on walking in other areas that are not as reinforcing, the concept of
walking was known first.
Zachary has some hyperlexic skills so in the past we have written "I can
walk." on an index card and as we were practicing walking, I would flash the
card at him to read and he would repeat "I can walk." to himself (outloud)
as a reminder. It worked. So now I can give verbal reminders of "I can
walk" and he repeats it and realizes he needs to continue walking.
All the while, I am telling him nice job, etc. almost immediately after the
reminder is given, so he knows what the "nice job" is for.
At the pool, everytime he would run, we would get out and have to go back to
the place he started running and have to walk all the way around the pool
before he was allowed to get back in. This gave me the opportunity to
reinforce and provide reminders, as well as showing him he needed to walk
whenever he was around the pool, not just in the spot he plays the most at.
(does that make since.) This also gave me the opportunity to have him get
in the pool at different locations around the pool so he would not get into
the same routine of just getting in at one spot.
He is 6 and he does not always remember to walk now, but basically all it
takes is a verbal queue and he slows down and does walk. Whenever it takes
more then one reminder to get him to walk, we bring back out the cards and
spend a few more minutes walking so it take him longer to get his reinforcer
(the water). This is also true when we are in other places (at the mall,
in a restaurant, etc.)
Our newest venture is walking on a sidewalk so that Zachary will not run
down the street!!!!! This is working well. Just the other day, he looked
out the window of the car and said "sidewalk, I walk on the sidewalk."
It takes a lot of practice and make sure you practice more away from the
pool to develop the concept of walking (even if he does not run other
places, the verbal and visual reminders trigger his immediate thoughts about
walking.) Good luck. Hope this helps. Rhonda
.

A parent sent a question to another list regarding teaching swimming. I wanted
to forward my response to DTT-NET because these are some very good ideas
considering summer is here...and will take the humdrum out of a typical therapy
session. Rhonda
*******************************
Trina, last summer we scheduled ABA sessions at the pool. Basically our
therapists loved the break from the therapy room and a chance to get into the
pool was well accepted. We basically worked on all the different strokes,
holding breath, going under water, jumping from the side of pool, etc.
Everything that they teach in a swim lesson, we taught via discrete trial
teaching.
You may want to visit a swim lesson taking place and take notes on everything
they teach a beginner and then map out your plan of action. We did at least 3
sessions a week at the pool to work on just this. (We probably should do more
this summer...thanks for reminding me.)
Zachary now swims (dog paddles) without vest. Just jumped in one day and never
wanted the vest again. We continue to work on strokes, feet up, floating on
back, etc. But he loves jumping off the side, and swimming around. We also
work on language (using skinners: mands, tacts, intraverbals, etc) and we work
on safety: walking around the pool, not running. It is all done in a discrete
trial format and it is considered natural environment teaching. Very effective.
We get some real good language at the pool because he really likes to swim.
Good luck. Rhonda
PS you might want to make a swimming log (data) that records what you worked on,
the results and what to work on next time. This will help to track your
progress. We have a section for "spontaneous language" too, because we did not
realize how much Zach actually says until we started writing it down.

Listmates, We need a therapist in College Station, TX. Our son 3.10 yrs.
old and is doing very well, he is cooperative and easy to reinforce. He is
very sweet and cuddly and enjoy social praise and people enormously.
Our home program is overseen, and we recieve regular in-home training by
Behavior Analysts of No. Calif. Please e-mail if interested.
Sincerely
Arzu

Hi all,
There is a Therapist trained in Verbal Behavior
(Sundberg-Partington Method) who wants to take on
an additional family 2-3 mornings a week doing a
similair program. Her only
free times are weekday mornings. She lives in San Jose
- so families in San Jose, CA & nearby cities
(Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino) should be fine
with her.
If you are interested, please email me so that I can
pass on your name & phone number to her.
Thanks
Arya

the tag-along bike that was mentioned in another post can be purchased at
Target and works very well.

Dr. McGreevy has offered to do a small workshop (sort of like
Carbone/McGreevy #1, but probably more hands-on and personalized) in
Valparaiso, Indiana. We need 12 families total and we already have 5
(possibly 6). We don't have a date yet, because he's waiting for us to line
up the 12 families before working out the details.
If anyone is near Valpo and would like to attend, please e-mail me at
mbilek@.... It looks like this group is going to be made up primarily of
kids who are non-verbal or have limited verbal skills (except for my son, but
we're going to attend with our therapists to give them a better understanding
of VB), so it will probably be geared more towards that level of functioning.
- Becky Bilek

My son is in a very good traditional ABA program. However, after
listening to Carbone speak, I feel my son would truly benefit from
Partington/Sundberg/Carbone approaches. Yesterday, I gave a mini
presentation on how to incorporate some of these approaches into my son's
program (obviously, I am no expert). Everyone was very excited and open to
the ideas. However, a few questions arose:
When doing RFFC and Intraverbals, does my son, Jeremiah, need to have fully
mastered the various verbs used in the SD's (i.e., Show me something you sit
on, You sleep in a )? Also, does Jeremiah need to have fully
mastered an understanding of the features and class aspects as well (i.e.,
Show me something that has wheels, Show me something that has fur, Name
something you drive)? Or are we using RFFC and intraverbals to teach these
concepts. I hope I am making sense.
I would appreciate any input and/or clarification! I find this list very
helpful and will be referring to it a lot as we get started.
Rosie (Jeremiah's mom)

