April 27, 2025 • 53 mins
Part 2 of 2
ABA on Tap is proud to spend some time with Maggie Haraburda, founder and director of Unfurling Littles, a unique treatment center combining ABA with best practices in Early Childhood Education.
Neurodiversity Affirming and rooted in compassionate care; this center takes an approach to supporting children of all neurotypes that is play-based and child-led. Unfurling Littles was created out of a desire to do better for neurodivergent children and create a model of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) that is not implicated in causing harm. Maggie believes that "The only way to move forward, is to look back with open eyes. We are a small Autistic owned company and will stay that way. We are not your average agency and we don't intend to be, we are just a group of humans trying to help other humans. "
Given recent concerns and criticisms of ABA as presented by members of the neurodivergent community, Maggie promotes an important message of truly collaborative treatment.
This is smooth and easy brew. Pour heavy, pour lots and always analyze responsibly.
Please find Maggie and her incredible team at:
https://www.unfurlinglittles.com/
Innovation Moon: ABA Business ConsultingABA OBM business consulting & services | BCBA & autism therapy owners | Proud sponsor of ABA on Tap
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_04 (00:00):
Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find
the best recipe to brew thesmoothest, coldest, and best
tasting ABA around.
I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio,and join us on our journey as we
(00:23):
look back into the ingredientsto form the best concoction of
ABA on tap.
In this podcast, we will talkabout the history of the ABA
brew, how much to consume toachieve the optimum buzz while
not getting too drunk, and therecommended pairings to bring to
the table.
(00:43):
So without further ado, sitback, relax, and always analyze
responsibly.
SPEAKER_02 (00:51):
All right, all right, and welcome back to
another installment of ABA onTap.
I am your co-host, Mike Rubio,and this is part two of our
interview with Maggie Haraburda.
Enjoy.
So that would be to...
And please give me your insighton this to see if I've got it
anywhere near correct.
But the idea that if you'regoing to expect for the child to
(01:12):
sit there for the entirety ofthe circle time, then there's
something you're going to haveto open up to allow for that
versus you could do it the otherway and say...
How are they going toparticipate knowing that once
they do these couple things,then maybe you're granting their
quote-unquote escape from thisas opposed to now making them
stick the whole time?
Is that a fair contrast?
Could you go both ways withthat, or would you have a
(01:33):
preference?
SPEAKER_00 (01:35):
Well, I think there's this concept of escaping
from activities.
I feel like it's reallymisconstrued in what's actually
happening, that the child's notassenting to participate.
Not necessarily.
Yeah.
Go
SPEAKER_02 (01:48):
ahead.
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
Yeah.
It's like, what is the reasonbehind this?
Why is this not accessible tothem in this moment?
And I think that's thedifference in that we're looking
at accessibility of routines,not compliance to routines.
Do they not want to sit in thecircle time because it's too
loud?
Are they uncomfortable in theway that they have to sit there?
Are there rigid expectations inwhat it looks like for them to
(02:11):
sit at the circle time?
Does the material matter tothem, right?
Is it meaningful in any way?
Can we pull in their specialinterests in some way into the
circle time and make it moreindividualized for this person.
So again, I think that's wherethat detective work comes in.
Like what truly is it that's notmaking this accessible for this
child in this moment.
Right.
(02:31):
And then also, you know, If achild doesn't ascend to circle
time that day, it's not thatdeep.
I've been saying it's not thatdeep a lot lately of why does it
matter?
We're still going to work on it,but today they didn't ascend.
No problem.
I'm going to mark down theydidn't ascend, and now my job
starts, and I'm going to figureout why.
Why did they not want to comeover today?
SPEAKER_02 (02:51):
That could mean that you're making those stimuli,
those songs, those movementsaccessible to that child at a
time outside circle time.
Is that fair to say?
You're making those things morefamiliar or less novel or
more...
whatever it is, such that theymight then join Circle Time in a
way that the optics are moretraditional?
Is that...
I mean, because there'snothing...
(03:12):
You're not saying that any givenkid isn't going to achieve that
from an optics perspective.
You're kind of...
From what I understand, you'resaying we just don't want to
force that issue.
So it's not to say that Johnnywon't ever sit at Circle Time.
But right now, if he isn't, justforcing him to sit at Circle
Time isn't the solution.
UNKNOWN (03:31):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
I don't know if that made any sense.
SPEAKER_00 (03:32):
Yeah.
Well, I think it's like, forexample, at our center, our
circle time, sometimes there'sone kid, sometimes all 10 kids
are there.
And it really varies dependingon the day.
But what we've seen is overtime, while not forcing these
kids to come over, they'renaturally really motivated.
Yeah, they're really motivatedto come by because they know
that if they say no, we're goingto honor that no.
(03:54):
Because it's not that deep.
Circle time in the scheme ofthings doesn't really teach
light skills that someone needsto be successful and I think
when, like you had said thephrase traditional optics.
And I often think about like,traditional because it's how
it's historically been done, butdoesn't mean it's how it will
(04:15):
have to be in the future.
SPEAKER_02 (04:16):
That's a great distinction.
I mean, so again, the way you'redescribing it, I would assume
that, man, you're really makingme think here.
The idea that when all 10 kidsshow up at your center, there's
a different synergy from thatcircle time as opposed to one
kid showing up.
And I like the way you put that,where from a traditional optics
perspective, I wouldimmediately, you know, be
(04:37):
inclined to think when all 10are there and now I've got a
circle time, this is the wayit's supposed to look.
What you're saying is it'scircle time if there's one there
and you're singing songs.
And yes, it's a different circletime if all 10 kids are there
and maybe there's more toobserve and maybe there's more
volume and there's more of achance to get used to that
volume.
But again, yeah, I think you'reabsolutely right.
It would be my mindsettraditionally to think of that,
(05:00):
you know, those traditionaloptics as a bigger success than
the idea that you have one kidchild who's going through the
whole circle time and you wouldovershadow the fact that it's
only one and not all 10 in thatinstance, despite the fact that
that one child probably mighthave gained a lot from that
situation or whatever the caseis.
So you present such a, I guess,an instructional control that's
(05:25):
more in flux.
And I think that as BCBAs, wehave this very linear notion of
what instructional control lookslike.
And it means that I saysomething and the child responds
and then I consecrate and thenwe do it again and again and
again.
And you still achieve that inyour more open-ended approach.
It's just not so linear, not sosequential.
It comes together over time,right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:48):
Yeah, I think, you know, for me...
And like in general, learning isa lifelong thing, right?
That's something we're going todo forever.
And so I want the children thatwe're working with today to have
a positive experience withlearning.
I don't want it to be compliancebased and rigid and reward
focused, because this issomething that they're going to
have to do for the rest of theirlives.
(06:09):
And I think a lot about likeproximity.
A lot of times there's thesegoals that like a child will,
you know, participate within twofeet, five feet.
But in our space, we have onelarge room, it's 3,800 square
feed it's set up more like aMontessori room and we have our
circle of time towards the frontof the room you know a child
who's sitting on the other sideof the room they might still be
(06:29):
orienting towards us andlistening even though they're
nowhere near us yeah they'restill learning and still taking
that information in even thoughthey're not within the two to
five feet right and so we haveto think of like proximity to of
like does it really matter ifthe child is sitting within two
feet of the teacher what is thesocial significance of that
SPEAKER_04 (06:47):
Totally agree.
It's that we use the phrase labto living room.
A lot of, you know, love us.
And back in the day, everythinghad to be done in lab to prove
if ABA works.
So the tight controls, the veryrigid SDR, SR relationship.
But we know ABA works.
They proved that we don't haveto be within that lab space.
two to five feet to show what ifthey're six feet?
(07:07):
Does that mean, what if it'sseven feet?
