Episode 207: What to Do When Kids Struggle to Engage in Play
Play is a fundamental part of childhood. So what happens when a child struggles to engage? Here are practical strategies for supporting play.
RBT
Episode 206: Play Skills Through the Ages
Leisure skills, unlike developmental play, support lifelong engagement, independence, and quality of life. We explore how play skills evolve.
Episode 205: Independent Activity Schedules
An independent activity schedule (IAS) is a tool made up of pictures or written cues that guides a child through a series of tasks on their own. They promote independence and empower leaners to manage their own routines.
Episode 204: What Drives Challenging Behaviors?
As BCBAs, each day we walk a fine line between keeping children safe while ensuring our interventions are compassionate, ethical, and effective. Prioritizing safety in behavior management is a non-negotiable and it doesn’t have to come at the expense of empathy.
Compassion-First: How to Approach Challenging Behaviors with Understanding
As BCBAs, part of our job is to target challenging behaviors. Here, we discuss how to do so in a compassionate way so that our learners feel safe. Our conversation includes how reframe our perspective to a more compassionate approach, how to build trusting relationships, and how to make environments more enriching and fun.
Episode 203: Balancing Safety and Compassion in Interventions
As BCBAs, each day we walk a fine line between keeping children safe while ensuring our interventions are compassionate, ethical, and effective. Prioritizing safety in behavior management is a non-negotiable and it doesn’t have to come at the expense of empathy.
Episode 202: Proactive & Reactive Strategies for Challenging Behaviors
Challenging behaviors don’t just happen out of nowhere. They have patterns, triggers, and underlying causes. The key to success is all about preventing them in the first place instead of reacting to the behaviors when they occur. Here, we discuss how to use both proactive and reactive strategies to effectively reduce these behaviors with our learners.
Episode 201: Skills-Based Treatment for Challenging Behavior
When managing challenging behavior, our goal as behavior therapists is to reduce these behaviors and teach new skills. Here, we discuss how to do so without using strategies like extinction and planned ignoring. Through skills-based treatment, we not only reduce challenging behaviors but replace them with positive functional skills.
Episode 200: What Is Co-Regulation?
Before our learners can independently manage their emotions, they need to first master co-regulation. Here, we discuss how we can best help our learners master the skill of co-regulation and provide practical tips for making progress.
Episode 199: Teaching Kids About Emotions
For many children, understanding and expressing emotions can be a challenge. They may struggle with recognizing their own feelings, reading emotions in others, or knowing how to respond appropriately in different situations. The good news is that emotional awareness is a skill that can be taught, modeled, and practiced with the right strategies.