The Art of Planned Ignoring
Planned ignoring is defined as deliberately withholding your attention from a specific target behavior. You may be thinking, Aha! I do this with my own children/significant other/grandpa, and indeed you may. We do this in an educational setting to ensure that we are...
How Data Should Drive Instruction
Letting data drive instruction means just that. Review the data and see where students or clients have mastered skills and which skills should be targeted. Within most public school systems, the need for data taking and analyzing the data is a large need. When...
Data Collection Takes a Team
How Do Paraprofessionals Take Data It has been a challenging year for most of us – but now, more than ever, we all understand the important role paraprofessionals play in our classrooms. From helping our students with their daily hygiene tasks in the morning to...
Taking Data on Independent Work Stations
Independent Work Independent work tasks are a must-have within the classroom. These are also beneficial within the home and the clinic settings if your child or learner struggles with working and playing independently. Independent work is a life skill that is...
Modify on the Fly – Tips for Modifying Without Preparation
I would like to begin this post by stating the obvious; teachers are superheroes. We take on more than anyone outside of education can even attempt to understand, and we do a lot of it with little to no preparation. The reality of being a special education teacher and...
How to use the ABLLS-R
There are a lot of assessments and materials out there that I think are valid and reliable. I have run many different types of assessments for many different aged children, and the ABLLS-R is always one that I enjoy using. This captures a picture of the whole child...
How To Use The VB-MAPP
What is the VB-MAPP? The VB-MAPP is based on B.F. Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior and stands for Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program. I have been using this since 2011! The VB-MAPP is criterion-referenced and can be used as an assessment...
Collecting Appropriate Baseline Data
Getting notification of a new student starting is always quite stressful for me. I LOVE having new students join our class and routine, but there is also a TON of information and paperwork that gets thrown at us when we get new students. First, I am invited to an...
(FUN)ctional Routines
Practicing functional routines is an essential life skill. In doing so, our learners will work on becoming independent in the classroom, their homes, and their communities. Functional routines can be fun and motivating, even if they are challenging and stressful right...
Proactive Strategies for Behavior- Part 1
Prepare your learners and their caregivers Many of our learners may be struggling at this time during remote learning, a hybrid model, or even an in person model. Any model that a school district may be following includes more and more changes. I am beginning to see...
Scheduling Preschoolers and Keeping IEP Data During Remote Learning
The start of the school year has been off to a wonderful and crazy ride! Zoom meetings have been taking over my whole day as we get ready to teach our students in a remote setting. As we start teaching, it is important that I stay as focused as possible, especially...
How to Align STAR and PEAK ABA Programs
My district has recently announced that we will be full remote learning until at least October 1st, 2020. At that time, the district will re-evaluate in hopes of making our way towards a hybrid model. This is a hard time for many of us, our students, and all families!...
Using Boom Cards
You may have been hearing a lot about Boom Cards lately. They are interactive task cards you can use from any device or browser and they track data. They are PERFECT for distance learning but I also think this will be so useful when you are back in the classroom....
Writing the IEP Goal Mastery Criteria
There are certain topics that I just can't help but jump on a soapbox about. Once you get me talking, it's hard for me to stop. IEP goal mastery criteria is one of those topics. This isn't because I absolutely love writing IEP goals. This is because I see the mastery...
Paraprofessional Training Guide – Part 2
You guys know I LOVE talking about staff training. I can't stop talking about staff training on my podcast, staff training has its own special tab in my Professional Development Membership, and I sneak it into literally every presentation I do. It's because it's THAT...
How Using Behavior Rubrics Can Streamline Your Data Collection
Whenever I talk about data collection, the questions that I get the most often revolve around behavior data. Typically these questions are some variation of "How can I collect behavior data in a way that is useful, doesn't take a lot of time, and can actually help me...
Creating Efficient Goal Programs
Creating a Goal Program Let’s be honest here, creating goal programs for a caseload of students can be very daunting and hard to tackle. The beauty in it though, is that once you have the structure finished, you can easily collect data, update materials and chart...
Focus on Five: Writing IEP Goals Using the ABLLS-R
It’s week three of school and I already have two IEP meetings next week! If you are in the same boat as me, keep reading (if your students’ IEPs are not until later, please enjoy IEP Goals Can Wait). When I was shown how easy it was to create goals using the ABLLS-R,...
How to Take Data on Play Skills
You read that right. Data and play in the same sentence. Seems kind of ridiculous right?! Why should you be taking data on play? As we have been talking about all month, play and leisure can be used not only to teach but to generalize and maintain so many...
How to get started with ABA & DTT
Today I want to break down how to get started with ABA and DTT in the classroom. It's easier than you think, research based, and super effective. Adding it to your classroom routine isn't nearly as scary as it sounds. With a few simple steps you can have...