It is with great sadness that I tell you that a former member of our home team
is moving to Wisconsin, near Milwaukee, to attend Marquette where she will be
studying to get her Master's degree.
She was with us 2 full years, 1 1/2 doing the more classic "No-No-Prompt" format
and the last 6 months with errorless and NET style.
She is outstanding, perhaps one of the best I've seen, and I've seen alot of
videotape of Columbus, Oh instructors.
We had wanted to make her our lead, but she worked full-time and stayed with us
on weekends only.
Her name is Heidi Griswold-Rhymer and her email address for the next 2 weeks is:
Griswold-Rhymer.1@...
After that, email me and I'll send you her new phone number.
Regards,
Ron Kincaid

Hi Guys,
Looking through my book, I noticed the RFFC sheets have a place where it
says RANK? Does anyone have any clue what rank means here? Secondly, do
people use these for their programs for the staff to fill in?
Also, and I promise I will read the book carefully in this area today,
but off the top of my head, in case they don't cover it or I miss it, what
does the following mean, RANK A B C mean? I am pretty sure it does not
refer to the antecedant, behavior, consequence term.
Thanks,
Jennie

Hi list,
We are experiencing a difficult situation with our 4 year old son, who's
been doing ABA for almost 2 years.
He has been working 7 days a week, with good progress. He has functional
language, 3-4 word sentences, hundreds of tacts, RFFCs, some intraberbals.
Recently, when presented with flash cards he shuts down. He literally
refuses to look at the cards. When I persist, he'll give me any response
just to get rid of me. I can present 5 cards (during probing) and he'll give
me the same response for all five.
Has anybody experienced this situation?
What did you do to get the program back on track?
Inna
needel@...

Dear Folks,
I know some of you have used visual cueing and text, etc., for various
programs with your kids. I recall, unfortunately vaguely some mention of
the various kinds of communication beyond mands, tacts, etc. It was in
relationship to tacts, and using sign versus PECS, which I prefer not to
debate, and then there was mention of text. I think it was said, TEXT was
an actual symbolic language and that unlike using PECS, (which I support
for many children) it could be used to answer, because unlike using
pictures, (which we find useful) you could be reasonably certain it was a
real reply versus matching?
I need to read the S/P manual more closely in the chapters covering
different modes of communication.
Lately, I have experimented with some text, and while in this first
example, I know it is partly a matching reply, I believe it is leading to
true tacting.
I would like to hear from somebody who is knowledgable about this, to
whether this is accurate or not. Right now, I am using color cards and know
that the matching is a big factor, but we are at the point we are using
word cards where the word itself is the color versus the whole card. So, if
I held up an apple and said,"What color?" my son can point to one of three
cards, finding the RED word card. Occasionally, I go back to the card that
are solid colors to maintain and review colors that way. Recently, I have
been making word cards and have begun fading the color cue. My new red card
for instance has a black capital R., but the lower case letters, "e,d," are
in red. I am doing this with all the colors, having the first letter black
and the last letter black and slowly am turning them all into regular
print words. (He has a lot of sight words being learned now, but has only
recently started learning the color ones.)
What I would like to know is how people are using text as a bridge, or as
language in order to get more interactive "answering?"
Last night I tried laying out just two cards, the red one I described and a
"green" word card, where the G and N were black with the middle green and I
held up a red apple and asked, What color?" Isaac pointed to the word card,
RED which does have some red letters still. I mixed it and then help up a
green bath frog and asked what color, and he pointed to the word card that
says GREEN and as I shared, it does have some green tinted letters. We ran
through several items, two reds, one green, a red, three greens, give or take.
If the cards were all typical black print with no color cue, would this be
tacting? I am very concerned that we are not moving forward well on
language issues, yet according to many people, the RFFC and so forth should
come after a certain level of mands and tacting. Our echoics are coming
very slowly, manding slowly, tacts, even more slowly. Signing is NOT going
to be any real way to communicate, and in fact, he has MORE words than sign
by far, but still poor echoics.
Besides the real problem of not having any strong therapists who spend much
time working on this, and my own inability to figure this one critical
thing out, I was wondering if this is a viable way to work on skills?
Jennie

Dear listmates,
I am curious about where those experts (Sundberg, Partington, Carbone,
Mcgreevy, Lovaas, and Robert Koegal) all come from? They seem all claim
their intervention apporoach based on Skinner's theory in one way or the
other. Who were Skinner's students, who are cousins, nephews or grandkids
academically? Thank you very much for the information.
Dongfang

Hello,
I would love to hear from any parent who has a child that has a good
echoic and even several mands but had difficulty getting tacts but
once sign was introduced the tacts were acquired.
Andrea

