Do You Like The Beach?

Today's blog was written by Dr. Barbara Kaminski, Ph.D, BCBA, who is the Clinical Director for Green Box ABA, PLLC

I was just standing in the surf, letting my feet get buried deeper and deeper into the sand with each wave. He appeared seemingly out of nowhere and was suddenly standing between me and the next wave. “Do you like the beach?” was his first question. I paused. The manner of his approach and the rhythm of his speech were definitely cues that this man was on the autism spectrum. I responded with a statement and then a reciprocal question. He “sort of” answered the question and then asked me another question. Peer response. Peer response. He finished by extending two fists with “thumbs up.” I looked at his extended fists, wondering what the response should be; what had been used as the “social reinforcer.” I gave him a double fist-bump. He looked disappointed and left his fists in place. Wiggled his thumbs. Ah, okay. Another “fist-bump” but this time we touched thumbs. He happily ran off into the waves. I didn’t actually take the time to count, but in retrospect, I think we had about a 10-exchange “conversation.”

Out of everyone on the beach, he chose to approach me. It was a good choice and I am thankful. Given my profession, I had some idea of how to respond to him in a meaningful way. On the whole, both the initiation and the conversation had the formal appearance of being appropriate. But even to me it felt unnatural and, well, kind of odd. And who knows how many other people he had “initiated a conversation” with on the beach and how they responded. I am sure some were polite and tried to have a conversation. I can imagine others who were not so polite, if you get my drift.

I have no doubt that he has worked very hard on these social skills. I have no idea whether he worked on them formally with an ABA provider. At the very least, he probably had social skills goals on his IEP. But there was definitely something missing.  To me, things just felt out of place. To someone without my experience, I am sure it would have felt uncomfortable. As a professional who frequently works on helping kids on the spectrum learn social skills, I felt convicted. Do we often stop short of teaching truly functional, meaningful social skills?

It is daunting, to be fair. In our social interactions, we make highly conditional discriminations, in a fluid, ongoing way. If we take the time to “process” what to do next, our social interaction becomes stilted. At the very least, our discriminations are on based on the conversational partner (is this a friend, an acquaintance, a clerk at the store, a supervisor/teacher, etc.) and the context/setting. There are scenarios where we might have a successful initiation with an unfamiliar person at the beach. For example, if I have a boogie board, I might talk to someone else with a boogie board about the height of the waves. Or if I notice that someone has built a super amazing sand castle, I might ask her a question about that (“That’s an amazing sand castle. How long did it take you to build it?”). However, no matter how much I want to know more about the sand castle, I may not initiate a conversation with her if she gives cues that she needs to chase after a toddler on the sand. I will admit that the sheer number and variety of contextual and social stimuli that function as discriminative stimuli for emitting (or not emitting) a social behavior can make this next level training seem nothing short of impossible. But as behavior analysts, we have the training and the skill to break it down into manageable, albeit complex, targets.

I would never suggest that we shouldn’t work on the basic building blocks of the social skills repertoire – initiating conversations, asking questions, etc. I spend a lot of time teaching the topography of the behavior – “how” to initiate a conversation, for example. But personally, I often don’t get as far as helping clients learn “when” to initiate a conversation. Or how to end a conversation naturally. And if I really want my clients to not just interact with others but to actually develop relationships, then I need to help them work on those sorts of things too. Unless what I want is a client who in the future has awkward conversations with random women on the beach, that is.

What is Task Analysis?

Have you ever thought about how many little steps go into things you do every day? This morning I brushed my teeth, braided my hair, and made coffee. The amount of smaller steps that go into each of those tasks is astounding. If I had written down every single action I took to brush my teeth or braid my hair, I would have written a task analysis for myself that I could then use to teach someone else how to brush their teeth or braid their hair. For kids on the autism spectrum who may have difficulties with processing or executive function, tasks that seem simple to us like brushing teeth can be overwhelming. Breaking those tasks down into component steps, much like you might make a to-do list for a multi-part project, can be a huge help for kids struggling with both social and non-social situations.

