Posted by Brought to you by PSN
Highlights found in this interview:
- Discover why meltdowns may not be brought on by surface triggers
- Acknowledge transition difficulties over schedule changes
- Lean about “Preemptive Prompting”
PSN: So, and dealing with a child with autism what have you seen that works as far as preventing a behavior from happening, and then once they get into a behavior or an agitated state what have you found that works and doesn’t work?
Interviewee: So the best thing that I found to keep the behaviors from happening in the first place is to stay to the predetermined schedule. I mean, I found that if everything stays on schedule then nothing gets messed up and if nothing gets messed up then there’s less to be agitated about overall. If that doesn’t work, and sometimes it doesn’t, then you have to sort of redirect so you have to figure out what is needed to – why is the kid upset about it. What is going on to try to figure out why you deviated from the schedule and what about that caused it and so there might be something in the background going on and that’s the reason that the kid is upset.
PSN: So contributing factors would be environmental elements like the external aspects of the situation and then just deviating from the scheduled period.
Interviewee: And then if the kid doesn’t feel good, you know, if the student/kid doesn’t feel good they might not feel like sticking to the schedule because they don’t feel good then from there the schedule is messed up. And so from there then it sort of a chain reaction.
PSN: Ok, so once let’s say that we’re in this chain reaction, what are you doing to manage those symptoms or behaviors that are showing as far as the struggle with transition and that kind of thing?
Interviewee: So, if there is a struggle to transition you don’t want to deviate from the schedule again because it might work that day but then it might mess it up for future days. So you have to figure out a way to bend it a little bit or find a way to make sure that the schedule stays in place but maybe you find out what is going on. What is going on? Why the kid doesn’t want to follow the schedule in the first place to see if you can figure that out, and then from there work to figure out a way to get through the schedule together so that not everything is all jumbled up.
PSN: Ok, and so like as this will apply to outside of school, you know, having verbal props put in place. We’re going to go to the grocery store but if they are out of x then we are going to go to a different grocery store to see if they have a type thing. Do you think that preemptive prompting works well or?
Interviewee: Yeah, if you tell the kid in advance. If they don’t have their favorite snack or whatever, we’ll go find it. Then you know in advance, so that if you show up to a grocery store and go into that aisle and the snack is not there, you know, you’ve already told, “Oh, it’s ok. We’ll go to a different grocery store. We’ll find it.” We’re not going to give up just because this one store doesn’t have it.
PSN: So basically learning the pattern of the triggers.
Interviewee: Yeah.
PSN: And then triggering them beforehand to prevent them from coming up type situation.
Interviewee: Right.
PSN: And then redirecting with, what have you found that is good redirecting tools like are there any apps that you work with?
Interviewee: So we, in our room, at least the student that would require more redirection has technology restrictions certain times of day and that sort of thing so we don’t usually do in apps. We have our word systems in place to earn technology time at the end of the day and so that’s a good way to, you know, “If you do this then you earn this sort of, then you won this reward and that helps you get tech time at the end of the day.”
PSN: Ok, so working with the reward system helps establish that things can be earned and it’s a teaching process also and is also serving the purpose of redirecting at the same time.
Interviewee: Yes.
PSN: Ok. Thank you.