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What’s next? Freebies! & Cheat Sheets
43 Plays11 months ago
This episode I have my very first guest, Ashleigh!
We are going over the significance of the first few episodes and why it is so important to understand behavior before we can attempt to change it. We also discuss the next series I want to cover which is all the fun and fabulous ways we can reinforce behavior.
I want listeners to understand the difference between a positive comment and a positive intervention. There are so many ways we can infuse positivity and reinforcement into learning new behaviors and skills and I want that information out there so we can all start to be more positive when it comes to changing/shaping behaviors.
Learning new skills can be fun for kids and fun to teach when we are equipped with the right tools and strategies!
Also very exciting news: We have created a new section on my website where you can access cheat sheets and different templates for the information I provide on each episode! These will certainly help keep everyone on the same page.
Check them out at: www.uncomplicatebehaviorpodcast.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to Behavior Science Simplification
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey there, I'm Crystal. I'm a behavior analyst and I'm here to help you uncomplicate the complicated world of behavior. We are going to get into all things behavior here. Strategies, interventions, support, data, assessments, the good, the frustrating, and especially the complicated. I'm a behavior analyst who loves to educate, be positive, and most importantly, be proactive.
00:00:40
Speaker
This podcast is your place to learn more about behavior analysis and the beautiful benefits that come with being positive and proactive.
Meet Ashley and Origins of Access Behavior Solutions
00:00:48
Speaker
This is your uninterrupted time to talk behavior with your bestie. So grab your headphones, your walking shoes, or pull up that comfy chair and get ready to learn.
00:01:00
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Today we have our first ever guest, Ashley. Ashley has been working with me since the start and creation of both Access Behavior Solutions and Uncomplicate Behavior. Neither of these spaces would be functional without Ashley. She has literally helped me plan, create, and publish these spaces.
00:01:20
Speaker
And I wanted to invite Ashley here today in this space with me to really go over and dive a bit deeper into what the past couple episodes have covered. I want to talk a little bit about what you can expect from this podcast, why I started this podcast, and what we can look forward to as we move through the different series that I want to cover.
00:01:40
Speaker
So Ashley, thank you so much for joining us today. Let's dive right on in. Thank you, Crystal, for that lovely intro and for inviting me to join in today. Let's start with why you chose to create this space.
Functional Perspective in Behavior Science
00:01:52
Speaker
Well, I wanted to create this podcast to provide a space for families and teams that I've worked with to have a place where they can access information about behavior analysis so they can build their own set of skills and understanding about behavior. And this is really important because
00:02:08
Speaker
When we look at behavior, we want to look at it from a functional perspective. And I think a lot of times we are thrown off by what the behavior is doing to the environment, so the stresses that sometimes those behaviors cause. And what I want for listeners, for parents, for caregivers, teachers,
00:02:28
Speaker
is to be able to look at behavior from a functional perspective and say, oh, that, that's escape. I see that that's escape and now I need to teach this new skill or I see that that's attention. So I realize I need to be a little bit more proactive when I teach that skill. There's a lot of frustration when it comes to behavior, especially with challenging behaviors. And I really want a place to empower parents and caregivers
00:02:54
Speaker
with the educational to look at behavior from a functional perspective, to really look at behavior like a behavior analyst does, and when different behaviors occur to know exactly what specific strategies will work based on that function.
00:03:08
Speaker
I think a lot of times when it comes to behaviors, we want to just jump really quickly into the strategy and we want the answers. So a lot of times when I present a functional behavior assessment to a team, they're like, yes, all this information is great. Can we skip right through to the recommendations and the interventions? And I'm like, no, no, no, wait. We have to understand why this is happening. So again, I think a lot of times we want to jump straight to the strategies and interventions.
00:03:38
Speaker
If we don't recognize the functions, some of those strategies and interventions become
00:03:45
Speaker
ineffective. Right. Since listening to these episodes and just working with you over the years, I've come to understand that it's not just learning the strategies, but about understanding how the strategies work and how to apply them yourself. We know that behavior is always changing and it's nice to feel equipped to handle those changes as they arise.