OK, here's the big question I've been pondering for several months since I first
saw Vince Carbone's presentation in Greensboro, NC. I'm going to play devil's
advocate here.
Let's just suppose that some people on this list will eventually be going to due
process. (Why I might think this, I have no idea.)
On the ME-list, there has been much discussion over the years, and even in the
last few months (I wonder why) about the importance of data to prove that ABA
methodology is more effective than what might be offered in a "special ed"
classroom.
What sort of data could one take in a VB/ABA program to show a child's progress?
We have started to try to formalize our program a bit more now that we are
getting the hang of things. I remember a discussion at the conference about
probing during the first hour of the day. So, for probes, we take things like
colors, number, shapes (basics, I guess you'd say) and ask these in separate
sittings. If he gets it on the first try, it goes into the "mastered" pile, and
if not, we prompt on the second SD and put it into the "target today" pile.
The "target today" pile is then integrated into the RFFC sitting, where,
hopefully it is easier for him to discriminate "the card that is green" from
"the one that is an animal", or "something you can ride in". Hopefully the next
day, the targeted items will be more solid because they have been reviewed the
day before. So, now I have a sort of checklist of what he missed at the
beginning of each day.
But for RFFCs, we are asking questions more or less "by the seat of our pants".
Maybe this is where we are going wrong. Because when I put a card out on the
table, there is no guarantee that I'll ask about the same feature that the last
therapist did.
So, do I come up with a list of "concepts" that I want to teach, and probe those
in the first hour also? For example,
soft/hard,
empty/full,
big/little
things that grow
something you eat
etc.
Or, do you target "items". For example, tree:
has leaves, branches, roots
grows from the ground
provides shade
where you might see a bird's nest
can be climbed
And what about the actual verbal responses when you have conversations with your
child? I usually mix echoics and intraverbals together. For example, "Who's
wearing a striped shirt today?" (Kenny). But if I notice that he said
"Kennuh", then the next thing I'll do is "EEE" (eee) "nnnn" (nnn) "neee"
(neee) and then say "WHO'S wearing a striped shirt today?" (Kenny) "And who is
wearing a purple shirt today?" (Mommy). "What color is my shirt?" (purple)
etc.
I guess my point is, my conversations with Kenny just flow from one thing to
another. We talk about how he feels (happy, mad, good) and what he wants to
eat, and who is in the room, and the names of people in our family, what kinds
of pets he has (because the cat just walked into the room). Recently he's even
been making jokes. I ask him what kind of a pet he has and he'll say "dog" and
laugh. (It's definitely a joke to him -- he has that sparkle in his eye!) So
then I can go to yes/no factual. "Is Ariel a dog?" (no) "No, she's a _____
(cat).
In "real life" we don't have a script, and it seems to me that the VB model is
supposed to parallel that. So how do you take data when you are just flowing
from one thing to the next?
Can I tell if my child is making progress? You bet! But how could I prove it?
Any insights and examples would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Cindy (Cary, NC)
persistentC@...