So all these arbitrary metricsthat it seems like people are
still doing from the laborientation that lose social
significance, like you'resaying, because we're still
trying to prove that it workswhen we've proven that it works.
SPEAKER_02 (07:20):
It's the, uh, It's the misinterpretation between
experimental control andinstructional control.
You just made me think of that.
Because when you're running anexperiment in a lab, those
details do matter to some extenttoward replication.
What Maggie's saying is now invivo, it's less about ensuring
that my SD led to the desiredresponse and more about
(07:42):
presenting those SDs continuallyand then watching and knowing
that the child may emit theresponse to that SD continuously
Yeah.
(08:18):
I'm going to say it.
We are at about an hour becauseI want to make sure that we're
all staying fresh.
Maggie stuck with us through alot of technical difficulties in
the beginning.
So I'm going to have to jump inthen with the big question that
I'm sitting on for a while.
Do you want to do anythingbefore I get to Reggio?
Because once we talk Reggio,it's all over.
SPEAKER_04 (08:38):
I do.
I have a couple.
I'm going to let you go at it.
Maggie, how are you doing?
Are you good to keep going?
Yeah.
I'm good.
Thank you.
Thanks for sticking with us.
(09:05):
the way ABA has been done, andthat's why a lot of our goals
have gone to frequency, becauseit was only the RBTs can deliver
the SDs, the child has torespond in one specific
response, and then they get onespecific reinforcer.
And as a result of that, Ithink, because we oftentimes
didn't have the individual'sattention, We then had this
misconception that we need topresent a whole lot of trials
(09:28):
and there needs to be a wholelot of repetition.
So, you know, we would do DTTand ask the kid what red is
50,000 times because they wereonly paying attention two times.
So we just go over and over andover and over again.
And especially withcommunication, you know,
historically, we taught itthrough man training.
But I know you've been a bigproponent of joint attention.
And if we can help this personget engaged, which might take a
(09:51):
little bit longer on the frontend rather than just presenting
trials, but help them becomeengaged in something and engage
with us and find us reinforcing,that might take a little bit.
But then communication will kindof blossom from there rather
than focusing on such titrated,like, utterances of
communication.
Yeah.
Any thoughts on that?
And then I'd be very interestedto get Maggie's thoughts.
(10:12):
I probably know what yourthoughts on that are.
SPEAKER_02 (10:14):
Well, yeah, I mean, I...
So I guess...
And now Maggie sort of changedmy thoughts on that just today
in terms, I guess, the fluidityor the flux of what attending
means.
Again, if we're not careful, itbecomes this one linear thing
where you're...
gaze is right on my face as Ipresent this SD and I think the
(10:36):
optics are perfect and then yourespond and then I deliver this
pre-planned consequence whichI'm sure is reinforcing and so
on and so forth and I think thatwhat we're talking about here is
more that idea that I am I amwithin reason in your space.
I am commenting on some of thethings you're doing.
And then as I see that maybethat guides some level of
(11:00):
attention toward me, I mightpresent something for you and
see what happens.
And again, even in Maggiedescribing it today, it's
looking for that response.
Maybe 10 minutes from now,looking for that response at
some point so I can go, oh,yeah, hey, that's what I was.
That's what the SD was aboutearlier today.
And good.
And now I can maybe provide somelevel of reinforcement.
(11:22):
Now I'm going to let Maggie talkabout that because I think she's
going to describe it much betterthan I did.
But that's kind of my.
Even from the beginning, thatpremise of joint attention and
that we had this fixed eyecontact foundation that we were
trying to teach from, and thatjust didn't make any sense.
It didn't make any sense, theidea that what's the eye contact
for?
Well, maybe one premise is sothat developmentally speaking,
(11:47):
you're able to see sometimes howsomebody's mouth moves when you
hear them make that sound.
And now we've got a bimodalconnection that maybe...
helps you develop some level ofresponse from that, right?
Not knowing what that might be.
For me, it might be the factthat, again, you're getting two
inputs for the same sound.
You get to see what it lookslike visually, and then maybe
(12:09):
that helps you produce thatsound.
But that doesn't mean that achild can't then replicate a
sound from just hearing it andnot seeing your face.
So there's always, I guess, whatyou call the investigative work.
You always have to be watching,and I think that's been the
traditional approach you know,concern from your challenge with
things like discrete trial isthere's already a huge
assumption that this one SD isgoing to elicit this one
(12:32):
response that we're going toconsecrate perfectly with this
reinforcement.
And then we're going to do itnine more times because if you
don't do it 10 times, thelearning doesn't happen.
I know Maggie knows that.
It has to happen 80%.
It has to happen at least 80% ofthose opportunities.
Otherwise, it's been a waste oftime.
I'm being very facetious.
Maggie, I'll pass it over to youif that made any sense.
What are your thoughts on jointattention, Maggie?
(12:53):
What does that mean, jointattention?
It's a buzzword and then we canget that wrong too.
SPEAKER_00 (13:00):
You know, I think that like a lot of things in our
field, the definition of jointattention was not written by
someone who is neurodivergent,right?
It was written by someone who isneurotypical.
And so when I think about jointattention, for me, it's this
idea of shared joy.
I don't think it has to includeobjects at all.
(13:20):
It's simply shared joy withanother person, shared attention
of whatever it might be.
And so I think for every child,it's going to look different of
what their joint attentionexpression is.
How are they expressing thatthey are engaged with someone
else with a shared object oractivity or whatever it may be?
So I think that my...
(13:43):
My views on joint attention, Ithink, has changed over the
years.
And I think that I have focuseda lot more on studying a child's
gaze of what they're looking at.
What are they naturallygravitating towards?
Because as soon as someoneplaces a demand to look at
something, it's no longer jointattention.
It's compliance to a demand.
(14:03):
And so I think that's wherepeople really get tripped up
with things like joint attentionis it has to, to me, In my
definition, it has to beauthentic.
They have to desire to look atwhatever it is because they want
to, not because they're going toaccess some kind of contrived
reward after.
(14:25):
Like I think about, you know, wehave a couple of goals about
children engaging in onlookerplay.
We are not prompting them tolook at other children playing
or tracking the frequency atwhich they are engaging.
internally motivated to look atother children play and seeing
how that goes up over time.
So for example, there's the onechild at the center right now
who really loves the seesaw thatwe got.
(14:46):
It's really neat.
It bounces up and down and thenit spins around and we had had
it over in the corner, right?
We moved it to the center of theroom.
His engagement and onlooker playskyrocketed.
He is now looking at all thedifferent children throughout
the day, smiling in response towhat they're doing, right?
And then the technician is theresmiling with him, attempting to
(15:08):
gain that joint attention fromhim so that they can mutually
enjoy looking at the otherchildren, perhaps by labeling
what they're doing in thosemoments.
So I think that's where likethat Environmental manipulation
can come into play, and movingthe child's seesaw from the side
of the room to the center of theroom increase their onlooker
play.
That is behavior analysis, butit's not necessarily using the
(15:30):
person's prompt as the SD.
Did that answer your question?
Yes,
SPEAKER_02 (15:35):
beautifully.
That answered it beautifully.
That's really, really good.
Well, so here we are, Dan.
That's it.
You got anything else?
I do, but are you doing okay?
Dan, speak now or forever holdyour peace because you know that
once Maggie and I get intoReggio, it's all over.
Yes.
It's the end.
We're coming home after that.
SPEAKER_04 (15:53):
Two things just from what I notated from actually
your intro, Maggie, but my lastquestion on the joint attention
piece is, I think oftentimesindividuals that we work with
maybe struggle with reading bodycues, and it's hard to read body
cues if you're not orientingtowards individuals.
Certainly eye contact has beenvery overgeneralized, and it's
(16:13):
something we don't work on atour...