Proactive Skills Teaching and Reinforcement
00:04:05
Speaker
Exactly. So when we understand that the behavior occurs for a reason, we can face those challenging behaviors and recognize them
00:04:13
Speaker
for what they are and they're typically a communication breakdown or we need to recognize that as a need and for us as caregivers or providers is to really teach that new skill. What is that new skill that we need to teach them or if it's a skill that they already have, how can we further reinforce that
00:04:33
Speaker
and prepare them to use that skill. So I don't wanna jump straight into strategies with this space because I really want to empower caregivers to have that foundational knowledge so that they can learn how and when to apply all of these wonderful strategies. Oh yeah, as a parent myself, as soon as there is a problem or challenging behavior, I go straight to searching for that tip or trick to get the quick fix.
00:05:00
Speaker
And that's not necessarily the wrong thing, right? There are a ton of great strategies and tools that can be applied, but we might not get that behavior change that we want to see because that strategy may or may not be reinforcing the behavior.
00:05:16
Speaker
It could be the right strategy, but it could be used at the wrong time. Since we're using it at the wrong time, then it makes it ineffective because we might be reinforcing that attention seeking behavior by providing the attention instead of implementing that proactively. Understanding the why the behavior occurs is really critical to using the strategies correctly.
Creating Accessible Resources for Behavior Science
00:05:38
Speaker
In episode two, I reviewed the functions of behavior and I just am realizing and listening back to it that there's a lot of information and listening to it might not be enough. So I'm working right now on creating some cheat sheets for every episode so that the information can be at hand and it could be tangible for people to reference.
00:06:00
Speaker
Oh, I think that's really valuable because having information on hand that teams and families can refer back to is nice. This will help keep the information handy, whether that's to use it to be proactive or to problem solve a situation that happened earlier. I can see myself putting these printouts in a notebook for easy access.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, I can definitely see you putting this in a notebook. You know, your love for notebooks and organization has really spilled over to me and I'm grateful because now I have notebooks for everything. So I have my podcasting notebook and I have my Access Behavior notebook, which I find funny because now I get really mad if I accidentally write in the wrong one.
00:06:37
Speaker
but you know what this does remind me of is having these and this is kind of what led me into thinking about this when i was re-listening to episode one is that i worked with a teacher in south bay that i was doing a lot of consulting with at their site and he asked me
00:06:52
Speaker
For a printout of everything that i was going over when i was doing this training with him and his paraprofessionals and i'm like okay fine i could write this all down and make it you know just adapt it for you i was like he's never gonna use these like nobody's ever gonna use this this template and the next day when i showed up to his classroom he had all of these printed out kind of like on the side partition of his desk.
00:07:15
Speaker
And he used them all the time, literally in the middle of like a challenging behavior, he would like ask one of the pairs in the classroom like, Hey, what is the strategy for this because everything was written down and it was really tangible. And that really did trigger me to like start to create more tangible documents for the teams that I work with for the families that I support so they can just have
00:07:39
Speaker
You know, kind of the set of like, here, this is, I might not use it every day. I'm not going to sit here and study it when my kids go to bed, but it's, there's a reference and
Consistency in Behavior Strategies Across Caregivers
00:07:49
Speaker
I need it. And I think that that helped everybody in the team really stay very consistent.
00:07:55
Speaker
One of the first questions that I got from a listener was about keeping everybody on the same page. So how do we get grandma, how do we get grandpa and especially how do we get babysitter all responding in the same way? Because we want the reaction to be consistent, right? And the reaction, what we learned in episode four, the reaction is what we are providing as a result of the behavior. So we want that to be really consistent.
00:08:20
Speaker
But more importantly than that, we want what we're doing proactively to set the child up for success or set that student up for success. We want everything to be really consistent. So when the parent reached out to me and asked me that question, I immediately thought like, oh my gosh, my proactive strategies document, that template would be really helpful to have as a reference for listeners because I send this template out to
00:08:50
Speaker
basically every team that I've presented to at an IEP meeting when I talk about keeping things consistent and supporting generalization of skills, I always reference this sheet. In fact, today I was on an IEP meeting and we were talking about this and I was like, oh, I have a template I can send you out for this. So this recording, this actually reminds me that I need to send that to the team. But I think that having everything at hand is going to be really, really important.
