7/28/2019 Association for Science in Autism Treatment - Maintaining Skills

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Association for Science in Autism Treatment - Maintaining SkillsASATLoginAbout ASATAbout AutismInterventionConferencesResourcesMedia WatchText size:SMLXLHigh Contrast:SMLXLResources

Clinician's Corn... Maintaining Skil... ResourcesFAQClinician's CornerForumMaintaining SkillsWhat should be done when a child masters skills but loses them?- Bobby Newman, Ph.D., BCBAQuestion: My sons progress in programs is often nothing short of phenomenal. Hemasters skills quickly, but then seems to lose the skills he has. We feel likewere on a treadmill. Help!Answer: Unfortunately, this is a common dilemma. The good news is that thisproblem can be addressed. The bad news is that it means really looking at howyoure teaching, and possibly making some changes. Lets first agree upon somevocabulary in everyday language:ACQUISITION: the learning of the new skills and concepts.STIMULUS GENERALIZATION: learning to perform a skill under differentconditions.MAINTENANCE: the continued performance of the skill after the formal,intensive teaching period has ended.

From your description, your son is doing fine during the acquisition phase. Butis he really acquiring the skills? A common problem is that the acquisitionphase is conducted far too narrowly. Given a receptive program, for example, doyou and your therapists always say touch, as opposed to give me or point

to or show me or which is, or some other phrasing? Do you always use thesame stimuli (for example, always using colored construction paper for colorID)? If we have always taught using colored paper, it is very difficult for thestudent when we ask him, for example, the color of a toy car. If he has alwaysheard what is your name?, it is then not surprising if he cannot answer whatis your first name? Teaching needs to be precisely structured, but not solimited that generalization becomes impossible. Some people call this looseteaching. As simple as it sounds, it can be very difficultmost people need tobe taught how to loosely teach. But its worth the effort. You get what youteach.How then, can we encourage generalization? Basically, we are looking at the Dr.Seuss school of teaching: do it in a box and with a fox, in a house and with amouse, etc. Vary where you do your teaching. Vary phrasings to make sure that

you hit the common ways that people speak (e.g., hi, how are ya, hello,how ya doin?). Wear glasses, and dont wear glasses. Practice skills in themorning and in the evening, in the house and in the car. Some schools andprograms prefer to do generalization training from the very beginning, byvarying instructions and stimuli from the beginning. Others use precise andconsistent phrasing and stimuli first, and then conditions are varied oncemastery is achieved with the original phrasing and stimuli. You will findadvocates of both approaches. Using the more limited stimuli strategy, you willprobably see faster acquisition, but then you need to aggressively program forgeneralization. If you vary stimuli from the outset, you will probably seesomewhat slower acquisition, but you will have the payoff of easiergeneralization. My own preference is to generalize from the beginning.For Maintenance, you need to follow a similar plan. Remember that with children

who have autism, we must consciously plan to help the child acquire, generalizeand maintain skills. If you want to continue seeing a skill, it must bepracticed. Too many programs focus only on the most current step (e.g., touchyour belly) and fail to continue practice on the previously learned steps.Where I come from, each teaching session includes a block of the new step(isolated), and a block of all the previously mastered steps (randomized).Even when the full program is learned, we return to it periodically for apractice session, or we incorporate the skill into new activities (e.g., workingon mastered body parts in a Simon Says game).

7/28/2019 Association for Science in Autism Treatment - Maintaining Skills

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Also remember that you need to work on concepts, and not just responses. Whendoing body part ID, for example, dont always ask the child to touch his nose.Ask him to touch his nose, your nose, the nose of a doll, the nose of a stuffedanimal, etc. We want your son to know what noses are, and not just think thatthe bump on his face is named nose.This article originally appeared in an issue of Science in Autism Treatment,the newsletter of the Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT). It maynot be republished or reprinted without advance permission from ASAT. Forreprint permission please contact reprints@asatonline.org Fall NewsletterNow Available NewsletterSign up now Site Map Privacy Policy Contact Us P.O. Box 188, Crosswicks, NJ08515-0188 info@asatonline.org Association for Science in Autism Treatment.This article is for personal use only. This article may not be republished orreprinted without advance permission from ASAT. For reprint permission pleasecontact reprints@asatonline.org