Kristin Sarboukh Professor Vesay 17 April 2012 ABA Observation Applied Behavior Analysis is a very important aspect to working

with children with disabilities. Unfortunately, the classroom that I am placed in at Mercer does not have a child who is currently on a behavior plan so I had to go observe another classroom. I got to sit in Maureen Browns class which is an autism classroom where almost every child is on some form of behavior plan. The child we observed demonstrated both the discrete trials and the behavior modification and showed me many things I had not known before. The student I observed in the discrete trial learning experience was working on identifying colors. Her target behavior was to see the color and match it to the written word. She was given two different words to choose from. For example, if the color was blue, the child was given the words blue and red. She would then have to identify which word said blue and if she was correct, she would be reinforced. Her primary reinforcement was a Skittle and her secondary reinforcement was praise from the teacher. There were no real consequences for not performing the behavior. What would happen is the teacher would take everything away without saying anything and then present it again. This time, the teacher would use a verbal prompt to help the student correctly complete the desired behavior. There are very specific steps that are used to help children reach their desired behavior. The goal that the student I observed was working on was taught in levels. First, she was presented one color and one word to choose from. Once she accurately related the color to the word, the teacher added in a distractor. This means that now a second word is added to the

correct one to distract the child and see if she/he has really learned the word. Once that is mastered, a second distractor is added; then a third; then a fourth. Finally, once it is clear that the student understands the first color, the teacher moves on to the second. She repeats the same process and occasionally adds in the first color learned so that the student does not forget what they have already learned. All of these trials are kept on a chart. The child must successfully complete each level ten times with 100% accuracy before moving on. If the child makes a mistake and needs verbal prompts, they are no longer able to get a 100% for that day and stop at the number they got correct in a row. This data tells the teacher all about the students progress. For example, if she is getting all 100% and 90% during the week and drops to around 50% or 60% on Monday, the teacher knows that the weekend and lack of work causes them to go down on Monday. The data also helps you keep track of how much prompting the student needs. Teacher input also has an effect on students performance because different staff members may be giving different prompting, giving the students answers with their eyes subconsciously, or even not accurately recording the data. I believe that so far, I believe this plan is working very well for the child. The Skittles are a great reinforcer for her and she is now able to recognize almost all of her colors with multiple distractions. But besides discrete trials, this student also has a behavior modification to help eliminate certain behaviors. The behavior that this child is working on is the idea of sitting quiet. Sitting quiet entails folding her hands on the desk, not talking, and keeping her hand out of her mouth. This behavior is to be done for fifteen minutes with five minute intervals. For every five minutes that she sits quiet, she is allowed to get a Skittle as reinforcement. If she does not sit quite for the five

minutes, the timer and Skittles are taken away and her consequence is that she must sit quiet for one minute outside of the five minutes. If she sits quiet for one minute, she is able to resume the count of five minutes. The overall process is to take fifteen minutes with no misbehavior. There is not really one specific reason why this child behaves the way she does. The teacher originally thought it was because the weekend break was too much for her and it caused her to misbehave when she had to have structure again. Another idea was that putting her hands in her mouth was a self-sustaining action. Also, they believe that maybe she was able to do whatever she wanted at home and could continue that behavior at school. However, no one has come to an exact conclusion as to why this behavior occurs. Because a behavior modification plan is already set in place for this child with reinforcements and consequences that support this student, it is hard to suggest another. This seems to be working very well so far and I think I would have been interesting to observe this student before the plan was set in place. Overall, these two trials and modifications are really helping tis child. She is learning so much more now that her behavior is under control and really understands now. Because she was able to choose her reinforcement, it has become very effective. I look forward to working with a child who is on some form of behavior plan because it is what I am most interested in. This observation was very eye opening and I look forward to doing more of it in the future.