How to Pair Virtually and In School
As a special educator working in early childhood, one of the most common barriers in both virtual and in person learning that has been expressed to me is that the child or student is not yet attending to the screen or table. I often hear “My child won’t sit at the...
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...
All Behavior is Communicating Something
Everything you do, everything I do, and everything your students do happens for a reason. All of our behaviors are communicating something. Some behaviors may be trying to communicate wanting access to something. Access to attention, items, activities, sensory...
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...
The Behavior Change Mindset
Before you get started implementing a behavior plan, designing a token economy, or training your staff - there is one important thing you need to work on first. The first step is you. The first step is making sure you have the mindset for success. The first step is...
Tips for Handling a Crisis
1. Take a deep breath. This advice seems so absolutely silly and obvious. I used to hate when people would tell me to take a deep breath. "Got it. I'm breathing. I'm not going to suffocate myself. Chill." But then I realized that sometimes in a crisis I...
Big Behaviors and the Guilt that Comes with It
Let's go through a little scenario. You have a student in your classroom who is going through a hard time. There are lots of behaviors. Big behaviors. Frequent big behaviors. Behaviors that are dangerous to your student and others. You are trying all the...
Visual Timers You Can Use in Your Classroom
Timers are a must have in any classroom. They are great for fluency timing, teaching waiting, showing when transitions will come, and tracking behaviors. Visual timers have the added bonus of illustrating the passage of time. Many children may not yet...
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...
5 Techniques to Help Support Students with Autism
My house has been a revolving door of Board Certified Behavior Analysts, and Behavior Therapists over the past seven years. Both of my boys have autism, and beginning at two years of age, both had an intensive therapy schedule. The bulk of our therapy was (and still...
Why Visuals Work in Reducing Problem Behavior
In the special education world, we are surrounded by visuals. There are picture schedules, labels, social stories, first/thens, star charts, and more. When you are so far involved in this world, you can sometimes forget the 'why' behind these interventions...
Deciding When a Dedicated Paraprofessional Is Needed
Some students require more support than the classroom staff can provide. Not all classrooms are setup with staffing to allow one students to be with one adult all day. The decision of whether or not your student is a good fit for a dedicated or one-on-one...
When the Honeymoon is Over…Behavior Strategies in an Early Childhood Classroom
Behavior is never a cut and dry, use this strategy for this specific behavior and it will work every time. You want to make sure you are determining the function behind the behavior before settling on an intervention. On the other hand, there are some...
Finding Time to Train Your Staff
For the last two months, I literally have not stopped talking about staff training. It's so critical and it's something that we sometimes think is optional. Or maybe we know it's important but we feel uncomfortable really taking the reins on this. It's...
Why You NEED a Replacement Behavior
The absolute, must-not-forget, essential step to eliminating any problem behavior is to teach and reinforce the appropriate way to access the consequence the problem behavior once delivered. And even if you are nodding your head along with mean, thinking “amen honey...