00:09:16
Speaker
And just to get back to where that parent requested this information, having these documents or these templates, I realized is going to be really important for not just the teams that I work with and the families that I support or the FBA's that I complete, but really just having this information for all of
00:09:39
Speaker
the listeners, anybody who's interested in learning about behavior, and especially that parent that reached out to me and said, hey, how do you keep everybody consistent? How do we keep the school team consistent with the grandparents, with the babysitter? And so having this resource for every listener out there is just really important. So I'm really excited to put those documents together and get them ready for everybody to access.
Future Topics and Misconceptions in Behavior Strategies
00:10:06
Speaker
Well, now that you've already given us a little glimpse into the upcoming cheat sheets, any chance you'll indulge us in a little sneak peek as to what else is to come? Absolutely. I really want to get into everything behavior here. I'm really excited about sharing information, and we touched on some of the foundational knowledge, kind of what's important to go over, like starting this journey.
00:10:29
Speaker
And I think right now I really wanna go over reinforcement and the different ways we can use positive reinforcement in our everyday life that is purposeful and just a little bit more intentional.
00:10:42
Speaker
Because we reinforce our kids every day with affirmation, with love. We have that connection with our kids, and we're constantly building that rapport and that relationship. And that is a critical first step, right? But if we are intentional with using positive reinforcement to change behavior, we need to learn how to use it in a way that will shape the behavior. So using positive reinforcement as a consequence to behavior
00:11:11
Speaker
is when we see behavior patterns start to change. So I really want to start with some of the basics on positive and negative reinforcement and punishment because I feel there's always some confusion on what they are and how they work. For example, the other day I was doing an observation at a school and the team that I was
00:11:37
Speaker
I wasn't working with them. I was doing the assessment. But the team that I was working with said, oh, we're recommending this placement for this child. And I said, well, I have a lot of concerns on their use of punishment in that placement. And the look that I got from that staff member was thinking that they used spanking or something like that. And I explained what punishment was. And then she was able to make that connection a little bit more.
00:12:07
Speaker
Actually, I've said that at a lot of placements, but I think there's some confusion around that that I really want to get to. I mean, I don't know, Ashley, what do you think when I say punishment? I just want to get your take on that. What's your first thoughts? Off the top of my head, the first thing that comes to mind would be like a physical or something that's very negative.
00:12:26
Speaker
It was something, yeah, just awful, like an angry expression. And that's definitely not what it means. So I really want to get into that and clear that up for people. But then I also want to get into
00:12:39
Speaker
more of some of the more popular behavior analytic strategies that are commonly used, but also consistently misused. So differential reinforcement, there's several ways we can implement that strategy. And I really want to teach parents and caregivers, educators how to use that system of reinforcement just really positively.
00:12:59
Speaker
I want to go over behavioral skills training because I briefly did it in episode four, but it's definitely not enough because that's a huge concept and I love it. I use it every day. I want to get into use of the self and match and token economies because again, those are some systems that are pretty widely used in school systems, but I commonly see that they're being misused.
00:13:21
Speaker
And so I want to clear that up. I want listeners to really understand what is positive reinforcement, how to use it and how to recognize when it's not being utilized correctly, because those are some of the biggest things in reinforcement. So reinforcement is going to end up being a big series, probably bigger than some of this, you know, the last couple of episodes we talked about. But again, I want people to use positive reinforcement as a consequence for behavior change or for behavior.
00:13:51
Speaker
so that we can get that behavior. Because I think that positive reinforcement really gets mixed up with positive affirmations. I love that. This concept of positive reinforcement has been thrown around a lot. And it's such a big buzzword right now. But it hasn't exactly been broken down in a way that I can truly have a deep enough understanding of it in order to apply it properly. Exactly. And I think I get the opportunity to work with so many different school teams, so many different parents, so many different families.