Part of an example of task analysis for tooth brushing. As you can see, it breaks brushing teeth down into tiny, manageable parts

         A task analysis breaks a complex task like brushing teeth or greeting a peer down into its most basic steps. Task analyses are completed because there are a variety of steps that go into completing a complex task, and to teach that task you need to know that your learner can complete each step. Additionally, some tasks need to be completed in order; for example, brushing your teeth with a dry toothbrush then squeezing toothpaste onto that toothbrush doesn’t work. This is also valuable because you can reinforce each step as you teach it in a process called chaining, which can be done forward or backward. In forward chaining, you start by teaching the first of the steps you wrote down in your task analysis. This can be useful if your learner already has some or most of the requisite skills needed to complete the task. For instance, if tying shoes is your task and your learner can already put their feet in the shoes and grab the shoelaces, forward chaining might be the way to go. Backward chaining starts by teaching and reinforcing the very last step of a task, then the penultimate step, and so on. This can be good because you’re always reinforcing the final outcome of the task, so no matter what step you’re currently teaching, your learner is always completing the task independently. Breaking down your task and teaching through chaining allows for greater access to reinforcement throughout the teaching process, which can be especially useful in social situations, For more information on reinforcement in social situations, look out for our upcoming post. The degree to which you simplify the steps depends on your learner. For example, if the task is “washing hands” some learners will need “turn on water, put on soap, scrub, turn off water,” while others will need a more detailed list. Sometimes pictures can also be helpful in teaching each step, like adding a picture of your learner’s toothbrush and faucet handle to their list of steps. Knowing what will be most helpful to your learner is crucial to making a useful task analysis.

Task analyses can also be completed for social skills group. First, a social skills assessment needs to be done. Things like ABLLS and VBMAPP as administered by a professional behavior analyst can be used to assess the learner’s social skills. Once you’ve selected a goal, then you can break it down. For example, we find that during issues of dispute, one of our learners typically tantrums rather than selecting a compromise for a solution. Now we have our goal and it’s time to break it down. Refer back to the hand washing example-the component steps will be based on the learner’s needs. An example of component steps for compromise would be identifying functional compromise solutions when presented with a social dilemma with a peer. In order to identify those solutions and break that process down into steps, keep in your learner’s goals and program targets. For more information on setting goals for social group, refer back to our blog post here. One example of a situation where a social task analysis for compromise might be useful might be a social skills group science project. All of the learners in the group need to compromise on the topic of the science project, which means no one is going to get to do exactly what they want to do. Luckily, since this hypothetical science project takes place in a social skills group, each kid can have a task analysis done for compromise with adults helping to facilitate the interactions and prompt the different steps of the task analysis. Once the learners have practiced using their task analysis during a contrived situation like social skills group, they can generalize to natural situations like hanging out with friends or working on a project in class, fading out adult prompting to boost independent social interactions.

Task analysis is important because while some tasks might seem second nature to neurotypical people, they can be daunting for people on the autism spectrum. Interacting with other people, even before morning coffee, is simple for neurotypical people because we know the various steps that apply to each social situation, and it can be difficult to try to explain those steps to someone else. Task analyses break these social situations down into the steps we already go through and make them accessible to people on the autism spectrum instead of just expecting them to do the things their typical peers do. We all make task analyses for ourselves, we just usually call them to-do lists or have tasks mentally broken down in our heads. Task analyses are just versions of these lists, modified to best help our learners navigate the world.

