Author: Barry Morgenstern

If you are passionate about the environment, you may decide to give up disposable coffee cups and instead bring a reusable cup when you frequent your favorite coffee shop. Seems like an obvious and easy way to do your part. But if you think about it, this is a somewhat effortful behavior including remembering to take the cup with you, washing the cup, and the awkwardness that can occur giving it to the barista in a busy coffee shop. Though if it helps the environment, you might be willing to do all that.

Unfortunately, whether reusable coffee cups are actually better for the environment is complicated. That’s because you have to consider the energy used in making the cups, the type of cup used, and the amount of soap and hot water you will use to clean your reusable cup. Depending on the details, it may be more environmentally friendly to use the disposable cup.

In my view, this type of analysis is something we should all think about whenever we try to make a behavior change. If this behavior change is successful, will it make a difference in the long run? Like trying to help the environment by using reusable cups, many BCBAs, parents, teachers, and others help children with autism make behavior changes that are likely to have very little long-term impact.

This can occur in a variety of ways:

• Behavior changes are made, but not generalized to the point where they have any practical impact on the person’s life.
• Behavior changes are made, but not sufficiently learned, so they do not maintain over time.
• Behavior changes are made without significant thought over whether the change is going to be useful to the client in the long run.

In my view, the way to think about this is to avoid changes that are likely to have a very small impact. We all have very limited time and attention. If you focus on a bunch of small changes, you likely will miss the big things that will have a major long-term impact. Select behavior changes that are likely to have a big long-term impact on the client’s life.

As for my coffee cup, I drink tea.

A common concern among parents, teachers, BCBAs, and administrators is that a particular child is failing to generalize the skill that he or she learned. It is great that she can speak in sentences in therapy, but how come she doesn’t do it in the cafeteria with peers? It is great that self-injury is at zero levels when his familiar para is present, but how come when she is out, we have so many emergencies? I’m thrilled that he is using the potty in the preschool classroom, but why won’t he do it at home?

Typically, we tend to assume that a failure to generalize is a characteristic of the learner, and it is part of his or her disability. But we know what happens when you assume things. In fact, just about everybody will have trouble with generalization under many teaching conditions.

The expected outcome of most behavior changes is that generalization will not occur.  Generalization takes careful planning, or it is unlikely to happen. Behavior analysis has developed a host of tactics that make generalization more likely. The key lesson for me is that changing a behavior is relatively easy. The hard part is making the behavior change work in everyday life. That’s why it is essential to not work on too many behavior changes at one time. You might be “successful” at making the changes, but the odds of them having practical value are low if you don’t have the time to do all the work necessary to make those changes practical in the real world.

In my experience, you are not likely to be rewarded for the behavior of doing a great job on relatively few behavior changes. In most situations in schools and with insurance companies, the rewards come for making a lot of successful changes. When people see a big fat reports with lots of pretty graphs, they are impressed. No one is measuring years later when those changes fall apart. You need to think about the long-term best interest of the client. That’s hard to do when the opposite behavior is often reinforced more immediately.

I do my best to try to eat healthy, but I do like to eat dessert sometimes. Unfortunately, it is easy to let that get out of hand. So, I make Chocolate Banana Ice Cream.  I used to add some sugar to this recipe, but I don’t need it any longer. I like it just like this, maybe a bit of almond milk instead of the water or splash of vanilla. I’m very happy with this dessert, and I look forward to having it from time to time. But other people who try it tend to say it is just OK, and aren’t really happy with it as their dessert. That’s because they are used to “real” desserts. So, if you try this dessert expecting it to taste like Ben and Jerry’s, you are going to be disappointed. Now, what I’ve learned is that if I go and have a real dessert once or twice, all of a sudden, I’m no longer happy with my chocolate banana ice cream. What works as a reinforcer partially depends on your alternative choices.

I think this can become a problem in ABA programs. It is, of course, essential to have a highly motivating environment when teaching. I used to argue that Ferris Bueller was right and that you can never go too far when it comes to providing a motivating environment. Frequently, I’ve seen children who are perfectly happy playing with toys, coloring, and a trampoline. But as soon as you introduce an iPad as an option, they lose all interest in everything else. This can be especially problematic when the effectiveness of the motivating environment wears off quickly and teams are struggling to find new effective reinforcers. That can lead to an arms race to find new, different and exciting choices all the time, which is rarely sustainable.

