Did you know?????

Family Fun

Alicia and Mo came to visit many moons ago.(sorry grad. school :) ) Here is a fun slide show of their visit. We spent a day at the Houston Zoo. It was a lot of fun to watch her boys see the animals. I believe the highlight of the trip though was playing in the water. I love talking to Tanner on Oovoo. He always shares food with me. He's got a good imagination. I wish all of my nieces and nephews lived closer. I believe I have the best ones ever.

Racket Ball

Believe it or not there is a reason you were goggles while playing racket ball. Here's proof. This actually happened when lance was here last for a visit in August. I know I'm real slow at posting some things, but hey I'm in grad. school. At least that is my excuse for everything for the next year and a half.

I'm a member of a gym and Lance and his friend, Aaron, got guest passes for a week so Lance and I could play racketball. He took a class at BYU during the summer and was teaching me a few tricks. (I still need a lot of help, but I love the game)

They gym didn't have enough goggles to were so I don't think Lance or Aaron had goggles on. (OOPS!) Aaron hit the ball smack into Lance's eye. Needless to say that was the end of our game that day. I was afraid Lance might have some damage done to his eye. Thankfully he did not.

However, he did have a really good bump on his check and it was pretty red. No worries its been a few months and he can still see out of it.

Ways to Procrastinate homework!

Our school had a carnival last week. We were suppose to have an October Fest, but due to the wonderful hurricane it was postponed and scaled down. I heard they were having a cake walk I got a little to excited. I found this fun little turkey design online and just had to make them. I decorated 3 dozen of them one night along with some cupcakes that aren't nearly as cute.

I used double stuffed oreos , reeses peanut butter cups, woppers, candy corn for the feathers and the white tip of the candy corn for the beak. The feet are frosting and it is all glued together with frosting. I had way to much fun making them.

This is a candy corn cake I made for halloween this year. If you cut a piece, I dyed the cake mix to match the frosting so it really does look like a candy corn. This is all way to much fun for me!

Coolest You Tube Sight

I was looking for a flute duet for Christmas and stumbled across this youtube. It place the accompaniment for you. It's so cool, kind of funny at the same time, but now I don't have to find someone to play the piano for me. They've got lots of songs on there.

Reinforcement

positive reinforcement- is addition of something to the environment that causes future increase in the rate of probability of the behavior. IT"S NOT A BRIBE

A reinforcer for me is a paycheck! I go to work so that I can get a paycheck and pay my bills.

A little extra cash is not a bad thing either!


My students like to work for Goldfish! They finish a task they may get a goldfish.

I also love ice cream! You may work really hard out in the yard getting it looking so nice and then reinforce yourself with an ice cream. To cool down.

These are not bribes. It is set out before a behavior is ever observed what they are working for. A bribe is when an undesirable behavior is occurring and you give them something to make them stop.

Classic example.Your driving in the car and the child is screaming. You say "We'll go to McDonalds if you'll be quiet." Bribery! Not a good tool!

Reinforcers can be any thing-Verbal praise, eatables, preferred activities, Social, tangibles(toys, puzzles) Phyiscal contact- hug, tickles, manicure, hand holding, massage the list goes on.

Negative Reinforcement is the removal of something that causes an increase in the future rate or probability of a behavior. Usually the removal of something unpleasant. The person acts to remove or avoid something aversive.

ex: Scratching to remove an itch, drinking to remove thirst, taking out the trash to stop nagging from spouse, Studying for a test to avoid a failing grade. (And you thought this all had to do with autism didn't you:) )

Now to really confuse you. See if you can follow along- Shopping in Walmart. Child cries and whines. He wants candy. Parent gives child candy, Child stops crying.

Which one is it positive or negative reinforced.
Well both. The child behavior of crying was reinforced because he got the candy. The parent's behavior of giving the child a candy bar was negatively reinforced because it removed the screaming.

Here' s one to get you thinking. Remember how I said what you consider to be a reinforcer may not be what others consider to be a reinforcer? I think this is a good example of what we sometimes do when disciplining children.

A child is tired of watching videos. Moom is gone for the weekend. Dad is in the office working with minimal interactions with the child. The child climbs the sofa, jumps up and hangs on the ceiling fan blade until it breaks.Dad comes running into the the room, yells, makes the child pick up the ceiling fan blade and sternly tells the child to sit and watch videos. Dad returns to work. Ten minutes later, the child breaks another ceiling fan.