Product Spotlight- Green Box Kids Book 1: Sharing

Sharing is one of the most important skills we try to teach our students, and it’s something they’re going to need to use every day for the rest of their lives. Even as adults, sharing is something we do all the time, so much so that it’s jarring when someone doesn’t share; how many times have you waited for a machine at the gym or an electrical outlet at a coffee shop and been absolutely bewildered when the other person using them failed to share? We know sharing is tough for all kids, and it can be even more difficult to help kids with behavioral and developmental disabilities understand all of the various social elements that comprise good sharing. We’ve created another social skills training curriculum book to address those very difficulties in a format that is both fun and engaging for both you and your learners. We’ve talked at length about another book in the Green Box Kids series, Compromise, and we’ve brought the same commitment to excellence and accessibility to Sharing, now available on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Sharing has the same format as Compromise: discussion questions before and after each of the three comics in the book to boost critical thinking about the topic, plus supplemental activities that expand upon those questions. In addition to fostering discussion about the basics of sharing, this book goes into situations when sharing may not be appropriate by asking learners questions like these:

Our focus here is not just to help learners understand what sharing is, but why sharing is important to their lives. What makes Green Box Kids: Sharing different from other curriculum books on Sharing is that it encourages learners to examine sharing from multiple perspectives. Additionally, although each social dilemma presented in the comics has an example of a resolution, the book also encourages the readers to think of their own solutions. For example, the first comic in the book sees Tito and Lucy playing an active game of soccer, but Tito has forgotten his water bottle. Before showing the readers what the Green Box Kids do to fix the problem, there’s an opportunity for the reader to draw what they think would be a good way to help Tito:

Instead of just telling readers what the best answer is, this book encourages them to think for themselves and consider the options their peers came up with.

Our social skills training curriculum books are more than just social group activities, they’re the building blocks of happy, sociable adults. When you buy our book on Sharing, you’re getting comics along with improved social skills and better, more productive social group sessions. As with all of our books, the material in Green Box Kids: Sharing are the product of years of working with kids who have autism spectrum disorders and other behavioral or developmental disorders, as well as years of training and education. More importantly, when you buy our books you’re buying the product of our sincere desire for kids on the spectrum to have a better quality of life and an easier time adjusting to social situations outside of supervised social group. Our kids love Green Box Kids, and we’re confident that yours will too.

Product Spotlight (part 2)- Green Box Kids Book 2: Compromise

Welcome to part 2 of our spotlight on Green Box Kids Book 2: Compromise! We’re going to go over how to most effectively use the book with your learners, and why you should go over to Teachers Pay Teachers and download it.

      Compromise is one of the most important skills for kids to learn; it's also one of the most difficult to teach. It can be tough for kids to put themselves in other people's shoes, especially when compromise means not getting to do a preferred activity. Kids can struggle to understand why compromise is important. Take the following example question from the book:

This is a pretty common situation, and it can be difficult to explain to your kids that neither one of them is more entitled to the red token than the other. No matter who gets to use the token, one or more kids is not getting something they wanted without fully understanding why. We know how frustrating it can be as an educator or instructor to know exactly what skill you need to get across to your learner, but not how to help them understand it.

We found solutions to these dilemmas through years of teaching social skills like compromise to kids with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental and behavioral disorders. The questions and activities in this book are the result of extensive experience and research. The material is easy to read, with large fonts and contrasting font and background colors. It’s also easy to follow, with plain, conversational language. This book is meant to make teaching compromise easier and broaden your learner's understanding of why compromise is crucial, all while teaching your learners the importance of taking other people's feelings into consideration when making decisions. When using this book, your learners will be engaged throughout and will have to think and work together to complete the activities. Each activity and comic includes examples and scenarios that are applicable to your learners’ lives and promote generalization across environments. By using kids in our comics, we relate the situations the Green Box Kids face to your learners’ real lives. Whether you’re a BCBA, a Registered Behavior Technician, a special education teacher, or a parent, this book is easy to use, and the program and data sheets in the back are a great place to start individualizing goals for your learners.

We’ve all had to try to learn something or complete a task that we couldn’t get into; trying to engage in material when you just don’t find interesting or applicable to your life can feel like an impossible task. Green Box Kids believes that social skills training doesn’t have to feel like a chore. Green Box Kids Books make learning fun and emphasize why learning social skills is important to your learners instead of just what social skills are. We engage kids on the topics that matter to them because we think you shouldn’t have to compromise on fun or learning.