Preschool Life Skills

Our FREE journal club met on Monday night. We discussed Fallagant & Pence 2017. You may access the article here or here.

The introduction to the paper consisted of a nice review of some of the work done to date in this area. The authors discussed why the Preschool Life Skills are so essential. 

The authors also discussed using a Response to Intervention (RTI) model for teaching these skills. You can learn more about RTI here or here. Essentially, in Tier 1, skills would be taught to a larger group or entire class. In Tier 2, small group instruction would be provided to the students who didn’t acquire the skills in Tier 1. Then in Tier 3, 1:1 instruction would occur for the students who didn’t learn the skills in Tier 1 or Tier 2.

The research was scientifically sound in terms of demonstrating experimental control. The authors used a multiple baseline across behaviors and then replicated that over 6 students. Like most research, a few flaws existed. For example, by using a multiple baseline across behaviors, experimenters lose a little bit of experimental control when the student demonstrates response generalization to an untrained behavior.

The participants in the study may have come from a convenience sample which was most likely a university affiliated preschool program. Each of the special education teachers in the school held master’s degrees in special education. The assistant teachers all held bachelor degrees.

The data in the study consisted of measuring the life skills being taught: responding to name, requesting/manding adult attention, requesting/manding adult assistance, delay tolerance, denial tolerance, and independent versus prompted responses. The authors indicated they also collected data on challenging behaviors but those data were not presented in the paper. The authors also reported high IOA data as well as high fidelity data (which is not always reported).

The authors provided a great description of the modifications provided to students who did not acquire the skills in Tier 1, 2, or 3. For these students, this included the use of an AAC device (i.e., proloquo).

One of our big discussion points occured around the author’s use of least to most prompting during Tier 1. We discussed if the results would have been different had they used most to least prompting and decided this should be a point of focus in a future study!

Another area of discussion for us revolved around the authors’ use of only 8 trials per session. This hardly seemed like enough practice for a preschooler, let alone a pre-k student with disabilities (the children had autism, Down syndrome, or DD).

We discussed, and the authors mentioned, the use of AAC and whether the students would have acquired the skills in Tier 1 had the AAC been available during that phase of instruction.

We also discussed the lack of preference assessments and whether the authors’ use of social reinforcement may have been potent enough to reinforce skill acquisition.

And finally, we discussed the limited generalization observed to peers. Some of the kids generalized skills to the adults who are obviously more skilled than the peers. But we also discussed the fact that with such few learning trials (N=8), that the kids may not have developed fluency in the skills thereby limiting their ability to readily generalize the skills. And of course, the authors mentioned that they did not program for generalization so this may have impacted generalization as well.

Bottom line, these seem to be some essential skills that we could easily teach in classrooms to increase the social skills of students.

I have identified a few extra resources. First because of all the tolerance discussion, we should look at some of the original tolerance studies. The following studies utilized FCT combined with Tolerance training.

1. Bird, F., Dores, A. P, Moniz, D., Robinson, J. (1989). Reducing severe aggressive and self-injurious behaviors with functional communication training. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 94, 37-48.
2. Brown, K. A., Wacker, D. P., Derby, K. M., Peck, S. M., Richman, D. M., Sasso, G. M., Knutson, C. L., & Harding, J. W. (2000). Evaluating the effects of functional communication training on brief functional analyses of aberrant behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33, 53-71.
3. Carr, E. G., & Carlson, J. I. (1993). Reduction of severe behavior problems in the community using a multicomponent treatment approach. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26, 157-172. 
4. Day, M. H., Horner, R. H., O’Neil, R. E. (1994). Multiple functions of problem behaviors: Assessment and intervention. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27, 279-289.
5. Fisher, W. W., Thompson, R. H., Hagopian, L. P., Bowman, L. G., & Krug, A. (2000).  Facilitating toleraance of delayed reinforcement during functional communication training. Behavior Modification, 24(1), 3-29.
6. Hagopian, L. P., Wilson, D., & Wilder, D. (2001). Assessment and treatment of problem behavior maintained by escape from attention and access to tangibles. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 34, 229-232.
7. Harding, J., Wacker, D. P., Berg, W. K., Barretto, A., & Ringdahl, J. (2005).  Evaluation of relations between specific antecedent stimuli and self-injury during functional analysis conditions.  American Journal on Mental Retardation, 110(3), 205-215.
8. McConnachie, G., & Carr, E. G. (1997). The effects of child behavior problems on the maintenance of intervention fidelity. Behavior Modification, 21, 123-158.
9. Symons, F. J., Fox, N. D., & Thompson, T. (1998). Functional communication training and naltrexone treatment of self-injurious behavior: An experimental case report. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 11, 273-292.