Let me rephrase that.
We don't specifically target.
We can work on it, but we don'tspecifically target at our
company.
What are your thoughts onbasically orientating Gay shift.
Yeah, gay shift, things likethat, for the benefit of being
able to pick up on bodylanguage, especially if people
(16:35):
are non-speaking, body languageis all of the communication of
that interaction.
So you do have to be in some wayoriented to that person to be
able to understand that.
What are your thoughts there?
SPEAKER_00 (16:46):
Well, I think there's different...
I don't know.
I feel like there's a differencehere in what the skill is that
we're targeting.
Because for me, I think a lotabout inferencing.
Children and adults, we need tobe able to inference what's
happening in a situation toassure our safety and
well-being.
And I don't know if someone'sbody orientation would
necessarily be enoughinformation to help someone to
(17:08):
inference what's happening inthat moment.
So I think that...
For me, I'm always thinkingabout what skills are we
teaching in the moment with thetools that we have accessible?
And when would this be needed?
And so I don't like this wholeidea of like generalization.
I want to be programming fromgeneralization for day one.
And so when children are in ourcenter, we're helping them to
(17:30):
identify who is a safe person.
The people in our center arehonoring their ascent.
They are safe people.
Now, we recently had a physicaltherapist come in to see one of
the kids who was not a safeperson for this child.
The child immediately startedsaying, Whereas mom, go home, go
home.
They have never done thatbefore.
So they didn't necessarily haveto see the person in the way
(17:53):
that they were turning towardsthem.
But they identified how thatperson made them feel.
And that person made them feelunsafe.
And they demanded to go home.
And so we ended the session andasked that person to leave.
And so that's the way that wereinforce that, right?
This person identified for somereason, this is not a safe
person in this moment.
And so we honored that assentwithdrawal and ended that
(18:13):
session.
So I think that it goes deeperthan just seeing someone's body
language and it like it's um idon't know hard to almost like
uh it's hard to even likeclearly define because i think
it is that inferencing scalewhich is can be very nuanced
SPEAKER_04 (18:31):
certainly
SPEAKER_02 (18:32):
really quickly you're it's fascinating because
what you are saying is i thinksomething that people get
tripped up on so In the exampleyou gave with the physical
therapist, somebody would say,well, then what you've just
reinforced there, again, back tothat escape thing, and now how
is a child going to get thoseservices in your center?
And you're saying quite theopposite.
(18:52):
You're saying by listening tothe child's negation and letting
them know that by saying no,this might make it more likely
that they'll accept this personin the future.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
Yeah, I mean, even for me, when I start with a new
family, which I have to stopdoing because I just need to run
the business.
But when I do start, I often oneof the first things I say to
that child is, you know, isalways okay with me.
Um, if you tell me now, I willalways respect that now.
And so sometimes that might looklike doing a 10 minute session
(19:24):
and the kids saying, go home andme saying, you got it.
I'll see you next week.
And slowly building thatrelationship between, between
us.
And so I think the answer isit's not no, never, but it's not
now.
That
SPEAKER_02 (19:38):
is, man, I am going to steal that from you.
Actually, I won't steal it.
I will quote you.
That's beautiful.
No, and again, I think thatapplies to so many things in
what we do because it's beendrilled into us that this
particular three-partcontingency has to happen 10
times or 8 out of 10 times, andif not, the learning doesn't
happen.
And you're saying, hey, the factthat the child's gaining some
(20:01):
locus of control and sayingno...
While that seems to work againstyour presence there to provide
the intervention, that in and ofitself is the intervention for
that day and saying, hey, wow,this person is safe.
And over time, I'm going tobuild that.
And again, as much as I knowthat that is the right answer,
in my opinion, I know howchallenging that can be because
(20:22):
you mentioned earlier, peoplehave the concept of time.
That fourth dimension is alwayson our minds and we're worried
about time and time and time.
And what you're saying is, well,if you worry so much about time,
you're going to end up losingit.
It's building up graduallytoward that particular
contingency.
Again, really, really hard.
I think that I have the benefitof being somewhat comfortable
(20:43):
with that because of mychild-directed, play-based
approach from way back as adevelopmental psych student, as
an undergrad.
So a little story time here, andI'll break into it.
1991, Time Magazine puts outtheir top...
10 best educational models inthe world and the United States
(21:03):
and a lot of early childhoodeducators in the United States
now get mass exposed to the ideaof Reggio Emilia that was the
number one educational model forTime Magazine at that time.
I entered my undergrad in 1992.
Yes, many eons ago.
But it means that as adevelopmental psych student who
did his practicum and then gotto work at this developmental
(21:24):
lab on campus, Reggio Emilia wasall the buzz.
And the moment that I wasintroduced to Reggio Emilia, it
made complete sense.
And then I shifted into this ABAthing.
I remember going, wow, thesekids get all this stuff.
And then these kids get M&Ms foremitting these really nominal
answers that somebody's tryingto build up to some greater
(21:47):
response.
How come early childhood bestpractices per regio don't
translate into these children?
They're early childhood kidstoo, aren't they?
How do you mix those two?
And it's been my quest since Danmet me almost 20 years ago to
make those things work bettertogether.
And luckily I can say We'rehappy with the product we've
(22:10):
had.
Had the pleasure of meeting youback in October, and you were
the first BCBA that had ever putthe words Reggio Emilia and ABA
together in the same phrase.
So I was thrilled to meet you.
Let us know what yourintroduction was to Reggio.
Tell us about your center andhow those philosophies are
integrated into your ABApractice.
(22:30):
Tell us all about how those twothings work together.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
So, yeah, I...
I was working at the Universityof Vermont as I was getting my
undergrad and I was placed inwith their early childhood
program, which was Reggio.
So very similar to you in alearning environment.
And I really fell in love withthe idea of the environment as
the third teacher.
And as I, you know, dove intothe world of ABA, I thought
(22:59):
we're using people so much asthe reason to change behavior,
but why can't we shift and usethe environment?
And so that's really been themodel of what we're trying to do
at Inferno and Littles in ourcenter is using the environment
as that third teacher instead ofthe adults that are in the room.
And I think that what we'reseeing is these children are
(23:21):
Nice.
Yes.
Nice.
(23:41):
just a mindset shift of what isour goal here and how can we
help the child to move towardsmeaningful interactions with the
world around them.
SPEAKER_02 (23:53):
Perfect.
Will you expand a little bit onthat idea of internal motivation
versus external?
You just referenced it, right?
So it's very easy for somebodyduring a 40 hour RBT training,
run of the mill training tothink that that external
motivation motivator isnecessary as a consequence.
What you described is muchdifferent.
(24:14):
What you described isn'tnecessarily positive
reinforcement.
It's concurrent, meaning it'shappening actively, which is why
the child is doing certainthings.
If you can expand on that alittle bit, I think that's super
important idea.
SPEAKER_00 (24:28):
Well, I think it's this idea of a child's behavior
doesn't necessarily need to bereinforced by an external
motivator.
If a child is learning how tocreate a structure or they're
learning to build something,engaging with materials in a
meaningful way, when theycomplete that activity, when
they complete the structure,whatever it may be, and they
(24:48):
step back, there's yourreinforcement.
They just worked through thisthing and they're placing the
items on there and they'rebuilding a schema, whatever it
may be, and then they canvisually see what they created.
And so for me, that is all thereinforcement that they need in
that moment.
They don't need someone sayingover, giving them a token, wow,
you engaged for five minutes,here's your star.
(25:08):
Or you did a great job, right?
That verbal praise that we hearso often because they're
accessing it in that momentwhile they're doing it.
SPEAKER_02 (25:16):
Would you give us an example of what the external
might look like?
