Author: Barry Morgenstern

In many movies there comes a point where the hero has to do something crazy. It has almost no chance to work! Why is he or she doing it? Well, there is no choice. If we don’t, everyone in the world, plane, building, or whatever is going to die. Often, the hero is arguing with a skeptic, but the skeptic gives in, and they go for it. It can’t get any worse. What other choice do we have?

As behavior analysts, we also tend to think that we can save the world, but we are taking a long view. By saving the world, we mean things like having an impact on climate change. I have been a professional behavior analyst for 25 years, and in my professional career, I have never faced a situation that where I had to do anything to save the world – at least not anything that required urgent and dramatic action.

But I have frequently used and faced end of the world logic:

“There are 200 aggressions per day, it can’t get any worse.”

“The school district said no to a 1-1, there is nothing else we can do.”

“We need to use X procedure. There is no other choice”

End of the world logic goes like this: There is crisis, and due to this crisis, we have no choice but to do (insert something risky and dramatic here).

In the heat of a meeting, stressful emergency situation, or other pressure, it is easy to fall victim to end of the world logic. We need to realize that end of the world logic is always wrong. Listen for it in difficult situations and it almost always appears.

End of the world logic seems convincing. We’ve seen it a thousand times in the movies.  When you hear EOTW logic, it should be a signal to slow down, think, call a mentor, or review the research literature. Poogi is always possible.

Maybe the solution proposed is a good one. Maybe not. But don’t accept EOTW logic as the reason for doing it.

The common saying “he can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?” refers to some people who can talk a really good game. But you put a kid in front of them, and they have no idea what to do.

Now in behavior analysis, we believe that “talking the talk” does help you “walk the walk.” If you learn the professional vocabulary and analysis, you will improve your ability to design and implement high quality programs. But there are limits to “talking the talk.” For example, the great football coach Lou Holtz once broke two of his fingers trying to demonstrate a football skill to one of the players. There are plenty of situations where you might be an expert – but that doesn’t mean you can implement.

In order to have a high-quality program, we need both someone who can “walk the walk” and someone who can “talk the talk.” That someone doesn’t necessarily have to be the same person.

When considering who should design and run behavior change programs, I think there are two common mistakes:

Mistake 1: We think that if people can’t “talk the talk,” they shouldn’t work with an individual. Some people are not very strong on academic-type tasks, but, wow, can they teach! Often a behavior change program can make great progress using someone like this – we don’t care that they don’t know what the hell a Conditioned Reflexive Motivating Operation is, as long as they are successful with the student (e.g., reducing problem behaviors and teaching important skills).

Mistake 2: We tend to be overly impressed with people who can “talk the talk.” There are plenty of people that sound great in the meeting, but you don’t want them anywhere near a kid – even to train or coach staff.

A key element in determining whether something works in the “real world” is how satisfied the parents are with the treatment. Sometimes we see objective evidence of success in therapy, but the behavior changes aren’t generalizing to natural situations. Of course, we want to see both. If it hasn’t generalized to the real world, we aren’t finished yet.

Something that is often overlooked is that it is possible (even common in my experience) to have objective evidence of success and parent satisfaction, but still not be on the right track. That’s because it is possible that we are getting fooled by positive data. What happens is that sophisticated behavioral interventions that are successful in the short-run can hide the long-term problems.

It is essential to obtain objective evidence of success in therapy. It is essential that parents are satisfied with the results. Parents are often thrilled when a short-term problem is solved. It is definitely a reason for celebration! But professionals should be aware that short-term success often doesn’t last. Our goal is to make a socially significant difference in the child’s life. That means focusing on the things that will last and matter in the long run. If the change doesn’t last, the parent satisfaction likely won’t either.

We need to have parent satisfaction and we need to make a socially significant difference in the child’s life. Often, we think of them as the same thing – they aren’t.

At the time of the initial referral, BCBA’s (Board Certified Behavior Analysts) are often asked to help solve a problem, and one of the first steps is to observe the problem in action. When we arrive to observe the problem, we often find a chaotic situation: The classroom doesn’t have enough staff, many other children are engaging in problem behavior, the child has three other siblings that are running around, the dog is constantly barking, the noise is overwhelming, etc.