And here are some extra resources on Preschool Life Skills

1. Hanley et al 2007
2. Luczynksi & Hanly (2013)
3. Luczynski, Hanley, & Rodriguez (2014)
4. Beaulieu, Hanley, & Roberson 2012
5. Beaulieu, Hanley, & Roberson 2013
6. Hanley, Fahmie, & Heal 2014 (in headstart)
7. Francisco & Hanley (2012)
8. Robison, Mann, & Ingvarsson (in press)
9. Dogan et al 2017 (training parents)
10. Halfdanardottier, Sveinbjornsdottir & Ingvarsson (in process but looking at life skills in older students)
11. Ala’i-Rosales et al 2018
12. Fahmie & Luczynski 2018 (review of studies)

Read Full Post »

Inclusion Conference: Dubai Style

I am so excited to be in Dubai! I came to consult on a few feeding cases and The Child Learning and Enrichment Medical Center quickly planned for a conference on inclusion! Schools in Dubai are required to include children with disabilities so teachers are in need of information. I feel so fortunate to be a part of it! For my international readers, I look forward to meeting you in person.

For additional information on the inclusion conference, click here: http://www.childeimc.com/index.html

Read Full Post »

What Inclusion Teaches Us

Inclusion is not just for children with disabilities. Inclusion has something to teach each of us.

1. Inclusion teaches us how to be more accepting of others.

By learning and playing alongside of children with different abilities, children learn to accept everyone regardless of their adaptive equipment, computer assisted speech, hand flapping, or different facial features.

2. Inclusion teaches us how to be more tolerant of differences.

When children see that some students read better than others, and others run faster, and still others play the piano better, they learn to recognize that each person has something to offer. They also learn that everyone has an area for improvement. Soon, they recognize that differences are a good thing and that those differences are actually what makes the world a better place.

3. Inclusion teaches us how to help others who may need assistance.

Children learn to incorporate a variety of strategies to help each other. When they learn alongside children with different learning abilities, they are also learning how to help others succeed. Jesse Jackson said it best, “The only time you should look down on a person is when you are helping them get up.”

When Inclusion Does Not Teach Us

Dumping children with disabilities in to general education settings without the necessary supports and services causes harm to everyone.

• The student with disabilities does not receive the necessary support and as a result struggles in environment both socially and academically.
• The peers in the classroom are negatively affected when their teacher and classmate are not supported.
• And finally, the general education teacher needs training to know how to teach and include children with disabilities, how to manage a variety of challenging behaviors, and how structure a class that welcomes children of varying abilities.

We all have something to learn from inclusion. But each of us can only learn when the context supports learning. Educators and administrators in education have the responsibility of providing the appropriate supports and services to ensure that everyone can benefit from inclusion.

We are linking up again over at Yeah Write. Hop on over there and check out all the other great blog posts.

Read Full Post »

Inclusion is an Individualized Decision

Hi and welcome to What Works Wednesdays where we share a success story from one of our clinical cases. All names have been changed to preserve the privacy of the child and family. Our intent is to show readers how successful ABA can be.

Today’s post is about a 4-year-old little girl named Nahir who carries a dual diagnosis of Down syndrome and autism. Nahir began receiving early intervention services early in life. She began receiving ABA services shortly after she was diagnosed with autism. She began receiving ABA services from us last year.

Nahir’s parents wanted Nahir to be a community member in her neighborhood and they wanted her to learn alongside other children her age without disabilities. We designed an ABA program that consisted of about 10 hours per week of supported inclusion and 10-15 hours per week of 1:1 ABA instruction. Nahir responded to the intervention and began showing an interest in her peers at school and she began learning many skills at home. She even began using the toilet!

After several months, Nahir’s parents wanted to increase the amount of time in inclusive settings to 20 hours per week combined with 10-15 hours of 1:1 ABA. Nahir began engaging in non-compliant behavior and her rapid learning tapered off. We discussed our concerns about this change in learning with the parents and we encouraged them to consider making a change.

As a result, the family agreed to decrease inclusion time and increase 1:1 ABA time. Watch out! Nahir’s learning took off. She began imitating, her non-compliance decreased, and she started to communicate using her new iPad and Proloquo2go.

You see, inclusion is not all or nothing. Decisions about inclusion should be made individually for each child based on his or her unique situation.

We would love to hear from readers! Share your successful ABA and inclusion stories!

Read Full Post »