So it's not to say that as ateacher, you're monitoring those
things as they happen in theenvironment.
You see that child succeed andfinally, fit that peg and
whatever they were trying to putit in, as opposed to, you know,
maybe getting frustrated andtossing it to the side.
You see it.
Is there an appropriate externalvocal response from that?
(25:38):
Of course, it's good job, Mike.
Right.
It's got to be good job.
It has to be good job.
But I mean, I'm sure you're notsitting there silently.
You're saying something or maybeyou're not.
Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00 (25:49):
Maybe if I was, I would just tact what just
happened.
You put the piece
SPEAKER_01 (25:54):
in,
SPEAKER_00 (25:54):
and maybe that's all I would say.
But in that moment, I wouldn'tsay a good job because it's not
relevant, right?
What job did they do good?
Hey, that worked.
It doesn't make
SPEAKER_01 (26:04):
sense.
SPEAKER_00 (26:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you put it in there.
It's stuck.
And so I think we need to bemore creative in the way that
we're thinking aboutreinforcement.
SPEAKER_02 (26:13):
So even like you've been working on that for a while
now.
That kind of thing might, okay.
Yeah, that's great.
I mean, again, I think it's, wedid a recent episode for this
season and it was taking off ofBecky Kennedy, Dr.
Becky, talking about good job.
And it's something we've talkedabout a lot too, is what does
that mean?
We think it's reinforcing.
Maybe we're excited that thatchild did it, which is why we're
(26:33):
saying it.
But I mean, if those words arejust used ad nauseum, do they,
ever really gain full meaningyou know at some point sure you
know pat on the back pat on theback hey good job Dan we get it
but yeah I think you make a muchmore important point in terms of
enriching the environment witheven the variety of our vocal
responses and what those meanthat they may not always be the
(26:54):
reinforcement that we think theyare that's super valuable
SPEAKER_04 (26:58):
well can you can you elaborate on what you or give an
example on what you mean for theenvironment to be the third
teacher I think I totallyunderstand what you mean but I
think that's a super importantconcept
SPEAKER_00 (27:09):
So I think it's the way in which we're...
Can I share my screen for asecond?
Yeah, you sure can.
Would that work?
And then I can talk through somevisuals?
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (27:18):
That's perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (27:20):
Okay.
I feel like that would be...
I send these weekly updates toour staff.
And I feel like this would be agood way to differentiate.
One of the visuals I'm gonnashow you talks about the melting
of permanent products anddocumentation.
So in Reggio Emilia, we think alot about documenting the
(27:40):
child's work.
And I think that is a perfectway to meld with ABA, thinking
about the use of permanentproducts.
SPEAKER_04 (27:46):
Love it.
Is this a presentation that wecould also link in our
description or anything likethat, Maggie?
UNKNOWN (27:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
Yeah, I'm happy to share it with you.
So it's just I send weeklyupdates to our staff at
Enrolling Lettles aboutdifferent topics.
And one of the ones I'm going toshow is about the permanent
products.
And then the other one is aboutplay provocations or the way
that we're setting up theenvironment to encourage play
and engagement with materials.
SPEAKER_02 (28:14):
Setting up the environment.
That's a big part of it.
SPEAKER_00 (28:18):
Here it is.
UNKNOWN (28:19):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (28:20):
Show my screen.
So here on this one, I talkedabout, like this is the play
schema here that a child.
SPEAKER_04 (28:30):
Maggie, is it possible to zoom in just a
little bit?
It's a little small.
SPEAKER_00 (28:33):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (28:34):
There you go.
Perfect.
That's way better.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
Is that good?
SPEAKER_04 (28:36):
Yeah, perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (28:37):
Yeah.
So, and I'll explain this later.
for the people who can't see it,but it's a picture of a child's
play that was a combination ofblocks and people and little
lights.
And an analysis from Reggiomight be that the child depicted
the scene in a way that portraysthe magic of storytelling.
(28:57):
Notice the way she turns thepeople's heads in the same
direction.
She put people on the sides asif they were watching them go
by.
Could it be the parents sayinggoodbye as the children go to
school?
What is the origin of the storyversus the way that we might
analyze this picture in ABA Wemight target the duration of
time spent with materials,perhaps a motor imitation,
(29:18):
parallel play, cooperative play,turn-taking, assenting to play
expansions, independentengagement, problem-solving,
accepting a mistake.
So I think when we take thischild-led approach and we're
using meaningful materials, wecan still get the same goals
that we're targeting, but it'sthe way in which we're getting
there that's different.
We're not prompting for thechild to do these things.
(29:39):
We might model...
And then we're providingmaterials that would encourage
this type of engagement.
And then in thinking about theenvironment as the third
teacher, I had gone into thecenter and I took a picture of
the shelves as it was when Iarrived, which is materials in
(29:59):
baskets on the shelf.
And then I...
be an example for the staff ofwhat a play provocation could
look like.
So I arranged the materials in amore meaningful way to encourage
engagement.
So in this situation,traditional ABA might take these
two materials, the hair ties andthose little blocks, and prompt
(30:20):
the child put in, Put it inversus in this situation,
there's already a visual modelof what the child could do.
Same for like these littlepeople down here.
There could be color matching,right?
I matched some of the colorsintentionally and then
intentionally didn't match theother one.
There's also some of theselittle silicone bowls that
(30:41):
they're doing stacking with.
In this situation, they're doingsome pretend play.
It's on one of their heads likea hat.
And so I'm really trying tosupport and train our staff
about the way in which we'repreparing materials and showing
them how when we do use theenvironment as the third
teacher, we can encourageengagement in a different way.
SPEAKER_02 (31:03):
Now, the traditional ABA brain is going to go, well,
clearly, if you set theenvironment up that way, then
they're supposed to put thosethings in, and then if they
don't, I go back and I promptthem to do so, right?
So that's dangerous becausethat's, again, everybody's
always thinking about this onesingular response.
What you're saying there is I'msuggesting a certain use of
these items, and then if thechild chooses to use them in a
(31:25):
different way, now myinvestigative work starts.
Is that a fair assessment?
SPEAKER_00 (31:31):
Yeah, and one of the, yeah.
No, what were you going
SPEAKER_02 (31:34):
to say?
No, go ahead, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00 (31:36):
One of the goals we'll target a lot on is
assenting to play expansion.
So perhaps the child is engagingin a set of materials in one
way, we might join them and weoffer engagement in a different
way.
Now, whether they do that ornot, then we're tracking the
goal if they assented to thatexpansion.
Did it bring them joy and didthey continue it or did it not?
(31:59):
So then that's our data analysisright there.
Did this expansion that weoffered, did it encourage them
to then continue to do that samething or do they withdraw assent
and move away from the activity.
SPEAKER_02 (32:09):
And the really important difference I see there
is instead of this now being alinear response, meaning this is
the only thing that yourresponse can continue the play
with, now it puts the onus onthe teacher, the RBT, as it
were, in our circumstance, to gofind a different way to join and
expand the play as opposed totry to force in the same thing.
(32:31):
That's fantastic.
And
SPEAKER_04 (32:33):
how come it has to be, you know, how come the, if
that's the way that it'ssupposed to be, the whatever,
the hair ties have to go intothe block, right?
Like what, we've determinedthat, right?
SPEAKER_02 (32:42):
So it's weird.
That's just a suggestion andthen you watch what the child
does, right?
So, and the idea again that, youknow, Brejo's so, this idea of
hundred languages of children Ithink fits right into, you know,
the traditional diagnosticnotion of stereotopy or stimming
or whatever it is.
That's just a differentlanguage.
It's just a different mode ofcommunication.
It's telling you something andyes, it might have a different
(33:04):
impact in certain settingsversus others and therein lies
the analysis for is this bruteforce, make that stop because
it's abnormal.