Sometimes the chaos is planned and appropriate (Recess!) Other times the chaos is so out of control or the situation so inappropriate for the particular child’s needs that the only solution will be to remove the child from that environment. But most of the time, that’s not the case. Most of the time we can modify the chaotic environment enough for successful intervention to occur. Often, treatment can occur directly in the main environment of concern (e.g., classroom, home with siblings). If you are facing a situation that can be solved in the target environment- that’s usually best. You have a much better shot at generalization and maintenance.

Chaos can lead to a big conflict. Often chaos is just part of life, and the child has to learn to be successful in that environment. But chaos creates an assessment and treatment challenge. It makes is hard for behavior analysts to do the “analysis” part of their jobs. In addition, sometimes the proper treatment simply can’t occur in the target environment. What to do?

First, realize that you should definitely go observe the chaos. Sometimes we think that isn’t necessary. What am I going to be able to do in that environment? Let’s get him into a 1-1 environment; a clinic, private school, etc. But it is for a variety of reasons it is essential:

• You need to see the problem for yourself in order to ensure that the referral is legitimate, the problem really requires treatment, and it is an important enough problem that it is worth solving.
• You can ensure that the behavior is observable and measurable.
• You need to document the occurrence / non-occurrence of the behavior of interest in the target environment
• You need the baseline to evaluate the effects of any intervention.
• You need to ensure that the problem fits within your area of competence and you have the skills and experience needed to handle the problem
• Taking the time to observe can help build rapport with caregivers (e.g., parents, teachers, paraprofessionals, RBTs). If you don’t observe, sometimes they won’t believe that you really understand what they are going through on a day-to-day basis.

The problem comes when we spend too much time trying to do an analysis of the chaos. Often, we start doing a sophisticated analysis of antecedents, consequences, variability of the data, trends, functions, motivating operations, setting events, etc. Certainly, this process can work sometimes. There are examples in the behavior analytic literature. But someone wins the lottery too. Usually this process is unreliable and unproductive. Often the data vary by random uncontrolled variables: Today was an assembly. Mrs. Jones came for a sing-a-long. She does that 1X per month. Mom was out of mac & cheese. There was a fire drill. His brother doesn’t usually hang out, but today he wanted to play on the iPad too, etc. etc.

My suggestion on how to proceed is to set up the service in a way that allows you to be analytic and have useful data. This often means making changes to the environment or completely changing to a new environment allowing you to do the careful analysis you were trained to do. That means progressing systematically in a step-by-step fashion. Don’t try to do everything at once. We are going to start with these three behavior changes from 9:30-10:30 4X per week. Then we will move on to the next set of concerns. Keep going until you have a socially significant outcome.

Just remember that our goal is not success in therapy, but success in real life. If all you achieve is behavior change in therapy, and don’t have time for the generalization and maintenance, maybe this wasn’t an important enough problem to work on in the first place.

Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back famously said “Do or do not. There is no try.”

I have found many in the behavior analysis and education communities are taken with this advice. There are even motivational posters you can buy. In my view, it is good advice – but only some of the time.

Yoda’s advice is exactly right when talking about a behavior. It makes no sense to say that you’re going to try to eat healthy, go for a walk, write that report, or clean the garage. No one is forcing you to eat that slice of pizza or browse Netflix instead of doing what you need to do – “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Yoda’s advice is terrible when talking about a result that you don’t completely control. If we are talking about learning a skill that we don’t know yet, auditioning for the school play, or asking someone on a date, trying is the right behavior. You do your best, and if it isn’t successful you can Poogi on your next opportunity. Trying is often the critical behavior.

Although I admit it’s hard to prove experimentally, in my view a lot of escape-motivated problem behavior develops because of our tendency to follow Yoda’s advice. That’s great, you got 100%! You are so smart! You didn’t make any mistakes!

The key problem is the student will discriminate that there are situations where they are unlikely to be successful. The student is aware that they cannot do the behavior and reinforcement is not likely to occur for trying. Under those conditions, the student will often work to escape and avoid those situations. Not trying is the enemy of the POOGI. Granted, behavior analysis has developed effective procedures for handling that type of behavior, but that’s not what I’m writing about here.

What interests me is if we can prevent escape behaviors before they occur by reinforcing when students are trying hard – even when they aren’t “doing” initially – just “trying.”  If the student already has escape motivated problem behavior, can we treat it by reinforcing trying? Maybe…

For a non-behavioral account of this phenomenon, see this book.

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