I think there are two lessons here. First, having a Goldilocks level of motivation is important. While it is essential that we work in highly motivating environments, I now believe that Ferris Bueller was wrong. You can go too far. But most of the time, people have the opposite problem – they don’t go far enough. That might be due to budgets, time constraints, or other practical problems. Inadequate motivation is a primary cause of failure. Just remember once you add the super exciting thing, like Ben and Jerry’s or an iPad, other things that used to be effective may no longer work well. Second, everyone gets bored from time to time. It’s both appropriate and effective to mix up the motivation once in a while. But if you constantly have to mix it up with something new and different all the time, there probably is a problem with your procedures. Troubleshooting that type of problem is a story for another day.

In traditional situations where a BCBA is providing supervision, there is usually a large focus on the BCBA teaching and managing others to implement certain skills for the benefit of a client. Often, supervision focuses on activities like Behavior Skills Training (BST), making sure the staff member is able to implement the appropriate skills, monitoring that the skills are being implemented correctly, and reinforcing when skills are implemented correctly. That’s, of course, appropriate. That’s why the BCBA is there.

In my view, this focus can sometimes lead to a problem. Specifically, there is so much emphasis on the staff following the direction of the BCBA, that frequently we find staff that are afraid to speak up when something is wrong. I have sometimes used special procedures to address this issue. And I think more needs to be done. It is one thing to speak up when something is glaringly wrong–that’s good. But that’s not enough. We’d like staff to be constantly on a Process of Ongoing Improvement. Nothing is ever perfect. So, you should be getting constant suggestions. Unfortunately, most of the time we aren’t.

But there is a negative side effect to encouraging the Poogi. When staff know you encourage suggestions, he or she is tempted to just “try it out” and see how it goes before discussing it with the BCBA first. Obviously inappropriate. I’ve also found that BCBA’s can get uncomfortable with staff who “challenge” them too much with alternative suggestions for what should be done in a particular case. This sometimes leads BCBAs who have gone down the path of encouraging the POOGI return to a more traditional path, and suggestions for improvement stop coming.

There really shouldn’t be any conflict between traditional BCBA supervision and POOGI activities. First, staff should be expected to follow the treatment procedures as they are written by the BCBA. There shouldn’t be changes made “on the fly.” But, at the same time, staff should be encouraged to make constant suggestions to how those treatment procedures might be improved. Then, the BCBA has to commit to getting back to the person and making decisions on those suggestions quickly before they are implemented. If the BCBA decides not to implement the suggestion, he or she should specify why. Of course, when you tell someone that you won’t implement their suggestion, you have to do it in a way that doesn’t punish future suggestions.

It is a lot of work, but it is one of the best ways to improve.

NOTE: I got this idea from this crazy non-behavior analytic book. You never know where good ideas will come from.

When the problem behaviors are out of control, everyone is unhappy, and people have been injured, someone is bound to say “well, at least it can’t get any worse.”  But they are almost certainly wrong. People are often surprised, that yes, it can get worse. Much worse. On the other hand, when things are going really well, someone is bound to say, “It can’t get any better.” That’s almost certainly wrong, too. Just because the clients are doing great and everyone is happy, it doesn’t mean dramatic improvement isn’t possible.

It is important not to think that, “it can’t get any worse” when things are going poorly because this type of logic is used to justify risky decisions. When, it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, it is time to slow down. Don’t worry about the long term right now. Make sure everyone is safe. Then, carefully evaluate your options.

It is equally important not to think, “it can’t get any better” when things are going well because it will prevent you from being on a Poogi. In all likelihood, that person is overconfident. No matter how well you are doing, dramatic improvement is possible as much as we hate to admit it. If you think you can’t get any better, trying to make improvements is worthless.

In ABA, the range of the quality of programming is large. Often, we think we might be at the extremes of one end or the other. That’s very unlikely. It is best to always assume you are somewhere in the middle, and you probably are. Just always be on a POOGI.