That's a huge difference.
SPEAKER_00 (33:14):
That's a huge difference.
Yeah.
And even this concept of likeearlier, one of you mentioned
like man training, likecommunication is so much more
than just man training.
SPEAKER_01 (33:24):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (33:25):
And so that's why I love this lens of Reggio within
ABA because we're being sointentional about analyzing the
child's engagement and the wayin which they're communicating
every little thing that they do,whether it be through micro
expressions or gestures orgestalt or AAC.
There's so many different waysand different reasons for
(33:45):
communication.
SPEAKER_04 (33:46):
For sure.
And historically, a lot oftimes, at least in the companies
I've worked with, we say, youknow, we start with the man
training and we're like, well, alot of times individuals on the
spectrum don't Well, no wonderthey don't tact because tacting
is not meaningful to thembecause you haven't established
a relationship.
Everything's just been a dothis.
Why would they tact?
Because you're probably going tocorrect it anyway.
SPEAKER_02 (34:06):
You didn't tact correctly.
SPEAKER_04 (34:08):
Two things I wanted to just ask you to either
elaborate on from what you saidactually in your intro story
that I think are very important.
And I think you understand whatthey are.
We understand what they are.
but I don't know if a lot of thelisteners do.
The first thing you said, andplease correct me and expand on
it, is I think you say kind ofyour guiding light or what
really got you into the ABAfield was actually ACT therapy.
(34:31):
So a lot of people probablydon't know what that is.
Can you talk a little bit aboutACT therapy and whatever you'd
like to about that?
SPEAKER_00 (34:39):
Yes, and it's ACT, so not ACT.
Oh,
SPEAKER_02 (34:43):
ACT therapy, excuse me.
Acceptance commitment, yes.
Is that the...
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
Yeah, acceptance and commitment therapy.
Yeah.
So I love this idea ofidentifying what someone's
values are and what matters tothem.
And so in our work with the kidsthat we're supporting, we're not
creating goals based off ofstandardized assessments.
We're creating goals off of aperson's values, what truly
(35:08):
matters to them.
And I think that where ABA kindof went off, you know, the way
it was, I believe, was alwaysmeant to go is when we took out
private events from the workthat we're doing.
But when we're only analyzingwhat we can observably see,
we're not we're only gettinghalf of the story.
We're getting half of thepicture.
And so for me, we not only lookat the four functions, but we
(35:29):
also look at the six coreyearnings developed by Dr.
Stephen Haynes.
But what is the intention behindthis behavior?
What is this person yearning forin this moment?
And how do I look at theperson's history as well as what
I can see in this moment to helpdetermine what that yearning is?
And so for me, ACT really meldsin the observable with the
(35:50):
unobservable.
And we can see how it can helpto create meaningful behavior
change in that moment.
Like, I might have a sessionwith the child.
Think of one, one child I'vebeen working with who really
loves video games.
And for a lot of our sessions,it was spent just listening to
him talk about video games, butthrough listening him to the way
that we, he talked about thegames, I could identify what his
(36:12):
values were through what he wasdescribing.
Whether it was a tricky, aparticularly hard level that he
really felt great about after hegot, got to the end.
Great.
He values problem solving.
It felt really good for him toget, to get to the end result.
And so for, me, the melding ofACT with ABA really helps us to
look at the full picture of ahuman and take a more holistic
(36:36):
approach.
Because when we only look at thefour functions, we're missing so
much of the story for thatperson and so much of why they
might be doing what they'redoing.
SPEAKER_04 (36:46):
So basing your therapy goals or objectives on
the individual's values inaddition to the functions of
behavior, am I understandingthat correctly?
SPEAKER_00 (36:55):
Primarily just the person's values.
We're not targeting somethingunless it's going to be
meaningful for that child intheir life and that they have
the motivation in which to workon whatever that skill is.
So it's kind of putting thestandardized assessments to the
side and using them as a guidefor what skills the child might
be missing, but then using theirvalues as a way to work towards
(37:17):
whatever those skills might be.
And so I think that our approachto ABA is not...
easy, I would say it'ssubstantially harder, right?
Because we're really having todo a lot more analysis and spend
a lot more time thinking.
But I think up to this point inour history, we've been really
lazy in our approach toanalyzing human behavior.
SPEAKER_02 (37:37):
Yeah.
And functions, the way we'rediscussing them now, they're so
subjective, right?
They're so authoritarian.
It's just about what I think thefunction is and how it impacts
me.
And I'm going to change thebehavior based on that because
I'm annoyed that you're flappingyour hands or something.
That's rough.
I mean, that changes the wholeperspective there in terms of
now the interaction, theenvironment, the idea that I am
(38:00):
a part of your environment asmuch as you're a part of mine.
And how does that work?
So yeah, it makes a lot ofsense.
My favorite is the
SPEAKER_04 (38:07):
attention.
Oh, they're just doing it forattention.
It just allows people to be sodismissive of every behavior
that they don't enjoy.
SPEAKER_02 (38:13):
Well, and we always think about that.
They're doing it for attentionversus they're getting my
attention for it, which is whyit might be maintained whether
or not It's impactful orannoying to me.
I mean, this goes so much deeperin terms of what that means.
What is the function it'sserving versus the idea that the
individual is using it towardthat function?
SPEAKER_04 (38:33):
Pretty cool that they
SPEAKER_02 (38:34):
might value your attention.
Yeah, again, now the valuesystem comes in.
Oh, my attention seems to havevalue.
Okay, how do I apply that asquote-unquote reinforcement?
SPEAKER_04 (38:43):
So where do you...
Since we work primarily with...
At least we work primarily withkids.
I think you do too, unfurlinglittles.
Where do you...
How do you include, because alot of times it's the parents
that speak for the kids andexpress their values and their
goals and desires, so how do youjuxtapose that with the kids'
values and within the ACTtherapy realm?
SPEAKER_00 (39:08):
So I think it's through observation, especially
if we're working with a childwho might be not speaking at the
time when we started therapy, itmight be just spending the day
watching them.
What do they do?
What are they gravitatingtowards?
What do they gravitate awayfrom?
And why is it meaningful tothem?
And so that's really where we'repulling values from.
So, you know, perhapshistorically a child would have
(39:31):
been referred to as non-socialor antisocial if they're playing
alone.
But for us, we would say, oh,they value independence.
They enjoy being on And that'sokay, right?
We're not going to start workingtoward like, if we working with
a child who's not engaging inany onlooker play, and they're,
you know, engaging by lining ablock, so they're not going
towards other peers, we're notputting in a social goal, it's
(39:52):
not meaningful for that childyet.
And I think that's the biggestthing of working with parents is
at this point, your child is notshowing natural intrinsic
motivation to engage withothers.
That is okay.
We're not going to put it as atarget right now because it is
not identified as a value tothem.
You know, over time, it is.
It will be a value.
(40:13):
And we see that with every childwe've ever supported.
Over time, it becomes a value.
And that's the time in which towork on it.
SPEAKER_04 (40:19):
So it's almost always focused on the child's
values I don't want to say notthe parents' values, but only
the parents' values that are inline with the child's values are
the ones that you're going tofocus on.
Is that right?
Well,
SPEAKER_00 (40:34):
I think it's a gray area.
(41:04):
And that's not necessarily avalue for their child yet.
And the child is getting up andrunning around while they're
eating, which is a chokinghazard.
We would work on that becauseit's an essential life skill.
And so I think where the grayarea is comes in those essential
skills that are required in thisworld for a person's safety and
well-being.
If it's not required for theirsafety and well-being, we'll get
(41:27):
to it at a later date.
SPEAKER_04 (41:29):
It's just interesting because it makes me
think of a lot of that can becultural too.
Different cultures prioritizeand value different things.