00:14:20
Speaker
And it's like, I see this written, I see the use of positive reinforcement on a behavior intervention plan, for example. And I'm like, what does that look like? What does that mean to you? Because how I see positive reinforcement is definitely different how you see it.
Positive Reinforcement in Behavior Plans
00:14:35
Speaker
And so when we just have positive reinforcement listed on a behavior intervention plan, I always ask teams like, what does that look like to you? And how is that playing out? Because a lot of the times,
00:14:46
Speaker
positive reinforcement when it's used is like, oh, good job. Or I like the way you did that. And I'm like, yes, that is positive praise. But when we use positive reinforcement, that looks a little bit differently, especially when we're using tools like the token economy, or we're using specific interventions like differential reinforcement, or we're using a set of skills like behavioral skills training,
00:15:12
Speaker
And so I'm really excited to get into this new series where we can really dive deep into what that looks like because my hope is that a parent or a caregiver or a paraprofessional or even a teacher in the classroom can say, I use positive reinforcement and this is how I use it. These are the interventions.
00:15:31
Speaker
But then also, so that if we see that written somewhere, we can advocate the correct use of it. Like, oh, I see you're giving my child positive praise, but what are we doing in terms of the intervention? Because wouldn't that be confusing for you a little bit? You're like, oh, yeah, they're using positive reinforcement on my child. And I'm like, what does that look like? You'd be like, let me go back and ask them. Right.
00:15:55
Speaker
For example, like if a parent's reading a behavior intervention plan, we want them to say, okay, great. You're using positive reinforcement. What is that? Yeah. Give me an example. Let me see what you're doing. Exactly. Yes. Like you want to have that power to create a meaningful conversation.
00:16:13
Speaker
with your IEP team or with the babysitter that I'm sure we all desperately need, right? We all need our babysitters. We all need our caregivers, but it becomes a struggle when we try to keep everybody on the same page. And so having that proactive strategies template will tell the caregivers, grandma, grandpa, the babysitter, your home team, whoever's
00:16:38
Speaker
helping your child to say, this is what we do proactively, and this is how we respond and support behavior positively. And when people, I said this in an IEP meeting that I was in today.
00:16:50
Speaker
When people have the tools and they have the knowledge, they do it and it gets done and it gets generalized. The problem typically comes in when everybody's doing something different and they're like, well, we tried this today and that worked, but what we did yesterday didn't work. And I'm like, oh my goodness, don't go rogue. You're going rogue on the plan. Everybody's trying different things. So really getting everybody together.
00:17:15
Speaker
and having that solid concept of positive reinforcement is really, really, really important. So I'm really excited to get those cheat sheets out. I'm really excited to upload those and send everybody there so that they can access those and use that just as a tool. This is especially true when we're looking at using all of these different strategies, right?
Applying Insights to Parenting and Behavior
00:17:38
Speaker
So I really am excited to just get into the specific use of these strategies
00:17:44
Speaker
how to use them and when to use them and just kind of opening that door for everyone.
00:17:51
Speaker
Well, I'm sure there will be many more concepts that will go over in the future that will be eye-opening. And I'm excited to see the impact this creates in my parenting and how I will approach behaviors in my household. Oh my gosh. Thank you, Ashley, for being here, for running through all this with me. I'm really glad we got the chance to go over the significance of some of the foundational knowledge and just touch on where I'm heading with this podcast. I absolutely loved having you here.
00:18:17
Speaker
And I can't wait to have you back so that we can go over the big takeaways from the next series that we're moving towards on reinforcement.
00:18:25
Speaker
See you guys next time. Well, you did it. Another step closer to uncomplicating behavior. I'm so proud of you for taking the time to learn more about behavior analysis. Still interested in learning more? Or have a question or topic that you'd love some answers to?
Engagement and Listener Involvement
00:18:42
Speaker
Head over to uncomplicatebehaviorpodcast.com for today's show notes. Submit a question or topic you would love to hear about and subscribe to my email and podcast so you never miss a new episode. I created this podcast for you.
00:18:54
Speaker
and I want it to serve you well, so don't be afraid to reach out to me directly.