During the planning stages of working with children with autism, it is important to take time to think through the long-term implications of your program, look for potential negative side effects, and in general be very thoughtful before implementing something new.
But things change a bit when you are actually sitting with the child. Now, seconds matter. You don’t have time to hesitate and think through all your options. But new staff who generally know what to do, yet aren’t fluent with their skills, may hesitate out of fear that they might mess something up or be criticized for making an error.
When shaping a new skill, small errors are not likely to mess up a program, especially if you learn from them. If your prompt is off slightly, if you don’t reinforce at exactly the right time, or don’t say exactly the right thing, those mistakes can easily be corrected. But if people are afraid of even making small errors, training is sure to take MUCH longer than it should. Encourage people to “just do it.” Small errors can be fixed later.
Of course, supervisors to be clear on when staff should not “just do it,”–anything that would potentially create a safety issue, impact the dignity of the child, or hurt rapport in the relationship.
But as a general rule, when staff are in that awkward phase of having completed training and have demonstrated accuracy in implementing the skills, but are still not fluent or confident in their skills, “just do it” is usually great advice.