And I guess what you're sayingis potentially if they're not in
line with the unfurling littles,you just might say, hey, we're
not the right provider for youbecause the things that you are
prioritizing are not the thingsthat we typically prioritize.
(41:51):
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (41:53):
Yeah.
I mean, we put the writing onthe wall.
Like we have very, very in-depthwriting.
policies and procedures aboutwhat we do and what we won't do
so we have policies aboutmasking that we will not
encourage masking we havepolicies about gender affirming
care that we will always providegender affirming care and so the
families that are coming to usknow exactly what they're
(42:13):
getting and if they're notduring that intake call they get
to know what we're doing and wesend them you know different
handouts that say practices wewon't engage in we send them a
screener they fill out becauseit's investment not only in
their time but in our time andWe want to make sure that we're
educating those who are readyand willing to be educated in
(42:34):
neurodiversity affirming care.
It's not that we only work withone type of family, but it's
that we need to have opentransparency from day one about
what we do and what we won't doso that we're not compromising
our values as a company.
SPEAKER_04 (42:48):
I love it.
My last question, I want to pullup my note here, is something
you said in the beginning ofyour introduction.
You said you wanted to disruptwhat was happening.
Mm-hmm.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Because I think we can relateand we are on board and that's
why we ended up starting our owncompany because we didn't feel
like we could disrupt what washappening sufficiently enough
(43:09):
under anyone else's guidance.
SPEAKER_02 (43:13):
This whole podcast was created to criticize ABA.
It really was.
To
SPEAKER_04 (43:21):
provide a middle ground because ABA has a
reputation.
We wanted to figure out whatabout ABA maybe needs to change.
What about people'simplementation of ABA needs to
change?
SPEAKER_02 (43:33):
That's probably the biggest part.
What You know, ABA is what itis.
How are you practicing it?
So, yeah, go right ahead.
SPEAKER_04 (43:40):
Disrupt what was
SPEAKER_00 (43:40):
happening.
SPEAKER_02 (43:41):
Expand.
We're glad for yourdisruptiveness.
SPEAKER_00 (43:45):
Thank you.
And I'm glad for your guidancetoo.
It's really cool to get to be onthis wave.
I feel like there is like a wavehappening in the field right now
that is making change.
When I was first exposed to ABA,it was with that child who I
described when I was hispersonal care assistant.
And he was, I went to his schoolone day to visit him and he was
(44:05):
in an ABA session and they had abox of like cookies and crumbs.
Really it was like a box ofcrumbs from cookies and chips.
And they were doing DTE discretetrial training with him and then
when he would get one right,they would give him one of the
crumbs.
And it broke my heart to see thesession because when I was with
him at home and we would beplaying with Thomas and friends
(44:27):
and I would be modeling languageand following his lead, he was a
different kid.
He was so actively engaged withme in what we were doing and I
heard so much language and thenI was in this ABA session and he
was a different kid.
He looked anxious, he lookednervous, he was talking in one
word phrases He usually usedreally in-depth gestalts when he
(44:47):
was with me.
And so that was my firstexposure to ABI.
And so I did not like it when Ifounded the field at all.
Really did not like it.
And what made me curious aboutthe field was when I found
Project Impact and was trainedin Project Impact.
Because up to that point, I wasworking as a special instructor
(45:08):
for early intervention.
But what I wanted to do is applythe science, right?
Because as you said, the scienceis undeniable.
That is the science of behavior.
But the application of thatscience is up to the individual.
And so if we get...
Exactly.
What are we doing with thescience?
And for me, I wanted to combinethings like development,
(45:32):
attachment theory, relationalbased care with the science and
see how we could take a moreholistic approach to truly
helping these people.
Everything we do is relational,right?
I just had a call with a parentthis week and she said, you
know, we're getting to the pointwhere we're probably going to be
ending services and I'm so sadfor our child to lose this.
(45:54):
Like, what do you do in thisapproach?
You form such a strong bond withthe child.
You make this meaningfulconnection.
What happens when you're gone?
And I said, that child willremember how we made them feel.
And that's what I want to berepeated over time.
That when there's a child whofinds someone that is a safe
person, they form a strong bondthe way that I formed one with
that child.
(46:15):
And so I think for so long,we've treated, you know, kids
like dogs in this field.
It makes sense.
I mean, you know, when thisreally came up, we were looking
at things like the industrialrevolution and kids had to be in
school and they had to complyand this, that, and the other.
But we're, you know, we'rehigher level humans now.
It goes so much deeper than justcompliance.
(46:37):
It's about compliance.
For me, at the end of the day,my end goal is to bring a child
instrumentally more joy thanthey felt the day before because
life is just too short to doanything else.
SPEAKER_04 (46:49):
Wow.
So with that, yeah, you made methink earlier when you were
talking about individualsmasking all day and how they
might be exhausted coming homeand how historically ABA– And
even not historically, evencurrently, a lot of companies,
it's a lot of hours at home aswell and how that can even be
(47:10):
borderline abusive.
So hearing your description ofkind of disrupting the norm,
I'll just say one thing from mypersonal perspective, and then
I'll pass it to Mike.
Just a heartfelt thank you, andI'll explain what I mean from
that.
I've been in this field foralmost 15 years, and...
There was just a point, therehave been many points, but
(47:32):
recently there was a point,that's why we started our own
company, where I was just, and Ithink a lot of people that I
associate with are all just kindof burnt out with ABA and kind
of corporate ABA.
And we were all just kind offinding it very unfulfilling.
Again, I'll speak for myself,but I can think I can speak for
a lot of them as well.
Just finding it unfulfilling andnot what we thought we were
(47:53):
getting into.
And again, this is 15 years downthe road.
So I met with Mike and, youknow, we decided to embark on
this venture of starting our owncompany.
And that was also that had itschallenges, you know, insurance
rates and stuff like that.
And just dealing with them andwhat just the challenges of
(48:16):
trying to accommodate andcapitulate to all of their
demands, you know, for the firstlike six months of we didn't
have any clients at this point.
It was just dealing with them,figuring out program designs,
you And it was just like, wow, Ileft this field.
I didn't leave this field.
I left this company orcompanies.
And it's just, it's not anyeasier.
It's still heavy.
It's all just like hours and...
(48:38):
Medical notes and are you doingthis?
And oh, we're not writing thegoal the exact way you want it.
And it was just like, I rememberwe did the CPABA conference and
it was like, oh, we're going todo this on a Friday and
Saturday.
It was exhausting.
And I was just kind of almost atthe end of my rope of like, is
this really what I want to do?
I left the ABA field to createmy own company and it seems like
(48:59):
the confines.
And then I met professionalslike yourself and Michelle, a
lot of other professionals.
Obviously, you're one of theones that stood out.
We brought you on to our companyto talk to us as well.
But it was like, wow, there areother people doing amazing
things.
And the ABA...
that we always thought waspossible is out there.
And it was really invigorating.
It probably is honestly what'skept me in the field.
(49:21):
I know it lit Mike up when heheard Reggio and like, it's
like, oh my God, that exists.
So that was a long diatribe, butthank you because without you, I
honestly might not be in thefield anymore.
Thank you very much because it'sjust amazing the work you're
doing and on the East Coast,thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00 (49:39):
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
It's really neat to see howthere are these people making
change, right?
And one of the things that I dois I offer free mentorship for
people who want to start theirown ABA businesses because I
think we need more companieslike yours and mine.
We are trying to pave a way fora better future for these kids.
SPEAKER_04 (49:59):
And you would be really, really happy.
Mike and I last...
after the podcast and theprevious week we got a program
designed for an adult programthat we're about to submit um
and we basically we got atemplate um and we went through
it and spent hours taking all ofthe more traditionally based
(50:19):
goals like you know client willdo this client will tolerate
changes in routine client willbe able to dress themselves and
Still might not be the end goal,but taking those more
traditional deficit-based model.
