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I have seen a significant trend in my practice, teens with high functioning autism unable to attend school due to intense anxiety.

The problem of children with autism who are unable to cope with school and develop agoraphobic type symptoms has long been around, but the increased numbers of highly intelligent, often with a "superpower" talented young people who are unable to participate in their educations and life in general is tragic.

Schools are not being flexible and creative in addressing this. They insist on the old paradigm of highly structured behavioral model programs that simply don't work for these kids any longer. Many of them reject, sometimes with vehemence, the idea of the stucture of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) being practiced on them any longer. They "age out" in a way.

But there is hope, in the form of a study of a school in England that developed a program based on empathy, kindness, and most of all, flexibility. (a link to the article is at the bottom of the page)

The school is proving that the humanization of behavior interventions is still evolving.

The profound positive effect of ABA for serious maladaptive behaviors is clear. Lives have literally been saved and ABA has provided a path to autonomy for countless children.

However, without significant changes, I do not see evidence in my daily interactions with parents that ABA is working for their kids.

It's time to look at programs like the one featured in this episode and make similar models available here.

Link to article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37860824/

In the transcript section I've included a copy of the outline I wrote for the episode.

Thank you for listening!

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This short episode discusses the importantance of children being recognized for partially accomplishing an appropriate behavior.

There needs to be a series of steps in learing something new, and lots of practice to master it. Behavior is the same, learning how to act in a new way is like any other skill, the small successes need to recognized and celebrated.

Listen in to hear how this is done is a classroom setting.

Thanks for listening!

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Many schools and districts practice a form of institutional gaslighting.

I talk about how the structure of schools, along with how the socioeconomic level of the parent determines how much influence a parent has on their child's IEP process.

Other factors such as parent participation are important, see this link for a research article (see link below), but parent's knowledge of the way institutions work in general are more satisfied with their experience in the IEP process. And a parent who has more knowledge of this are often more educated and affluent.

However, gaslighting appears in some form in most schools and districts, it's the nature the of beast, so to speak. Any time a group of people, in this case educators, feel threatened in some way, the natural impulse is to retreat or strike out.

I would argue that the potential consequences of complaints, due process filings and similar parent responses make some school staff feel constrained into non-participation in the IEP process. Generally, those staff members who are less educated about special education are generally more reluctant to participate fully. General education teachers are the group most reluctant to "make a mistake" in a meeting.

In this episode I talk about why some IEP meetings include open and honest discussions about issues, while others discourage parent participation, and what you can do if you are feeling gaslighted.

Here is a link to an article about the issue:
https://adayinourshoes.com/gaslighting/

And here is the link to the parent satisfaction article:
https://www.researchgate.net publication/321690929_Satisfaction_With_Individualized_Education_Programs_Among_Parents_of_Young_Children_With_ASD

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In this episode we'll get into the most important part of a behavior plan, reinforcement. Learn what it is and what it looks like.

Remember, the more you know about special education practice, particularly how Positive Behavior Support is supposed to work, the better off you will be at IEP meetings and in helping the team.

Here are a couple of links to more information on reinforcement. The first gives an explanation why reinforcement in a behavior plan is not working.
(https://theresponsivecounselor.com/2022/12/your-positive-behavior-reinforcement-intervention-will-probably-fail-if.html)

And here is a good description of reinforcement (by Catherine Brown, ABA consultant, Beam ABA Services - Great Britian.

Reinforcement is the most important and widely applied principle of behaviour analysis and it shapes how we all behave on a daily basis.
Consider the following list of things that most of us do in everyday life:
• Brush our teeth
• Use an umbrella when it’s raining
• Take an aspirin when we have a headache
• Check our phone when it beeps
• Drink a coffee at break time
• Go to work to get paid

All of these behaviours occur because of reinforcement.

But what exactly is reinforcement?