Hi everybody,
Dr. Carbone posted this to the Me List a while ago and I am posting it here
with his permission.
Dear Readers:
As you may know each professional subscribing to this list must periodically
post information that may be valuable to the readership. I am pleased to use
this opportunity to post information regarding teaching procedures that I
frequently discuss during my talks and which can be found in the literature
of applied behavior analysis teaching procedures listed below?
I would like to present an analysis of teaching procedures that may be
unfamiliar to many readers. Below is a list of recommended teaching
procedures with emphasis upon how to present instructional demands in order
to maintain high rates of correct responding. The question becomes, what is
the conceptual analysis within the science that would serve as the foundation
or mechanism, if you will, that explains the benefits generated by the In
much of the behavioral literature you In much of the behavioral literature
you will find many of the methods listed below described as setting events.
The problem with this analysis is that setting events are not related
functionally to the outcomes that they are said to generate. Setting events
is a novel term that reaches outside of the science and is used to describe
the structure of antecedents without regard to function. Our science dictates
that we attempt to account for the effects generated by events or stimuli in
terms of the conceptual analysis we have already empirically established
before we reach to other explanations. With that in mind, we can look to an
entire body of literature on Establishing Operations (EOs) occasioned by the
work of Dr. Jack Michael and researched carefully by Dr. Mark Sundberg. It
is the conceptual analysis of EOs that appears to be relevant to the effects
generated by the teaching procedures listed below.
Certain conditions or events that occur before a behavior (antecedent)
can change the value of reinforcers and therefore evoke responses that have
produced that reinforcer in the past. For example, difficult demands can
increase the value of escape (negative reinforcement) relative to other
potential reinforcers, the new toy you just bought, and thereby evoke
disruptive behavior and running away. The child "wants" the toy but not as
much as he "wants" the demands removed when they are difficult. This is a
functional analysis of antecedents as opposed to a mere structural
description of events or conditions that occur antecedent to behavior.
Therefore it appears that your teaching procedures or presentation of
instruction can weaken or strengthen the value of reinforcers and therefore
can evoke many different possible responses. For example, if your teaching
procedures increase the value of negative reinforcement (escape) all
responses in the functional class that have produced escape in the past are
more likely, e.g. screaming, tantruming, running away, etc. If however, your
teaching procedures increase the value of automatic reinforcement, then all
behaviors in the functional class that have produced automatic reinforcement
are more likely, e.g. self-stimulatory behaviors. Finally, if your teaching
procedures keep the value high of the reinforcer for correct responding
relative to other reinforcers, then correct responding will occur at the
highest rate relative to other responses, e.g. escape or self-stimulatory
responses. The teaching procedures listed below appear to maintain the value
of the reinforcer for correct work relative to other competing reinforcers
and therefore produce high rate responding and low rate task avoidance and
self-stimulatory behaviors. The implementation of these procedures appears to
prevent disruptive behaviors and therefore reduce the need for extinction and
other aversive consequences that may produce undesirable side effects.
Moreover, children who are required to respond just a few times before a
reinforcer may be able to make many more responses for fewer reinforcers.
Finally, teachers may find that the reinforcers that previously lost their
value quickly may in fact sustain their effectiveness as a result of changes
in the teaching procedures alone.
The disadvantage of these methods is the substantial and precise training
required of a teacher to be able to respond moment to moment to the child. It
is much easier to train teachers to follow protocols as opposed to the child.
Within this format there is no script or protocol, the teacher is guided
from moment to moment by the principles of applied behavior analysis and the
responses of the student to each instructional demand. Certainly the benefit
to the student outweighs the disadvantage.
TOWARDS A TECHNOLOGY OF TEACHING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
Maintaining correct responding at high rates over substantial periods of time
during intensive teaching sessions (DTT) with children with autism can be a
difficult goal to achieve. Moreover, retention over time of what is learned
in intensive teaching sessions and correct responding in novel situations
must be achieved for the learning to be meaningful.
Fortunately, the field of applied behavior analysis has provided us with
methods that make the achievement of these worthy goals more likely.
What are those Methods?
1. Provide teaching which is as errorless as possible: It leads to higher
rates of correct responding and lower rates of task avoidance and problem
behavior.
HOW TO?
Prompts should occur before the behavior, not after the behavior as a
consequence for incorrect responding.
Fade the prompt as quickly as possible while insuring correct responding.
Do this by first reducing the physical dimension of the prompt and then
increase the time (time delay) between the SD and the prompt. Don't allow
more than a 3-second delay.
Avoid use of the No, No, Prompt procedure
2. Provide Fast Paced Instruction: It leads to higher rates of correct
responding and less task avoidance.
HOW TO?
Decrease the intervals (ITIs) between presentations of Sd's
Use errorless teaching procedures to insure quick responding
3. Mix and Vary Tasks and Avoid Mass Trialing: Reduces problem behavior,
enhances generalization and increases rate of acquisition of skills.
HOW TO?
Present tasks one after another from many skill areas during intensive
teaching sessions.
4. Reduce response difficulty, number of response and/or effort. Reduces task
avoidance and problem behavior and increases correct responding.
HOW TO?
Mix tasks that require little effort for reinforcement and are easy for the
child (associated with reinforcement) with responses which are effortful
and are more difficult.
5. Teach the Child to Respond Quickly and Correctly (Fluently) and NOT Just
Correctly. Fluency leads to greater retention, functional use of skills
learned, greater endurance for responding and increase application of the
skills.
HOW TO?
Measure rate per minute of child's responses instead of percentage correct.
Set goals for child's responding based upon rate per minute.
Prompt responses immediately (within 3 seconds) to insure quick responding.
Prompt and prompt/fade effectively so that presentation of the next SD is
the reinforcer for the previous response.
A fairly thorough review of the literature related to these issues can be
found in the following citations:
Munk & Repp, (1994) Exceptional Chidren, 60, 390-401.
Several articles on Fluency by Binder and Johnson and Layng (1996) in The
Behavior Analyst, volume 19.
Posted by:
Vincent J. Carbone

Hi, I just wanted to say that I went to workshop #2 and found it very
helpful, I can only speak for myself, but I have been very busy
implementing the new techniques that Dr. McGreevy helped us with, so
there for have not had a lot of free time to write, I have had to
rethink some of the things that we were doing, and try to come up with
some new reinforcing pairing type items to get my child to want to mand
for. we are using sign language which is new for all of us, so we have
been studying, copying and attaching sign pictures to many different
items and containers so that anyone coming into the house can help
practice the signs through out the day, even if they dont do therapy
with him, (friends,siblings, cousins, and grandparents.) I decided to
have summer school at my house this summer using 4 children we just
started last week, we are using themes and the kids are enjoying
learning the signs and helping our son to imitate, I got the biggest
kick out of them, because they all want to take turns using the clicker
to keep track of his signs, Our son seems to be really receptive to
signing for the other kids and they are equally excited about learning
them, the more practice the better right? plus we are creating a group
of signers for him to be around and keeping him busy from stimming!!!!
Any way I just wanted to say that the group I participated with at the
workshop #2 seemed to get alot of important information from Dr. Carbone
everyone was buzzing with questions at breaks etc.... And both Dr.s
seemed more than eager to help any way they could, I have alot of
respect for these two men, they truly want to help our children. On the
second day we didnt really take a lunch break, we ate lunch while
discussing so that we could get more info in. I left workshop #1 with a
great sense that this is what we wanted to do with our child, but after
you get home and start trying to implement the things that you learned,
it left me with alot of questions, so workshop #2 gave me the
opportunity to get those questions answered from the source, in a way
that I understood it correctly because they gave lots of examples and
showed more video tapes to help you understand. It was worth the money
to me, and I think once we get farther along, it would be worth it to
see them again, Im sure each time you would get more and more out of it.
Anyway that was my take on the workshop I would have loved to talked to
Dr. McGreevy more because my child is basically non verbal, but the
majority at the workshop did have children with a significant amount of
language. Hope this helps! Laura