In fact, I think we took deficitout of pretty much everything.
Yeah, we did.
And making it more of astrength-based model.
And that was so, I mean, we didit on a Sunday.
We were exhausted from work andthen we had podcasts, but it was
(50:42):
like so invigorating to do that.
Probably wouldn't have done thatif it wasn't for your, or
wouldn't have done it the way wedid it if it wasn't for your
insight.
SPEAKER_02 (50:50):
Yeah, thank you so much.
It's been a real inspiration toget to know you.
Thank you for your time again onthe podcast.
It is.
It's just these nuances that Ithink we need to think about.
I love the way you talk about,you know, we've been lazy so
far.
I think that's a really good wayto put it.
It's been expecting a child or aclient to do exactly as we want
(51:14):
them to do, as opposed to doingour investigative work, as you
put it again.
Just great phrasing.
So yes, from both of us, fromABA on tap, from Ascend
Behavioral Solutions, from thebottom of our hearts, thank you
so much for your time, foreverything you're doing over
there in Philadelphia.
The moment we have a chance toCome out and see you.
You're going to see us.
Dan, you had something else to
SPEAKER_04 (51:34):
say?
Anything that you would liketo...
Unfurling Littles, yourmentorship, anything you would
like to promote or bring up onthe podcast?
Please.
So people know where to findyou?
SPEAKER_00 (51:43):
I feel like I just...
If you're scared of startingyour own thing, just do it.
We have...
In the last year, we had over300 families reach out.
And so I think that the world ishungry for something different.
And we have no intention ofgrowing at Affiliate.
And so we need more people tostart their own businesses and
say no to private equity andthese big corporate companies.
SPEAKER_04 (52:07):
And where do people find you?
Or do you not want people tofind you?
That's okay, too.
They
SPEAKER_00 (52:13):
can find me.
So I have the Instagramunfurlinglittles and then
unfurlinglittles.com is ourwebsite.
And then my email is justmaggie.h at
unfurlinglittles.com.
So I'm happy to hear frompeople.
I'm not great at getting back toeverything right now, but I will
do it when I have the time.
But if you do want to, if youare thinking about starting a
(52:33):
company, I do offer free groupmentorship once a month and you
can sign up through our website.
It's been a lot of reallyamazing BCBAs across the country
who are the foundations ofstarting their own company.
So I encourage you, if you arethinking of doing it, come to
the group and I'll help you.
SPEAKER_04 (52:48):
And when you say through the website, the
Unfurling Littles website, or isit a different website?
SPEAKER_00 (52:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (52:52):
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I'd like to do a littlesynopsis here as we end.
And Maggie put out some realbangers.
So reconsider your extrinsicmotivators.
Don't be lazy.
Do your investigative work.
And like we like to say here onABA on Tap, always
SPEAKER_04 (53:08):
analyze responsibly.
SPEAKER_02 (53:09):
Cheers.
Thanks so much, Maggie.
SPEAKER_00 (53:12):
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (53:15):
ABA on Tap is recorded live and unfiltered.
We're done for today.
You don't have to go home, butyou can't stay here.
See you next time.
Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find
the best recipe to brew thesmoothest, coldest, and best
tasting ABA around.
I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio,and join us on our journey as we
(00:23):
look back into the ingredientsto form the best concoction of
ABA on tap.
In this podcast, we will talkabout the history of the ABA
brew, how much to consume toachieve the optimum buzz while
not getting too drunk, and therecommended pairings to bring to
the table.
(00:43):
So without further ado, sitback, relax, and always analyze
responsibly.
SPEAKER_02 (00:51):
All right, all right, and welcome back to
another installment of ABA onTap.
I am your co-host, Mike Rubio,and this is part two of our
interview with Maggie Haraburda.
Enjoy.
So that would be to...
And please give me your insighton this to see if I've got it
anywhere near correct.
But the idea that if you'regoing to expect for the child to
(01:12):
sit there for the entirety ofthe circle time, then there's
something you're going to haveto open up to allow for that
versus you could do it the otherway and say...
How are they going toparticipate knowing that once
they do these couple things,then maybe you're granting their
quote-unquote escape from thisas opposed to now making them
stick the whole time?
Is that a fair contrast?
Could you go both ways withthat, or would you have a
(01:33):
preference?
SPEAKER_00 (01:35):
Well, I think there's this concept of escaping
from activities.
I feel like it's reallymisconstrued in what's actually
happening, that the child's notassenting to participate.
Not necessarily.
Yeah.
Go
SPEAKER_02 (01:48):
ahead.
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
Yeah.
It's like, what is the reasonbehind this?
Why is this not accessible tothem in this moment?
And I think that's thedifference in that we're looking
at accessibility of routines,not compliance to routines.
Do they not want to sit in thecircle time because it's too
loud?
Are they uncomfortable in theway that they have to sit there?
Are there rigid expectations inwhat it looks like for them to
(02:11):
sit at the circle time?
Does the material matter tothem, right?
Is it meaningful in any way?
Can we pull in their specialinterests in some way into the
circle time and make it moreindividualized for this person.
So again, I think that's wherethat detective work comes in.
Like what truly is it that's notmaking this accessible for this
child in this moment.
Right.
(02:31):
And then also, you know, If achild doesn't ascend to circle
time that day, it's not thatdeep.
I've been saying it's not thatdeep a lot lately of why does it
matter?
We're still going to work on it,but today they didn't ascend.
No problem.
I'm going to mark down theydidn't ascend, and now my job
starts, and I'm going to figureout why.
Why did they not want to comeover today?
SPEAKER_02 (02:51):
That could mean that you're making those stimuli,
those songs, those movementsaccessible to that child at a
time outside circle time.
Is that fair to say?
You're making those things morefamiliar or less novel or
more...
whatever it is, such that theymight then join Circle Time in a
way that the optics are moretraditional?
Is that...
I mean, because there'snothing...
(03:12):
You're not saying that any givenkid isn't going to achieve that
from an optics perspective.
You're kind of...
From what I understand, you'resaying we just don't want to
force that issue.
So it's not to say that Johnnywon't ever sit at Circle Time.
But right now, if he isn't, justforcing him to sit at Circle
Time isn't the solution.
UNKNOWN (03:31):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
I don't know if that made any sense.
SPEAKER_00 (03:32):
Yeah.
Well, I think it's like, forexample, at our center, our
circle time, sometimes there'sone kid, sometimes all 10 kids
are there.
And it really varies dependingon the day.
But what we've seen is overtime, while not forcing these
kids to come over, they'renaturally really motivated.
Yeah, they're really motivatedto come by because they know
that if they say no, we're goingto honor that no.
(03:54):
Because it's not that deep.
Circle time in the scheme ofthings doesn't really teach
light skills that someone needsto be successful and I think
when, like you had said thephrase traditional optics.
And I often think about like,traditional because it's how
it's historically been done, butdoesn't mean it's how it will
(04:15):
have to be in the future.
SPEAKER_02 (04:16):
That's a great distinction.
I mean, so again, the way you'redescribing it, I would assume
that, man, you're really makingme think here.
The idea that when all 10 kidsshow up at your center, there's
a different synergy from thatcircle time as opposed to one
kid showing up.
And I like the way you put that,where from a traditional optics
perspective, I wouldimmediately, you know, be
(04:37):
inclined to think when all 10are there and now I've got a
circle time, this is the wayit's supposed to look.
What you're saying is it'scircle time if there's one there
and you're singing songs.
And yes, it's a different circletime if all 10 kids are there
and maybe there's more toobserve and maybe there's more
volume and there's more of achance to get used to that
volume.