Dad intended for his yelling, etc to serve as a punisher. In reality it served as a positive reinforcer, because the child got attention.

Lots of times we get frustrated and tired of dealing with something so we yell. To us we think it is a punishment to the child. In reality if they are wanting our attention, then no matter how bad the attention may be that they are getting we are still positively reinforcing what they are doing by yelling at them, because they have our attention.

The strategy then comes to what way can I reinforce the child by giving attention in a good way. So that they don't have to act out. Its tricky!!

School- ABA

I've been asked a lot lately how school is going! It's great. I have A's in both classes and I love what I'm learning. So I thought I would share a little bit of what I am learning. ABA or Applied Behavior Analysis is not just good therapy for children with autism its also good therapy for all of us.When you understand the concepts behind ABA you become a better person who can change behaviors not only in yourself, but also those around you. Here are a few things I've learned and I'll include examples both from my classroom and everyday life. It really is quite interesting.

Reinforcer- any event that follows a behavior that increases the rate of that behavior.

Reinforcement- procedure of using a reinforcer to increase the rate of a behavior.

Example- Remember growing up and you had those awful vegetables your mom made you eat. If you ate the vegetable then you got dessert (or got to leave the table) If this increased the likely hood of you eating that vegetable the next time around then the dessert was a reinforcer. The act of giving you the dessert every time you ate your vegetables is considered reinforcement.

The trick is to find things that are reinforcing to the person you are trying to change. For example one student loves lemons. He'd do any thing just to lick a lemon. That does nothing for me. Reinforcers are different for everyone. I hate chocolate milk. It's like drinking mud to me. However to most people it is something that is very well liked and could be used as a reinforcer.

The Little Mermaid

This is becoming the theme song of my classroom this year. I have a little girl who loves this song. Even more than that, she loves it when I sing it. AHHH! I could sing this song all day to her and she would be smiling. She is one of the more difficult students I have had. She cries for almost the four hours she is in school. So we came up with a plan to help decrease the crying. I got tired of singing it over and over so we tape recorded me singing it about 500 times. I'm not kidding! The tape starts playing when we get her out of the car. The minute she starts to cry we turn the tape off. The first time we tried this she came in quiet and was quiet for a whole 20mins. Not only that she was very compliant with anything we ask her to do. We were all so excited. So thanks Disney for coming out with a great teaching tool.

Vocals: Jodi Benson (Ariel)
Running time: 3:15

[Maybe he's right]
[Maybe there is something the matter with me]
[I just don't see how a world]
[That makes such wonderful things]
[Could be bad]

Look at this stuff, isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl
The girl who has everything?

Look at this trove, treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here, you'd think
Sure, she's got everything

I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty
I've got who's-its and what's-its galore
You want thing-a-mabobs?
I've got twenty
But who cares? No big deal. I want more

I wanna be where the people are
I wanna see, wanna see 'em dancin'
walkin' around on those
Whaddya call 'em? Oh, feet

Flippin' your fins, you don't get too far
Legs are required for jumpin', dancin'
Strollin' along down the
What's that word again? Street
Up where they walk
Up where they run
Up where they stay all day in the sun
Wanderin' free, wish I could be
Part of that world

What would I give if I could live
Outta these waters?
What would I pay to spend a day
Warm on the sand?

Betcha on land they understand
Bet they don't reprimand their daughters
Bright young women, sick of swimmin'
Ready to stand

And ready to know what the people know
Ask 'em my questions and get some answers
What's a fire, and why does it
What's the word? Burn

When's it my turn?
Wouldn't I love?
Love to explore that shore up above
Out of the sea, wish I could be

Part of that world

I have decided though that I do not like this song very much anymore. The nice thing is that she can now work with the paraprofessionals in the room. It frees me up to work with other students and I can cut down on the Exceedrin Migrain. Slowly she is getting to be easier to work with and less and less crying. YEAH!!!! I must admit she loves the tune more then the song and at first I didn't know very many of the words. So I made up my own. We came up with some pretty funny versions. Maybe that is what I should have recorded.