Hi,
I am trying to put together a workshop with the STARS school(Sundberg
& Partington). My plan is to get enough participants to have the
trainers come here in Los Angeles. The class is "Essential Elements
for Teaching Language to Children with Autism & other developmental
disabilities".
I have all my therapists interested (7 including myself) and I am
looking for parents interested as well. Please answer privately for
details. I think the upper limit is 20 persons.
Andreia (Max's mom)

Hi. McGreevy's workshop schedule posted on his web site is obviously outdated.
Does any have a recent schedule?
Thank you.
Allen

To all those families who have not been able to get a consultant to help them
set up a verbal behavior program, Dr. Carbone will be doing a 2 day group
workshop in August in Houston for this purpose. I have posted a description of
the workshop below and will be glad to answer questions and provide a
registration form if you are interested.
I believe there have been previous posts to the list from parents who attended
this type of workshop in Dallas. They are probably available in the archives or
if any previous attendees are reading this, I am sure any comments you have
would be valuable to all.
Contact me if you are interested,
Carol Sloan
tsloan@...
Workshop #2
Developing and Implementing An Intensive Behavioral Program to
Teach Language & Basic Learner Skills
conducted by
Vincent Carbone, Ed.D.
&
Associates
To be held in Houston, Texas
August 28 & 29th, 2000
This 2-day, hands-on workshop is designed for families who have a child
with autism or other related disability and who do not have access to a
consultant with skills and experience in the behavioral approach to language and
the teaching of basic learner skills. Each family may send a two-person team
typically one parent and the lead therapist. Teams will learn to assess their
specific child's needs and develop, implement, monitor, and troubleshoot an
intensive behavioral language and basic learner skill program for their child.
The family will leave the workshop with an individualized plan of the language
and learner skills to begin teaching immediately, the methods of teaching the
skills, data recording procedures and a list of the
progression of specific skills to be taught over a several month and even a
year's period of time. . Dr. Carbone and two (2) Certified Behavior Analyst
Associates will be working continuously with the participants over the two (2
)days to develop the final individualized plan.
One member of the team must have attended the introductory workshop,
"Teaching Language Skills to Children and Adults With Autism and Other
Developmental Disabilities". Each team will bring a completed ABLLS to the
workshop along with a 15 minute introductory video of their child at work and
play.
The one-time cost of this workshop is $895 per team, not per person, and is
limited to just 15 teams consisting of 2 persons per team.

Hi Folks,
I have a wonderful therapist who has been working for me for over 2 years. Her
husband just accepted a job in the Memphis area.
Please email me if you would be interested in hiring her. She graduated from
Western Michigan (got an "A" in Jack Michael's class!) and is very, very good.
We've been doing a VB program since the end of March. She would prefer to stay
with the VB approach, so I'm posting to this list before I put this out on the
ME-list.
We are going to hate losing her -- our loss will be your gain! She is one the
most reliable people we have ever had work for us. She ALWAYS shows up. :-)
Cindy (Cary, NC)
persistentC@...

I found this up-coming workshop on the web. Below is the site. You can
email them for more info. Jenn
http://www.behavior-analysis.org/
TEACHING LANGUAGE TO PERSONS WITH AUTISM AND RELATED DISORDERS
by Dr. Vincent J. Carbone
This workshop is intended for parents, teachers, behavior analysts, speech
pathologists and others who live or work with persons with limited
communication skills. The workshop will present very effective and rapid
methods for teaching functional language and communication skills.
Dates and locations: Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, fall 2000; Ft. Lauderdale, March
2001.

I recently got some spiral bound flash cards. There are 24 books, one for
each letter with X,Y,Z in one book. There are over 300 words in the box.
They are called Lakeshore Word Bank Flip Books. They were $49.50. We had
exhausted the Frank Shaffer and LTrend flash card sets and some of the
other flash cards we got were too animated to understand. I am happy with
this set because it is organized, it has the words in big letters next to
the picture and the pictures are drawings but they are clear. Though
working with the spiral books is different we have adapted.
We have also liked the Picture This software to print off flash cards.
In the Partington book he mentioned the Help manuals (I forgot where) for
receptive by function. Has anyone used these?
Please post your recommendations on materials that you like for any aspect
of your program?
Thank You
Diana

I don't schedule regular therapy hours with my child. Occassionally I will
fill in if someone cancels. I do tons of NET. After almost 3 years, I find
it hard to do the therapy and my son does not like it when I do. I do not
feel guilty about it, because I know every detail of his program and do NET
all the time. He has a great time with his 4 therapists and is really
learning a lot. I have another child and a home business and can only do so
much. I think NET is just as if not more important and if you are commited
to that you should not feel guilty about table time.
Just my 2 cents!
Cindy

