Dr. Alan Schnee is a Ph.D., BCBA-D, consultant, author, and speaker. Here, we talk to Dr. Schnee all about matching. As professionals, we often teach simple matching skills to our students, but matching can also be used as a vehicle to teach many other things. Here, we discuss when to introduce higher-level matching techniques, how BCBAs can incorporate more creative thinking in our programs, and more.
Did you know that when we talk about increasing a student’s sentence length, this is sometimes referred to as the MLU, or the mean length of utterance? We’re giving you some easy tips on how to increase mean length of utterance, or sentence length.
Life skills are a critical part of the success of our students and help them to grow into independent adults. Here, we cover the best ways to assess life skills and how to make a plan of which skills our learners need to know. We also discuss why it’s important to start at a young age and how to use assessments.
A lot of the students that we work with often have trouble with emotional regulation. So what are the best ways that we can help them learn this really important life skill? Today’s topic is all about emotional regulation in autism.
Emily Varon is a BCBA and sleep specialist who has been diving into a new passion: burnout in the field of ABA. We discuss some of the things that contribute to burnout, like a lack of supervision and being stretched too thin. We also talk about how to tap into our reinforcers, the challenges new and seasoned BCBAs face that can lead to burnout, and potential strategies and solutions to ease overwhelm.
How do I get started with ABA? As BCBAs we’re trained to use assessments. However, it can be a challenge to transfer those assessments into curriculum. Assessments are not meant to be curriculum, so we’ve developed a really easy-to-use checklist that we use with a new student as an initial intake.
A behavior contract is a written agreement that outlines expectations, timeframes, and rewards for specific behaviors. Behavior contracts give students ownership over their lives and access to their own reinforcers. We discuss the benefits of this strategy, how to introduce the concept to students, and tips for making your behavior contracts a success.
Are you looking for employment as an ABA therapist or a BCBA? There are a lot of service providers out there. Some are great and some not so much. So to make sure that you’re joining a company that aligns with your values, you’ll have to ask the right questions. Today’s topic is all about what BCBA interview questions to ask.
Valori Neiger is an autism feeding specialist who started a blog as a way to help families and providers serving the population. We chat with Valori about how feeding falls under ABA, the biggest challenges to feeding when working with kids with autism, and suggestions on how to work on feeding flexibility. We’re also hosting a webinar with Valori on Friday, February 24th at 12pm EST – head to our website for more details.
All kids have trouble waiting for things that they want. They even have trouble waiting in line at the grocery store. Waiting is a huge skill. So once our learners have mastered some early instructions, like come here or sit down, then we typically start working on the skill of responding to waiting. Today’s topic is all about how to teach children to wait.