Reinforcement involves consequences that strengthen behaviour. To strengthen a behaviour means to increase the likelihood that it will occur again in the future. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples from the list above to help explain it further. You wake up with a headache so you get up and take an aspirin. Shortly afterwards your
headache is gone. In the future, when you get a headache you take an aspirin straight away.

Your phone beeps and you see it’s a message from a friend. You tap to open the message and it’s a funny video that makes you laugh. In the future when the same friend contacts you, you tap to open their message.

Both these examples demonstrate reinforcement as they resulted in an increase of the behaviours reoccurring. These examples also show us two different types of reinforcement: positive and negative.

When it comes to behaviour, positive and negative do not mean good and bad. They simply mean to add and take away. The examples of the umbrella, aspirin and tooth brushing are all examples of negative reinforcement as they remove or stop something you don’t like from
happening. The examples of the phone, coffee and going to work are all examples of positive reinforcers as they add or present something that you like into your environment.

Both positive and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood of you giving the same response in the future. Through a combination of learning and contact with reinforcement, we have all learned to do things that allow us to contact the things we like and also, to avoid things we dislike.

Reinforcement shapes how we all behave and for this reason, it is at the core of all ABA programmes. It is used in all behaviour change programmes, including the teaching of new skills.

The following guidelines explain how to apply reinforcement effectively when working to teach new behaviours.
1. Reinforcers should be personalised and preferred. It may sound obvious but we do not all like the same things so we cannot expect all learners to work for the same group of reinforcers e.g. sweets, toys, tickles etc. Observe the learner’s interests and motivation to
determine what reinforcers you use. Remember not all preferences are reinforcers, so if the target behaviour is not increasing then question if what you are using is actually a reinforcer.
2. Reinforcement should be contingent. This means the reinforcer should be delivered directly after you see the desired behaviour. It is unlikely that you will see the desi

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The preschool special education system in California is in critical need of reform. Listen to my experience with the system in the California counties where I provide advocacy services.

The system as we now know it excludes neurodivergent children from the preschool system in alarming numbers. The fact that many of these children are the brightest potential intellects in their age group makes this even more problematic.

Listen to my ideas to help correct the problem and what school districts can do to implement needed reforms.

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Learn how the discipline system for students with disabilites in California works, and how the letter and spirit of the law is often violated by school officials.

Schools often under report discuplinary removal of student's with disabilities from their classrooms. They do this by using "informal removals" (see below for link to OSEP information). This is when students are sent to the office (or any other area outside of their regular classroom placement) or just sent home without being formally suspended.

Most of the time, the misuse of discipline is caused by a lack of training and experience, but sometimes the misuse is intentional to reduce reportable instances of student discipline.

The number of suspensions in California is now closely tracked through reporting by districts to the state. If those numbers are artificially low, it harms all students. That is because the need for services such as behaviorists and support staff is also artificially low when the actual numbers are higher.

OSEP resources and explanations:
(https://sites.ed.gov/osers/2023/02/discipline-discussions-informal-removals-matter/)

California law regarding discipline:
(https://sites.ed.gov/osers/2023/02/discipline-discussions-informal-removals-matter/)

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I've included a transcript of this episode. And here are a few helpful links to expand your knowledge of PBS.
- https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ80580
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_behavior_support
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5048254/

This will be the first of many podcast episodes featuring different aspects of PBS. I first started to write and record a training series for paraeducators and teachers, but decided to start this podcast instead.

I'm rewriting the series on behaviors to reflect a more general audience, particularly parents.

Enjoy the episode!
David

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a method of teaching that embeds accommodations for all students into general education settings. Students who are visual, or auditory, or tactile/sensory learners are taught, and the student can show mastery, in the way that uses their strengths.

UDL has been successfully implemented in thousands of classrooms around the country and its efficacy has been proven in these real settings.

Learn how students with special needs, indeed all learners, can benefit from a UDL classroom.

Here is a link to CAST, the organization started to promote UDL: https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl