VB v ABA

[cyberseraphim]

We have doing VB based therapy with DS1 (ASD) for about 6 weeks and the results so far have been fantastic. He has gained new language and is starting to learn to count (only esclaators so far but he can generalise). The therapist mentioned that some ABA therapists don't like VB. I think different approaches work for different children (and so does the therapist as she also teaches PECS/Makaton/TEACCH if that's what's needed.)

Does anyone know why there is a difference of opinion? It seems a shame that time is wasted arguing over whether there is one right approach for every child

self bump - not sure if protocol allows

from what I have experienced, ABA is far more structured and "tick box" than VB - which seems to put more emphasis on play and fun, rather than rote learning. But that may be just a prejudiced view, as I have only worked with VB and only seen one ABA program for an hour or so. I know that some ABA programs still adhere to Lovaas guidelines, which are far more rigid and structured ("do one bit of colouring, then you get a tiny bit of crisp as a reward" "now do one little bit of writing" "here's another tiny crisp as a reward"). I think possibly traditional ABAers think VB is too loose, but like you I have found it fantastic and have been doing it for 3 years now

Electra is right, VB is a form of ABA, as is Lovaas, CABAS, DI etc. Like Coke and Pepsi are both Colas iyswim. She also describes it well and I agree that the highly structured format is often better for younger children who then move onto a more natural set up when ready (we did that in our Lovaas program quite easily without any switching). My problem is the dislike of PECs in the VB community as I think it influences parents to withhold something which could be very useful to their children and, in some cases, their only or main form of communication. My DS uses PECs and Makaton and had been doing so for nearly 2 years when VB happened in the UK in 2000. So we weren't so blown away by the suggestion to use signing and were doing it anyway. At that time the advent of VB brought with it a lot of friction within the ABA community as they were quite anti-Lovaas, anti-PECs, determined to promote their "brand" etc and I feel it did the whole "movement" some damage. I certainloy wouldn't discourage someone from doing VB at all though, just don't be misinformed about the other types of program and put off the table-top, more structured format, at least to start with. The ABLLS seem to be a good tool.

Interesting. I'm not too clear on VBmyself yet [wanted to go to Carbone's last UKworkshop but too busy] despite nearly having completed my MSc in ABA.

I get really pissed off at ABA/VB bodsslagging off PECS and going on about stuff like this

'At Vince Carbone's conference, he explained that in his view something like Makaton is better than using PECS because with mime you can reproduce all the same language repetoires that you find in speech, but that this is harder with the use of PECS alone'

Iwant to get the ivory tower/home based programme folk by the throat andexplain that in public sector we are dealing with motivating people to use the most basic techniques, not freak them out and alienate them further with stuff like this.

I lvoe PECS. Like allsystems it has its weaknesses but it gets a child manding FAST. Maybe I love it because it is the product of a behaviour analyst and a SALT and I am a SALT. Also, being told it's moreuseful to use signs has me really because SALTS have beenadvocating Total Communication for years.

Fascinating - Just the sort of background on the politics/history of it all. I think there will always be a natural human tendency for ideas to mutate and evolve into other versions. I don't see the point in being anti PECS for all autistic children- though I personally did not want it for DS1 when he was minimally verbal at 3.6. It seems that TEACCH is by far the weakest of the options. I discussed it with the SALT and she agreed that it is often used in a sloppy way in the classrooms and that even the main strength of TEACCH ( independent learning) is diluted or even abandoned as the teachers cannot be bothered to wait for the children to learn tasks so they just put the work in the boxes for them . It seems that VB is re packaged ABA but it is definitely working for us although DS1 was almost 5 when we started and had some communicative language and a lot of echolalia so we were not starting language from scratch. Makaton is an interesting one as DS1 cannot even understand what waving means ! But the SALT is working with another ASD boy who is non verbal but doing well with Makaton. I suppose the oddest position of all must the LEA's - that PECS (based on behavourist/ABA ideas) is promoted but ABA itself or any of its offshoots are dismissed out of hand. I wish I had known that 2 years ago when I did not want PECS - I could have acted shocked at the idea of using re inforcers to promote useless rote learning that will never be generalised.

Cyber, all ideas are diluted and not used properly in the classroom unfortunately. Very few teaching staff have the discipline and insight to RTFM and just do it. Add to the mix that staff numbers are high, people poorly trained, no clear consensus on what going on [LEAs like to call it 'eclectic'-I call it 'noone has a fucking clue']

ABA [andits offshoots] greatest strength isuse of evidence based data driven practice.

PECS israrely used properly.Iget some shocking reports and scenarios passed onto mme.It is crazt that LEAs often reject ABA but promote PECS. I love letting people know that PECS adheres to ABA principles. You should see your faces.

As is maybe the case for you, PECS often recommended inappropriately for verbal kids. What do you mean by your last sentence though?

Was just another attempt at humour - I could have said I did not want PECS because it is too close to ABA (which is not LEA approved of etc)

I getcha!
Gah, you probably think I am a humourless old trout, esp. after academic horsy mum debacle. I'm not-honest!
[You're dead right though-I sooo enjoy making this point over and over.]

Oh, and what is wrong with rote learning? If someone can learn something by rote (and remember my old hobby horse that kids with ASD have to be taught everything), then with repetition it becomes natural, surely that's OK. The problem comes when programs aren't well supervised and things are not changed, moved on or put on hold quickly enough. If you're being taught something by rote and it isn't working or isn't becoming more natural, then someone needs to deal with it.
Having gone on about ABA I have to admit that DS now does TEACCH!! He did ABA for 10 years in one form or another and, when he left TreeHouse to go to Priors Court, we felt it was perfectly OK for him to do TEACCH as he already had such a foundation of skills through ABA and we also felt a he needed a change . I am also as certain as I can be that the TEACCH done at his school is good and well managed as well as calm and controlled. But I'm glad we;ve had ABA first.

We will teach you humour with ABA - a big glass of wine as a re inforcer if you get it first time !

I don't have a problem with rote learning either - but I think there is a wider prejudice against it in the educational establishment.

DS1 answers prompts/questions very quickly - either getting it right or just stabbing at anything without thinking. Is there a 'right' way to deal with this?

I've been pondering these issues myself for a while now - we've been doing ABA for the past 2.5 years and DS is now coming to the end of the PEACH curriculum. Which is of course FANTASTIC!! But where to go next? The thing is, while he's acquired an awful lot of language, has become very flexible and is doing incredibly well in a ms school, he still has major social deficits, especially when it comes to interacting with peers. And I feel that traditional ABA doesn't really address that. For example, there is so little attention being paid to "referencing" - getting the child to observe people's faces and body language. Yet, if the child doesn't reference, what use is teaching him to match emotions to facial expressions? Does VB address referencing?

I'm also starting to think that bombarding DS with questions during his ABA sessions is becoming counterproductive - I recently read that we use 80% imperative language (questions, commands) and 20% declarative language (statements that don't require a response) with autistic children, when it's the other way round with normally developing children.

I've been looking into RDI and that does appear to have some really promising and creative approaches (especially wrt social skills), but is heavily copyrighted and seems very expensive to get into. What I like about it is that you don't go via the route of external reinforcers, but instead try to modify your own behaviour to enable the child to discover the intrinsic reinforcement that comes with a desired behaviour (e.g. rather than saying "look at me" and reinforcing non-functional eye contact, getting him to discover that people's faces convey information valuable to HIM). I assume that is what NET is also trying to do?

I suppose the standard ABA answser to the fast responding would be to reinforce correct responses and not incorrect ones? But you don't want to cause hesitation and uncertainty. We used to teach things in isolation first, then with distractor, then more and random rotate, then "naturalise". If you're not teaching in isolation and building up it might lead to over-fast responses, if there is such a thing!
The referencing points are interesting, what you say makes sense, why know something unless it means something? But then that's all to do with keeping things as functional as possible although I'd expect everyone would love to be able to get to the point of teaching abstract things. But then Emotions are abstract so I don't understant how/why they fit into the whole thing.... doh! I always thought that the Emotions program didn't make sense. Have you ever looked at that DVD thing that was put out by Simon Baron-Cohen? I think its called Mind Reading, might be useful.

"I'm also starting to think that bombarding DS with questions during his ABA sessions is becoming counterproductive - I recently read that we use 80% imperative language (questions, commands) and 20% declarative language (statements that don't require a response) with autistic children, when it's the other way round with normally developing children. '

They say that on the Hanen program too - that parents become fixated on asking questions to ASD children because that is the only way to get language from them but this can condition the ASD child to think that the sole purpose of language is to answer a question. They encourage the parent to comment more with ASD children even if you do not get a response

My VB consultant is adament that we ct out the majority of questions with dd1, for the reasons already described.

Within a week of starting her programme (since put on hold as we moved and have yet to re-start/find a tutor) her language absolutely exploded.

Instead of the question (which dd1 ends up parrotting back to us - she is very verbally capable) we have to use what would be her answer, so that she (at first) rote learns what is appropriate for her to say, then goes on to use it naturally.

eg, at tea time yesterday, after she'd (not) finished her meal, she wanted some berries and snacks. I don't have a huge issue with htis as she eats reasonably well overall. I gave her what she wanted, but she kept getting down form the table - a habit I'm trying to quell. so I told her that tea was finished. She wasn't happy, but instead of kicking off, she just said "mummy, I'd like some apple". Previously, she would have kept repeating "what do you want?" or "would you like some more?"

I find it quite hard to keep on top of it - supplying the answer to the question you would have asked - but it has given dd1 a huge range of statements to use.

the key is that we don't ask her any questions to which we don't already know the answer. So we can (and do) ask the what colour? where's monkey? type of questions, but open questions ("what do you want for lunch?" "where shall we go this afternoon?" what book do you want to read?) are out.

I do wonder if the VB-style fast responding, sc called "errorless learning" (a term whcih gets my goat!) can turn into teaching fast responses iyswim, rather than the underlying skill/knowledge/function?
Whatever Vince Carbone may have meant people to pick up from his lack of enthusiasm for PECs, I have met many, many parents and tutors who are anti-PECs, very prejudiced and misinformed about it without really knowing what they are talking about because they are "VB people". I went to Carbone and McGreevy's first conference here and there was little doubt what their message was about PECs or other AAC. I asked the question at that conference, as we had already been signing for 2 years plus PECs but no speech, what happens in VB if a child DOES NOT develop speech? The answer was very woolly and immediately made me suspicious although I had gone there with more than an open mind, in fact hoping to find a the next great thing. Ho hum!

Ooops,sorry silverfrog, cross posted. So you've come up with that fast questions issue and sorted it out? Sounds like you have got it sorted.

we had the echolalia issue before we started VB. dd1 was late to talk, but then really got going - she never stops now . 99% of it used to be rote learned stories/songs/phrases, usually used appropriately, sometimes not. this is getting better over time.

But it did mean that any "normal" conversation I had with her - the usual kind of chit chat around the house - was absorbed by her and parrotted back...

so her use of the questions wasn't in a fast-response kind of way, just echoing back anyhting she heard at any point, as her method of conversation - and it mostly centred on books (finishing off phrases) or set situations (asking for her berries after her meals, asking to go to bed after watching Mr Tumble etc)

we did have to use a fast-response method to give her the idea that we really wanted her to copy what we were saying now, and then we were away.

Just to say - I am not encouraging fast responses on purpose- it is just what is happening. I think slowing down and thinking would be better,. I ask open ended questions too and this is slowly starting to pay off. I did not turn down PECS without thinking about it for quite a long time but the problem was that it was just given to us as a 'pre made' solution without enough assessment of DS1's needs. I do understand that professionals cannot be expected to believe everything parents say about their child's development/speech but I felt that nothing I said about what he could already verbalise/communicate was paid any attention whatsoever.

www.theherald.co.uk/search/display.var.2498561.0.autism_research_offers_new_therapy_approach.php

This is quite interesting.

"what happens in VB if a child DOES NOT develop speech?

I agree - it sounds again like people being locked into their own world and their own agenda rather than really assssing the child's needs.

Homsa, interesting point about the way kids with lang. deficits bombarded with questions.
Soooo true.
Electra, I didn't mean Carbone in particular, more some ABA types [academics] I work with.

Agree strongly renothing being wrong with rrote learning. It's the business! Dh and I hhave just finished a Precision Teaching/SAFMEDS teaching session [letters aand numbers with 4 year old NT ds as not happy with how this is being taught in school;. He's learnt more in a week by thismethod than he has in 2 terms.

I agree that many ABA/VB folk don't get PECS [you csan't without attending a course, however smart you are], and my functional SALT side is very uncomfortable with common ABA/VB focus on language alone then moving to A/AC if this doesn't materialise [language I mean].

I think it's verging on the immoral not to provide someone with a communication system that they can use straight away, as most people can with PECS.