Hi again! I posted about 5 days ago about needing to do a presentation for
the Director of the In-home Childhood Intensive Treatment program that
provides my son's ABA. I had been looking for information from some
"veterans" on how to set up a whiteboard - what goes on it, etc. Many thanks
to all who answered - I sort of took the best parts from each of you and
incorporated them for a sample presentation board. It worked out great!
What's more exciting is that this director took this course -"Analysis of
Verbal Behavior" some years ago At Western Michigan. He was familiar with
mands, tacts, intraverbals, etc. Which made my job much easier. He has
AGREED to let us run this and will be checking in in about a month to get
feedback from the therapists, etc on how well it works for all involved. He
already ordered his own copy of the ABLLS assessment and has apparently put a
lot of thought into this change already!!!!! SO...NOW - I have the daunting
task of training three therapists AND a supervisor! So if any of you have
any helpful suggestions for THAT task...they are always so very welcome! I
can't begin to tell you how excited I am about all of this! My son is six
now and on Memorial Day, it is the 4th anniversary of his diagnosis. This is
going to be a very welcome and refreshing change for us! Thanks again!
All my Best
Victoria

Dear listers, we had a list of words that we made a book out of for Zachary when
we were in Texas. We used the book for verbal imitation (echoics). It had
simular words and focused on each mouth movement (ie. mouth to mouth, roof of
mouth to behind teeth, etc.)
Does anyone have that list? It was posted on the me-list several times over the
last 3 years. There was a speach therapist that posted it.
Thanks in advance. Rhonda

Dear Listers, Lenny, Micheal M., Beth Curry, others,
Anyone who is involved in starting, belonging, running, etc., a FEAT in
their state. I have become convinced we need a FEAT in MA, and am very
interested in finding out how you start one, what it involves and the
interest in doing so. If anyone in this state or maybe NH-ME, although not
sure if you can do a region FEAT versus a state one, please contact me.
Those in the know please contact me.
Thanks, and for those concerned, I would prefer to use the name EFFECTIVE
versus early.
Jennie "Isaac's mom"

I would like to invite people to come to the CHAT channel for this list
Sunday evening to discuss Manding and creating contrived opportunities for
kids, and really focusing on this issue, be it verbal, sign and even PECS
for those of us who need to include them for the sake of our own individual
child. I plan to check in at 9:30 PM eastern time. I know it makes it
harder for the west coast contingent to get to the computer, hopefully
having dinner over with, but if we make it much later, the eastern
contingent is too tired to stay on very long. At some point if people are
interested in a weekend AM session I would be game.
http://www.escribe.com/education/dtt-net/chat/index.html
Jennie "Isaac's mom"

Sairam,
Your input on whiteboards was very helpful. I'm sure everyone can
modify your suggestions based on their child's individual needs.
Thanks,
Tina

