That’s Great, What’s Next?

There are a bunch of great videos on YouTube showing people celebrating their win too early but end up losing games, championships, races, and more. In sports, there are times when things look certain to go one direction, but due to a great play, extraordinary luck, or carelessness, the outcome is completely different. Right when the person or team thinks they have won, something amazing happens, and they are shocked.

The reason why this is works as a YouTube video is that the reveal happens immediately. The volleyball team is celebrating–but then, the other team makes an amazing play and recovers. The runner is showboating right before the finish line when another runner passes him. A football player is dancing right before the goal line when a defender catches up to him. It is obvious seconds later that they were celebrating too soon.

In sports, it is probably just overexcitement that gets players celebrating a couple of seconds too early. In behavior analysis under normal working conditions, we have huge pressure to celebrate early. Parents want to know about the successes that their children are having. Effective management requires that we celebrate success with staff. School districts and insurance companies require that we report whether goals are “mastered” or not.

The problem is that many of those goals won’t matter too much since the results might not maintain over time–which is unfortunately too common. I was lucky that as a young professional, Patricia Krantz explained this problem to me very well. Pat recognized how essential it was to celebrate, but she also understood that milestones often don’t lead to a major difference in the child’s life without more effort.  When reporting on success, she would constantly ask the question, “That’s great, what’s next?”

That’s the way to do it. Sure, celebrate each success. That’s important. Just not too much. Too much celebration leads to overconfidence. Much better to say, “That’s great, what’s next?” Acknowledge the success, but immediately start working on what’s left to do.

 

Behavior analytic services should only be delivered in the context of a professional relationship. Nothing written in this blog should be considered advice for any specific individual. The purpose of the blog is to share my experience, not to provide treatment. Please get advice from a professional before making changes to behavior analytic services being delivered. Nothing in this blog including comments or correspondence should be considered an agreement for Dr. Barry D. Morgenstern to provide services or establish a professional relationship outside of a formal agreement to do so. I attempt to write this blog in “plain English” and avoid technical jargon whenever possible. But all statements are meant to be consistent with behavior analytic literature, practice, and the professional code of ethics. If, for whatever reason, you think I’ve failed in the endeavor, let me know and I’ll consider your comments and make revisions, if appropriate. Feedback is always appreciated as I’m always trying to Poogi.

Piano Man

During my sophomore year in college, I decided to take piano. I never had music lessons as a child, and I thought it would be fun to learn. I didn’t take it seriously—I had no delusions that I would become a professional musician. One of my major goals for the activity was that I would be able to play “Happy Birthday” at a friend’s birthday party. I also hoped to be able to play the “easy” versions of some Billy Joel songs.

It turned out that even Piano 1 in college was VERY hard. Everyone else in the class had years of lessons as a child. I was completely lost, and I had to learn things quickly. I was intense about it. All the practice rooms were booked for music majors during the day. Therefore, I had to get up super early in the morning to get a practice room, which I did every day, including weekends. I also was able to get a free “tutor” for an extra lesson each week. During spring break, I took a keyboard with me so that I could practice.  Despite all that effort, I bombed the final exam and somehow managed to get a C+ in the class.

Not one to give up easily, I decided to take Piano 2. I just wanted to learn to play well enough so that it was fun. The grade doesn’t matter. On the first day of class, the teacher had everyone play a short passage. When it was my turn, the teacher interrupted and said, “you are mutilating the music.” At that point, I decided to drop Piano 2. I still can’t play “Happy Birthday” at parties.

The point is that someone with my level of motivation should have been able to achieve this goal given the right instruction and environment. The problem was that I was years behind my peers, and despite enormous effort, it just wasn’t reasonable to expect me to be able to catch up and perform well in the college classroom. It was the wrong place to try to learn.

Children with autism are often placed in a situation like I was in college. They might be years behind peers in language skills, reading skills, math skills, or social skills. Sometimes it is possible and appropriate to make modifications that allow successful participation. In the right situation, with the right team, with the right child, it can work amazingly well.

But other times, it is simply not possible given our current state of knowledge. Many children with autism are smarter than I was. They don’t need the teacher to tell them that “you are mutilating the music” to learn that they can’t do what everyone else in the class can do. It’s obvious to them. That can lead to unnecessary frustration, severe problem behaviors, and low self-esteem. Often, it is possible to teach the skills the child needs, given the right conditions. Sometimes the right conditions are not available in the General Education Classroom.

If a child needs to learn critical life skills, it is worth considering if the General Education Classroom is the best place to acquire those skills. Sometimes the answer may be yes. Sometimes the answer may be no. Too often, the question doesn’t get the careful consideration it deserves.

Behavior analytic services should only be delivered in the context of a professional relationship. Nothing written in this blog should be considered advice for any specific individual. The purpose of the blog is to share my experience, not to provide treatment. Please get advice from a professional before making changes to behavior analytic services being delivered. Nothing in this blog including comments or correspondence should be considered an agreement for Dr. Barry D. Morgenstern to provide services or establish a professional relationship outside of a formal agreement to do so. I attempt to write this blog in “plain English” and avoid technical jargon whenever possible. But all statements are meant to be consistent with behavior analytic literature, practice, and the professional code of ethics. If, for whatever reason, you think I’ve failed in the endeavor, let me know and I’ll consider your comments and make revisions, if appropriate. Feedback is always appreciated as I’m always trying to Poogi.

When the Problem is Difficult to Measure

Don Baer said something like, “Behavior Analysis is the process of changing complaints into behaviors to be changed, which if changed, will change the complaining behavior of the complainer.” That’s a pretty good simple description of the job of a BCBA. One of the key skills in behavior analysis is translating the initial complaint into a behavior to be changed.

 Most of the time, this isn’t too big a problem. For example, when a parent reports “he is disrespectful,” we continue interviewing and observing until we can translate “disrespectful” into observable behaviors–hitting, kicking, screaming, or cursing. So far, so good.

That often works fine. In fact, translating complaints into observable behaviors is usually considered such a routine part of practice that many people don’t think new BCBAs need much training to learn to do it. But in my view, BCBA training programs should include instruction on this skill because while this is an easy task most of the time, it can be challenging in certain situations.

One common situation where BCBAs may have trouble translating the complaint into a behavior to be changed is teaching social skills. These skills are often subtle and complex and very difficult to translate into easily observable behaviors. Another difficult problem can involve staff management. We want staff to “show initiative,” “have a positive attitude,” or a hundred other fuzzy statements that aren’t easy to define.

This leads to a situation where we need to do something but don’t have a clear idea of the critical behaviors we should target. When this happens, BCBAs might sometimes resort to selecting targets that are easy to measure instead of what is critical. This obviously can lead to poor programming. In my view, Bob Mager wrote the best guide to this skill.

 

Behavior analytic services should only be delivered in the context of a professional relationship. Nothing written in this blog should be considered advice for any specific individual. The purpose of the blog is to share my experience, not to provide treatment. Please get advice from a professional before making changes to behavior analytic services being delivered. Nothing in this blog including comments or correspondence should be considered an agreement for Dr. Barry D. Morgenstern to provide services or establish a professional relationship outside of a formal agreement to do so. I attempt to write this blog in “plain English” and avoid technical jargon whenever possible. But all statements are meant to be consistent with behavior analytic literature, practice, and the professional code of ethics. If, for whatever reason, you think I’ve failed in the endeavor, let me know and I’ll consider your comments and make revisions, if appropriate. Feedback is always appreciated as I’m always trying to Poogi.