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Behavioural Intervention for Autism -

Our Experience in the UK

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What is Behavioural Therapy?

 

 

 

What is Behavioural Intervention?

Behavioural Intervention seems to be basically good intensive teaching. It involves:-

One-to-one teaching for up 40 hours per week, 50 weeks a year
Numerous very short teaching sessions during the day
Repeating activities until they are completely mastered
Simple steps
Clear simple consistent instructions
Quickly rewarding appropriate behaviour/responses
A clearly defined method
Careful recording of responses/progress

As you can see apart from the 40 hours of one-to-one tuition, most teachers would recognise these methods because they probably use them every day. However Behavioural Intervention doesn't assume that the child has the basic social skills, etc. that a 'normal' child has and therefore starts the therapy at a very basic level. If it turns out that the child is finding the skills programmes difficult then the tutor(s) go(es) back to more basic skills.  When a basic skill has been mastered then the child moves on to something slightly more difficult.

Further Details

Behavioural Intervention is a carefully structured method for teaching autistic children to learn skills. The child is initially assessed by a supervisor or consultant and then a series of programmes are followed to teach the child basic skills. One of the most basic skills is eye contact. The average child seems to automatically respond to other people by looking at them but an autistic child may have to be taught this. When the child has fully mastered his initial programmes then he/she moves on to the next one. Another basic skill is the ability to imitate and again the autistic child may have to be taught this.

Autistic children usually need a very powerful method of persuasion to get them to do something and so behavioural intervention uses reinforcers to persuade  the child to start to learn. Initially a small piece of sweet or biscuit may be used to gain the child's attention and when eye contact has been achieved the child is given the sweet or biscuit. At the same time lots of secondary reinforcers are given e.g. loud praise, tickles, hugs, etc. When the child has done the task as required, the child is allowed to go and play/run about for a short while and this also acts as a reinforcer.

As the child continues the programmes other reinforcers like video are used and it may be possible to phase out the use of sweets, etc and just use the secondary reinforcers. However allowing the child to go off and play is always used.

Initially behavioural intervention requires the use of two child seats and a child's table. When the child is on the seat he/she is expected to sit quietly and engage in the programme. This initially will only be for maybe thirty seconds and when the child has done the action successfully (e.g. eye contact), the child is allowed to go and play. The idea is that the child should not engage in any undesirable activity while in the chair e.g. banging a book, but will be allowed to when out of the chair. As time goes on the sessions become longer but the basic idea is to build on success.

Various prompts are used to help the child to achieve the desired end. This may initially be a physical prompt where the child is physically guided to do the particular action required and then gradually the prompt is faded (i.e. made less obvious) until it can be dispensed with completely.

A special method called discrete trials is used during behavioural intervention programmes in order to provide a structure and a method of recording results and progress. Initially there may be massed trials of a particular skill in order to get the child started and then the child is tested on every session on the current programmes by each tutor. The tutor uses the agreed method of telling the child what to do and records the results of every trial on a record sheet. When the child has achieved a 90% or 100% success rate with three tutors then after discussion at a staff meeting the programme is then put on maintenance and the child is put on a slightly more advanced or related programme. For example if the child is able to touch his nose then the next programme may be to touch his ears.

 

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Last modified: December 19, 1997