Commenting Rules and Clarification

Ten or so months ago when we started this blog, we never dreamed that our words would have such a profound impact on others. We are extremely grateful to you, our readers, whether you are a devoted follower, new fan, or just a random visitor.

Purpose

When we started blogging, our purpose was to extend our company mission to improve quality of life through effective intervention. We improve the quality of life in a number of ways:

• designing effective interventions for individuals with disabilities and children with various behavioral challenges
• training practitioners to provide better services
• assisting families by providing consultation, program reviews, and parent training
• providing professional resources to assist parents and practitioners

Professional Resource

Our blog is one of those professional resources. We offer advice, we review research, we provide examples of clinical success. This is a professional blog, not a personal one. We are not trying to become popular by being controversial or writing about controversial topics. There are plenty of other blogs available for that. With that said, we recognize that we will have readers who disagree with our philosophy and practice. In case you are new here (or in case you forgot), we will review our philosophy.

Philosophy

1. First and foremost, we are behavior analysts. We assess environmental influences on behaviors and we modify those environmental variables to increase desirable behaviors and to decrease challenging behaviors.
2. We are family members. We both love and care for individuals who are or who have been affected by a disability.
3. We assess before we intervene. We rule out underlying medical conditions, we rule out physical limitations, and we assess environmental influences including antecedents and consequences.
4. We always use reinforcement and other positive strategies and we use these approaches before we recommend punishment strategies.
5. We teach communication when an individual lacks the ability to communicate effectively.
6. We stress the importance of communicating clearly to individuals who may not understand or process spoken language in the same way.

Different Opinions

We welcome comments from people who disagree with our philosophy. However, we also know that some readers who post comments can be mean. Because of this, we choose to moderate comments. Comments we welcome:

1. Praise (we need reinforcement too)
2. Resources (if you have a resource that relates, please share)
3. Suggestions (we tried this, it may work for you)

We will not be mean to you so please do not be mean to us. If you disagree, please do so in a respectful way without name calling, insinuations, and other unnecessary behavior.

 

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