One time, I was doing a follow up on a successful toilet training program. The parent was able to successfully toilet train her son with autism within a few days after just one training session. The parent reported that everything had gone extremely well, and she was having just one issue. He was unable to pick his pants up all the way because they got stuck on his butt. I was able to immediately suggest what to do: Don’t have him pick up his pants on the sides. Have him put his hand behind his back, turn his hand around, grasp the pants, and then lift them over his butt. We went right to the bathroom to try it, and he was able to successfully lift his pants with just a few practices. The mom said, “Wow, you have spent a lot of time thinking about this.” Actually, I read this trick in one of the toilet training books, and had used it several times before. So, I was fairly confident it would work.
In the work which defines Applied Behavior Analysis, Baer, Wolf, and Risley describe the difference between a principle and a bag of tricks. They argue convincingly that a profession should not be based on a bag of tricks. We can systematically teach principles, study them, and apply them widely in new situations. Once you learn about reinforcement, you can apply the principle in an infinite number of situations. That doesn’t happen with a bag of tricks. There is no systematic way to expand those tricks or help you be successful in new situations. It is also hard to learn them, and just takes a lot of time.
Still, there is real value in learning some “tricks.” In my view, BCBAs sometimes don’t appreciate the value of this type of knowledge enough. The pull-the-pants-up problem was something that just took just a few minutes–I’ve seen people spend significant time and energy on that issue. I believe that since this type of knowledge is so hard to organize and teach, it is often overlooked. But learning a few “tricks” that others have already figured out is a quick way to get significant Poogi in whatever task you are trying to accomplish.