Hi all
After 2 yrs of a traditional ABA, (my son having learnt some skills but
little generalization), we've switched to the DTT-NET type of teaching.
MY QUESTIONS (I've put them on top, so they don't get lost in the rest of
the mail)
============
1. MY SON ALSO KNOWS (supposedly!) A BUNCH OF ACTIONS (not at all
generalized). HOW DO I INCORPORATE THE EASIER ONES ON THE BOARD & HOW DO WE
ROTATE THE SD's etc FOR THIS. What SD'd do we use for Actions.
2. HOW DO YOU PUT THINGS LIKE TARGET PLAYSKILL or ACTIVITY ITEMS (drawing,
tracing etc) on the board. Or do you even need to put them on the board.
3. Experienced Parents, please give me suggestions on how to improve our
whiteboard setup.
4. Can others also post as to what they are putting on their boards (details
please). It would be really useful to the rest of us.
********************************************************************************
After a lot of pondering, this is what I came up with to put on the
whiteboard.Right now to get him used to the style, we are only doing
"mastered" items but concentrating on rotating SD's etc..
The sections I have are.
Motor Imitation
===============
I picked out just 5 actions & will rotate them out each week. THe motor
actions I picked are a combo from my previous program and the list given at
the back of the ABLLS). One from each category - Gross Motor Arm Movements;
Gross Motor Leg movements; Head Movements; Object manipulation, Fine
Discrimination (eg: 1 vs 2 fingers on nose); Hand Fine Motor; Actions that
involve going a little distance (1 ft), doing something & coming back;
Continously chained actions eg: clap, touch nose, open mouth all in a row;
Crossing over action (eg: arms crossed over chest). My son will imitate
pretty much any motor action and so the idea is just to give the therapists
a quick reference (for fillers) on the board when they want to throw in
something. I was finding earlier that everyone was asking him to just touch
nose and wiggle his fingers & nothign else coz that is what the consultant
demonstrated.
REceptive Instrutions
=====================
(I picked some 5 he knows and put them there. I will change them each week.
These again will serve as fillers)
- Clap
- Knock
- Jump ... etc
Intraverbals
============
(More filler intraverbals - stuff he knows. Hopefully at some point we will
be able to really expand the RFFC's to intraverbals instead of just rote
learnt stuff)
What's you name
What's your last name
How old are you
Your name is ____
Fill in blanks of songs eg:
Barney is a ___
Twinkle Twinkle Little ___
Itsy Bitsy ___
Target List
===========
[Since my son knows a bunch of labels, I selected just a few as targets
initially & listed them. I assume that once my son has mastered the differnt
things about them in this teaching style, our targets will (hopefully!)
change and become more complex. ]
Dog
§ Animal
§ Says Woof Woof
Horse
§ Animal
§ Says Neigh
§ For riding
Duck
§ Animal
§ Says Quack Quack
§ Swims in water
Milk
§ Food
§ Drink it
§ In a cup
§ White
Chips
§ Food
§ Eat it
§ In a bowl
Bread
§ Food
§ Eat it
Chair
§ Furniture
§ Sitting
Bed
§ Furniture
§ Sleeping
Pillow
§ Sleeping
§ You sleep with your head on a pillow.
Cup
§ For drinking
§ Put milk/ water in it
Then I listed the SD's to be used. Everyone (includes me) seems to fall back
on "Give me" and "What is it" and it becomes rote leart for my son. So this
serves as a reminder that we can use different SD's
REceptive Tact
========= ====
§ Touch § What/Who is it/this
§ Give me § Can you tell me about this
§ Point to § What is this thing/ item / category
§ Show me § This is your/a ___?
§ Find § Name this
§ Where is § What do you see
§ Pick up
§ Get me
§ Can I have
§ Can you show me
Category
========
§ .. something that's an animal § What animal is this
§ .. another animal § Cow is an ____
§ Name an animal
§ Name another animal
Function
========
§ .. something for drinking § What is a cup for
§ .. something you drink with § Can you tell me what we do with a cup
§ Show me drinking § What do we/you do with a cup
§ Show me what you do with cup § What do we/you use/need for drinking
§ A cup is for _______?
Color
========
§ .. yellow bus (color + item) § Color?
§ .. something that's blue § What color is this?
§ What color is this thing?
§ What color is this item / category?
Animal Sounds
=============
§ .. something that goes/says moo § Which one says moo moo
§ .. an animal that says/goes baa § What vehicle goes choo choo
§ What do you hear (play sound)
§ Cow says/goes ____?
The SD's are arranged so that the ones on the left are the receptive portion
of the RFFC and the ones on the right column are the FCC (expressive) portion.
The series of dots in front of the receptive SD's means you can use any of
the above receptive SD ie: Give me/ Find/ TOuch/ Point ...etc
We don't have a section called Mands coz my son can pretty much ask for
anything if he knows its label or just a verbal prompt is enough if the item
is new (of course with lots of trials). And his interests (or lack thereof)
change so much on a daily basis that its impossible to track/list them.
One of the problems my son had in my previous program was that he was not
picking up the concept of "attributes" at all. eg: big/small, prepositions,
same/different. He would seemingly get them and then the drill would totally
deteriorate and collapse (put on hold) and we were left with one
confused/frustrated/bored kid. I'm hoping that using this style we will
slowly be able to reintroduce them and he will actually understand what he
is doing. My son has learnt to hate therapy over the last 2 years Z(gets
frustrated if he's called to the table) and so we are really prompting most
responses to ensure a high success rate so that he gets to the reinforcement
quickly with the idea that he pairs responding with "good things" and is
less frustrated.
Then I have a little section in CAPITAL LETTERS
Reminders
=========
Pair
Instructional Control
Don't get him frustrated
Prompt immediately
NO Sd. VOICE
I have a 4 ftx 6 ft whiteboard (cost $99 at Office Depot) and all this info
did not take up the whole board. The way it is arranged is.
MOTOR ACTIONS ReceptiveSD Tacts Intraverbals
xx xx xx xx
xx xx xx xx
xx Category xx
xx xx xx xx
REceptive COmmands xx xx xx
xx Functions
xx xx xx REMINDERS
xx xx xx xx
xx Animal Sounds xx
xx xx xx
Target List Colors
Dog xx xx
- Animal
- Says Woof
Horse
-
- etc..
This stuff is still totally new for us and today is the first morning we
tried it with the whiteboard set up. (THe good news is that the therapist
who came this morning really liked it. Bottomline is it should work for my
son).
Thanks in anticipation for response to my questions & I also hope this info
helps some other parent.
Sai Ram

When presenting materials for same/different, be sure that your child
does not memorize the answers. For example, if you present 2
pictures
of a ball and 1 picture of a dog, the dog is "different". Be sure to
then present 2 pictures of dog and 1 picture of ball. This time the
ball will be "different".
Tina
http://ConnectTheThoughts.com

