POOGI for ABA

As a manager, staff people, parents, or teachers will frequently come to you with a suggestion. Sometimes, their suggestion is a really bad idea. This is a risky situation because if you implement the bad idea, you potentially do damage to the client’s program. If you don’t implement the idea, you potentially damage the relationship with the person, or at least reduce the likelihood they will come to you with new ideas or suggestions in the future. Either can hurt the Poogi.

Many years ago, I read what I think is the effective solution to this problem in this book. It is presented in the context of a family conflict. Goldratt calls this “presenting the negative branch.” I’ve used this procedure for many years, and I’ve found it to be extremely effective. It prevents you from implementing bad ideas, makes everyone feel good, and leads to great discussions.

I won’t cover the step-by-step implementation procedures here, but the essence of the process is to start by acknowledging the good intentions of the person who has the idea. That’s so important. If you start right away with “that won’t work,” people assume that you didn’t understand what they meant. This is how you end up in arguments, making the same points over and over.

Then, you have to show very clearly how the idea will lead to some negative effects. That may take some preparation, so it may be necessary to take a break from the conversation and say, “let me think about it.” Of course, it is essential that you get back to the person and explain step by step why the idea will lead to some negative effects.

Finally, don’t suggest a modification to the idea. Let the person who came up with the idea suggest how to improve it.

Nope, I don’t have a reference to demonstrate the effectiveness of the procedure. But, I’m not aware of any advice in our literature on how to handle this problem either. I think these procedures are consistent with our principles. If you are looking for an ambitious master’s thesis or PhD dissertation, feel free to contact me to discuss.

When working as a BCBA, many people are likely to attempt to influence how you do your job in an incredible number of ways. Unfortunately, a few will likely try to encourage you to do something that is definitely not in the best interest of the children we are serving. This happens for different reasons including budget issues, to satisfy a particular stakeholder, or even leadership’s preference for a particular intervention.

There is a lot of training available on how to professionally handle ethical challenges. These situations are stressful, and can even lead to fear for your job. Today, I’m not discussing how to handle these situations. Others have done that. No matter what you do, these scenarios will be tough. But there is one simple thing you can do that will make dealing with it easier and less stressful.

Start a savings account. If you have some savings in the bank, and you can live without a paycheck for a few months, these situations are much less stressful. If you aren’t afraid for your personal finances, you will handle any ethical dilemma in a much better way than you might have if you didn’t have the savings account. If worst comes to worst, you can take your time to find a new job. Although most of the time leaving a job isn’t necessary, just knowing you have money in the bank will dramatically improve your chances of handling the situation well.

If you don’t have any savings, and you must keep your job, the odds of compromising greatly increase. You will find yourself much more likely to let little things slide. We know how shaping works. Soon, the little things become big things.

Don’t let that happen. Start small and build up your savings. It’s essential for your ethical practice. You can’t focus on clients when you are worried about paying your mortgage or providing for your own kids.

Of course, many people are struggling now, so this advice might be difficult to implement. It just shows another reason why having emergency money is so important. It is essential to start as soon as possible. This is one area that even a small bit of positive behavior change on a regular basis can make a big difference.

Often, when doing a consultation, I’ll hear praise for a particular person about his or her skill in working with a particular individual. People will say things like, “She is great with him” or “He knows him so well.” If you have a person like that, you can probably teach the child more skills and increase the amount of inclusion, and have less problem behavior. In fact, I’ve seen many, many situations where the child is able to do extraordinary things that wouldn’t be possible without the person who is “great with him” (GWH).

While having a person like that on the team has huge advantages, it also has some potential risks. What risks could there be in learning more academic and self-help skills, dealing with less problem behavior, and increasing great social interactions with peers? The problem is the GWH can hide difficulties that often don’t get addressed properly as long as they are there. For example, maybe the child doesn’t speak very clearly, but GWH understands everything he says, so improvement in speech clarity isn’t addressed. Or, GWH knows exactly when he needs a break to prevent problem behaviors, so the child never learns to independently ask for a break.

In all likelihood, the staff who is “great with him” won’t be there forever. Eventually, the child will need to function independently, or at least with different staff people. It is essential that we not let GWH’s cover up issues that are critical for us to address.

On the other hand, when BCBAs are concerned about this problem, they sometimes take the argument to the other extreme. Everyone should be able to work with everyone. We will do cross-training, we will rotate staff every hour, etc. Taken too far, this, too, will reduce progress. It takes time to build relationships, learn all the important details, provide training, communication, and coordination of activities, etc. Having different people work with the child is important, but it is easy to over-do it, and slow progress.

The answer is to understand why the GWH is so effective. If you analyze how the GWH works their “magic,” you get all the advantages of having that person on the team, and still program the skills needed for generalization and maintenance when GWH leaves. For example, if you find out that the GWH understands everything the child says, but few other people are able to do that, speech clarity should be targeted.

Often, a GWH can hide a large number of problems. The answer is not to keep the GWH with the child as long as possible, or conversely, introduce as many novel people as possible. Instead, figure out why the GWH is effective, and then use that knowledge to program for generalization in the future.