POOGI for ABA

If you missed it, here is Part 1.

In 1995, I submitted my master’s thesis on Functional Communication Training (FCT), and ever since I have usually been successful implementing FCT. FCT is still one of the most commonly implemented treatments for problem behaviors. Until about 5 years ago, I would not have believed that I had a lot of opportunity for Poogi in this area. I thought my practice was excellent.

Then, I heard Greg Hanley talk about the new research on Practical Functional Assessment. It has transformed my practice. I didn’t fully buy in at first, but now I’m convinced that it is a major breakthrough in the treatment of problem behaviors. A large number of studies have already been published, with more coming out all the time. At the time of this writing, Practical Functional Assessment is gaining in popularity, but not yet fully accepted by the field.

The basic ideas of Practical Functional Assessment are extremely simple, yet the difference in practice is profound. I’m convinced that BCBAs who adopt these procedures will achieve dramatically superior results as compared to using the available knowledge prior to the first Practical Functional Assessment study published in 2014.

Now, I take training courses to upgrade my skills as often as possible.  Currently, I’m taking the advanced course with Shannon Ward, which is fantastic. An amazing amount of progress has been made since 2014. In fact, I just took an all-day training last October, and many new improvements have been made since then.

I have always preached that no matter how good you are, there is always dramatic room for POOGI. In this training, Greg discusses his goal of dramatic improvement every six months. It is a great model for all of us to work toward achieving—a perfect example of the POOGI.

In graduate school, I took a class called Professional Writing. In that class, Bill Heward taught us to never use the word “paradigm” in our professional writing because the term is so often overused. So, in the twenty years or so since I took the class, I haven’t used it. The word was popularized by Kuhn, who argued that science sometimes goes through a dramatic paradigm shift when new data emerge that causes the field to change in dramatic ways, and even question the fundamentals. There is a lot of controversy over “paradigm shifts,” and I generally don’t blog about academic debates. But today, I’m breaking Bill’s rule about using the word paradigm because I do believe it is an essential concept.

The first time I experienced a paradigm shift is when I went to Vince Carbone’s Verbal Behavior Workshop in the late ‘90s. I already knew quite a lot about verbal behavior. I was conducting research on verbal behavior. We didn’t need CEU’s as there wasn’t a BCBA certification yet. But a group of us decided to go to Vince’s introductory workshop mostly because there was a student discount. At the start, it was so basic we almost walked out. But Vince had an incredible way of explaining things, and soon he started to cover concepts in a way that completely changed all of our views on how to teach. Many of the concepts Vince proposed went strongly against the established wisdom. It is hard to explain how widely criticized he was at the time.  But now, many of these same concepts are accepted as “obvious.” Even if you aren’t a “Verbal Behavior person,” in all likelihood the ideas Vince championed (along with others) influence what you currently do. I have no doubt that I became dramatically more effective as a BCBA due to studying Vince’s work. Over the years, I collaborated with Vince on a few projects, and he continues to influence many of my ideas on practice.

I think most of us tend to prefer a small amount of Poogi rather than paradigm shifts. That’s because if the POOGI is small, it is easy to believe that we are doing an excellent job overall; all we need to do is “tweak” things here and there. But when you experience a paradigm shift, you have to admit that you can dramatically improve.  I suspect that’s partially why we have some resistance to cutting-edge ideas Vince’s. I learned from Eli Goldratt to always assume that no matter how good you are, dramatic improvement is possible. Without this assumption, you might not recognize the dramatic improvement when you see it. The POOGI requires us to admit that we have a lot of room to improve, even if that means a paradigm shift.

When attempting to teach children with autism and other developmental disabilities, we tend to be focused on specific goals. Anything that is not part of our mission for the session is a distraction, so we attempt to get back on track as soon as possible. That’s not a bad thing, as getting distracted is a common cause of poor teaching. When you jump around and multi-task without focused goals, the instruction tends to be poor.

But there is an exception to the rule of focusing exclusively on your goals. Sometimes the child starts to spontaneously use appropriate social and language skills while we are working with her. I call this “getting a free lunch!” When this happens, in my view it is completely fine to drop your focused, goal-based plan temporarily to reinforce the newly used social and language skills. These skills might have been difficult to teach, so don’t lose this opportunity to reinforce desirable behaviors while the student is motivated to engage in them.

Too often, I see children spontaneously use a great social or language skill that is rare in their repertoire, only to be redirected by a BCBA or an RBT back to the task at hand. That might be appropriate in some cases. For example, if the child frequently uses interruptions to avoid tasks, then sure, redirect him back to the task.

As a general rule though, always take the free lunch. When the child throws some great behavior at you that you haven’t seen in the past, I suggest reinforcing it. If you don’t, there is a good chance you won’t see it again.