Hello! Anyone who can spare some time ASAP - could you please e-mail me
privately in response to this post. My son has received "traditional" ABA
for 4 years through a fabulous center that provides my in-home therapists.
After attending the conference, I have asked them to allow me to run a
"six-month trial" using VB methods for my son. After which, the director
will be deciding whether or not this is something the center should pursue as
their standard curriculum - and receive intensive training for all the
families they serve. The director (surprise!) knew all about Skinner's
Analysis of Verbal Behavior - took the course - knew all the terminology
(mands, tacts, intraverbals, etc.)
So here's the deal - before he approves ANYTHING, he is coming WEDNESDAY (4
1/2 days from now) in order for me to give him a presentation of the methods,
data keeping, and answer any of his questions. I have two hours of his time.
I want this presentation to be soooo organized and efficient that he CAN'T
SAY NO!!!! I have the data book 1/2 finished...have training packets already
together for the therapists/supervisors, have acquired a clicker/counter,
etc. Now I need to prepare a "mini" white board! I noticed another person
has posted on this...WHAT EXACTLY GOES ON THE BOARD AND WHAT IS THE MOST
EFFICIENT SETUP? Does it go by each skill area? Or by modules? Or both? I
need this info as quickly as possible...after 4 years and one major
regression, I feel I'm losing my "window of opportunity" and want to change
his programming to "shake things up" and get him flying! He is considered a
level 4 profile - intermediate to advanced learner. We have completed the
ABLLS assessment and chosen our goals in each area...I'm so ready for this!
EXCEPT FOR THAT BOARD!
All suggestions are welcome and so VERY appreciated!
All my Best,
Victoria

To those of you that have attended Dr. Carbone's workshop #2,
What happens after that? I understand that you come away with about 6
months of programming but what do you do if you run into problems during
the recommended activities? And then what do you do after you complete
that program?
Since there is a lack of consultants, what do you do? Would you then be
trained enough to do your own programming?
As the parent of an 'older' child, I am concerned about a lack of support
(for lack of any other way to put it). The list is great, but having been
at this for almost 6 yrs, I can tell you that all kinds of unique
situations come up.
Regards, Valerie who is not trying to criticize but is genuinely wondering
mailto:macko420@...

In a message dated 5/12/2000 3:48:52 AM Central Daylight Time,
DTT-NET@egroups.com writes:
<< What is everyone using to post their programs?
In addition to our big dry erase board (which we use only for things that are
changed frequently like 3D Tacts, RFFC, vocal imitation words/phrases), we
also have laminated posterboard. Fingernail polish remover works pretty well
at getting the ink off. Good luck.
Mickey

We laminated some poster boards and use the "Vis a Vis" wet erase markers.
It works perfectly and is much less expensive than a white board. The only
thing you have to be careful of is a sweaty hand when you try to change
parts of the board and not the whole thing. I usually put a book under my
wrist to prevent this (I learned the hard way). I use baby wipes to was it,
because you can just throw tham away afterwards. We change our cue cards at
least once a week and this works perfectly!
Cindy

Dear Listers,
If anyone has any good ideas for doing spread sheets for toileting, please
share. I am doing a tracking process, how many dry days, clean, etc., and
we need a good way to plot. I am also trying, very recently to track under
what situations, he is not successful. He has two types of urine accidents,
one behavioral and the other lack of communication/opportunity. More often,
it is testing and behavioral. In general, he's improved a lot lately, but I
would like to graph it, and see who, when and how often, and then compare
it weekly or monthly.
Jennie

Hello,
I am posting for a family I work for in SW Houston. We are interested in
finding another therapist to work with an almost 5 year old girl whose
program is consulted by Dr. Carbone. Any interested persons please contact
me either by e-mail or phone
Kelly10115@...
281-870-0985
Thanks!
Kelly

Hello Folks,
I should be annoyed. Nobody helped with my Association Question, but I am
delighted to tell you that I persevered, tried, and where we thought it
might take a couple weeks to get the idea and master some reliably, by the
next afternoon, Isaac was putting association cards together lickety split,
and the next day following that in a field of three, and acting like this
was a breeze. So, he's got that idea down, and I am working on expanding it
and we're working on objects in the natural environment as well, taking it
to the next step. However, now we come to a new program need. Isaac can
match till the cows come home as we say, but we have never taught the
concept of DIFFERENT or does not match/belong.
Perhaps, somebody can tell me how they started teaching this concept.
Is it an important one? Ideas please.
Jennie "Isaac's mom"

Could anyone give me any information on starting up a Jericho-type school
program? Dr. Carbone gave us the name of a Randy Wells in Texas to contact.
Does anyone have her email address? We are very frustrated up here in
Massachusetts as the public schools seem to have NO IDEA whatsoever of how
to teach our children. Do you think we could get this type of program
implemented within the public schools or would we need to do this completely
privately? If anyone has any information to share, please let me know.
Thanks and happy manding,
Mary Bai
Hanover, MA
whose (low verbal) son is up to 300 mands so far today and it's only 230pm!
I love this approach!

Has anyone tried the Descripto Dinos Vocab Boards in the SuperDuper
catalog??? I am thinking of buying this for helping with RFFC. You
can find it at www.superduperinc.com
Basically it is a game board of approximately 70 pictures per card
which comes with MANY dinosaur tokens and a spinner which has the #'s
1, 2, 3, and 4. The child has to put his token on a picture on the
game board and spin the spinner. Whatever number the spinner lands on
is the # of attribute the child has to say about the picture. For
example, if the child puts a token on the picture o