But again, yeah, I think you'reabsolutely right.
It would be my mindsettraditionally to think of that,
(05:00):
you know, those traditionaloptics as a bigger success than
the idea that you have one kidchild who's going through the
whole circle time and you wouldovershadow the fact that it's
only one and not all 10 in thatinstance, despite the fact that
that one child probably mighthave gained a lot from that
situation or whatever the caseis.
So you present such a, I guess,an instructional control that's
(05:25):
more in flux.
And I think that as BCBAs, wehave this very linear notion of
what instructional control lookslike.
And it means that I saysomething and the child responds
and then I consecrate and thenwe do it again and again and
again.
And you still achieve that inyour more open-ended approach.
It's just not so linear, not sosequential.
It comes together over time,right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:48):
Yeah, I think, you know, for me...
And like in general, learning isa lifelong thing, right?
That's something we're going todo forever.
And so I want the children thatwe're working with today to have
a positive experience withlearning.
I don't want it to be compliancebased and rigid and reward
focused, because this issomething that they're going to
have to do for the rest of theirlives.
(06:09):
And I think a lot about likeproximity.
A lot of times there's thesegoals that like a child will,
you know, participate within twofeet, five feet.
But in our space, we have onelarge room, it's 3,800 square
feed it's set up more like aMontessori room and we have our
circle of time towards the frontof the room you know a child
who's sitting on the other sideof the room they might still be
(06:29):
orienting towards us andlistening even though they're
nowhere near us yeah they'restill learning and still taking
that information in even thoughthey're not within the two to
five feet right and so we haveto think of like proximity to of
like does it really matter ifthe child is sitting within two
feet of the teacher what is thesocial significance of that
SPEAKER_04 (06:47):
Totally agree.
It's that we use the phrase labto living room.
A lot of, you know, love us.
And back in the day, everythinghad to be done in lab to prove
if ABA works.
So the tight controls, the veryrigid SDR, SR relationship.
But we know ABA works.
They proved that we don't haveto be within that lab space.
two to five feet to show what ifthey're six feet?
(07:07):
Does that mean, what if it'sseven feet?
So all these arbitrary metricsthat it seems like people are
still doing from the laborientation that lose social
significance, like you'resaying, because we're still
trying to prove that it workswhen we've proven that it works.
SPEAKER_02 (07:20):
It's the, uh, It's the misinterpretation between
experimental control andinstructional control.
You just made me think of that.
Because when you're running anexperiment in a lab, those
details do matter to some extenttoward replication.
What Maggie's saying is now invivo, it's less about ensuring
that my SD led to the desiredresponse and more about
(07:42):
presenting those SDs continuallyand then watching and knowing
that the child may emit theresponse to that SD continuously
Yeah.
(08:18):
I'm going to say it.
We are at about an hour becauseI want to make sure that we're
all staying fresh.
Maggie stuck with us through alot of technical difficulties in
the beginning.
So I'm going to have to jump inthen with the big question that
I'm sitting on for a while.
Do you want to do anythingbefore I get to Reggio?
Because once we talk Reggio,it's all over.
SPEAKER_04 (08:38):
I do.
I have a couple.
I'm going to let you go at it.
Maggie, how are you doing?
Are you good to keep going?
Yeah.
I'm good.
Thank you.
Thanks for sticking with us.
(09:05):
the way ABA has been done, andthat's why a lot of our goals
have gone to frequency, becauseit was only the RBTs can deliver
the SDs, the child has torespond in one specific
response, and then they get onespecific reinforcer.
And as a result of that, Ithink, because we oftentimes
didn't have the individual'sattention, We then had this
misconception that we need topresent a whole lot of trials
(09:28):
and there needs to be a wholelot of repetition.
So, you know, we would do DTTand ask the kid what red is
50,000 times because they wereonly paying attention two times.
So we just go over and over andover and over again.
And especially withcommunication, you know,
historically, we taught itthrough man training.
But I know you've been a bigproponent of joint attention.
And if we can help this personget engaged, which might take a
(09:51):
little bit longer on the frontend rather than just presenting
trials, but help them becomeengaged in something and engage
with us and find us reinforcing,that might take a little bit.
But then communication will kindof blossom from there rather
than focusing on such titrated,like, utterances of
communication.
Yeah.
Any thoughts on that?
And then I'd be very interestedto get Maggie's thoughts.
(10:12):
I probably know what yourthoughts on that are.
SPEAKER_02 (10:14):
Well, yeah, I mean, I...
So I guess...
And now Maggie sort of changedmy thoughts on that just today
in terms, I guess, the fluidityor the flux of what attending
means.
Again, if we're not careful, itbecomes this one linear thing
where you're...
gaze is right on my face as Ipresent this SD and I think the
(10:36):
optics are perfect and then yourespond and then I deliver this
pre-planned consequence whichI'm sure is reinforcing and so
on and so forth and I think thatwhat we're talking about here is
more that idea that I am I amwithin reason in your space.
I am commenting on some of thethings you're doing.
And then as I see that maybethat guides some level of
(11:00):
attention toward me, I mightpresent something for you and
see what happens.
And again, even in Maggiedescribing it today, it's
looking for that response.
Maybe 10 minutes from now,looking for that response at
some point so I can go, oh,yeah, hey, that's what I was.
That's what the SD was aboutearlier today.
And good.
And now I can maybe provide somelevel of reinforcement.
(11:22):
Now I'm going to let Maggie talkabout that because I think she's
going to describe it much betterthan I did.
But that's kind of my.
Even from the beginning, thatpremise of joint attention and
that we had this fixed eyecontact foundation that we were
trying to teach from, and thatjust didn't make any sense.
It didn't make any sense, theidea that what's the eye contact
for?
Well, maybe one premise is sothat developmentally speaking,
(11:47):
you're able to see sometimes howsomebody's mouth moves when you
hear them make that sound.
And now we've got a bimodalconnection that maybe...
helps you develop some level ofresponse from that, right?
Not knowing what that might be.
For me, it might be the factthat, again, you're getting two
inputs for the same sound.
You get to see what it lookslike visually, and then maybe
(12:09):
that helps you produce thatsound.
But that doesn't mean that achild can't then replicate a
sound from just hearing it andnot seeing your face.
So there's always, I guess, whatyou call the investigative work.
You always have to be watching,and I think that's been the
traditional approach you know,concern from your challenge with
things like discrete trial isthere's already a huge
assumption that this one SD isgoing to elicit this one
(12:32):
response that we're going toconsecrate perfectly with this
reinforcement.
And then we're going to do itnine more times because if you
don't do it 10 times, thelearning doesn't happen.
I know Maggie knows that.
It has to happen 80%.
It has to happen at least 80% ofthose opportunities.
Otherwise, it's been a waste oftime.
I'm being very facetious.
Maggie, I'll pass it over to youif that made any sense.
What are your thoughts on jointattention, Maggie?
(12:53):
What does that mean, jointattention?
It's a buzzword and then we canget that wrong too.
SPEAKER_00 (13:00):
You know, I think that like a lot of things in our
field, the definition of jointattention was not written by
someone who is neurodivergent,right?
It was written by someone who isneurotypical.
And so when I think about jointattention, for me, it's this
idea of shared joy.
I don't think it has to includeobjects at all.
(13:20):
It's simply shared joy withanother person, shared attention
of whatever it might be.
And so I think for every child,it's going to look different of
what their joint attentionexpression is.
How are they expressing thatthey are engaged with someone
else with a shared object oractivity or whatever it may be?
So I think that my...
(13:43):
My views on joint attention, Ithink, has changed over the
years.
And I think that I have focuseda lot more on studying a child's
gaze of what they're looking at.
What are they naturallygravitating towards?
Because as soon as someoneplaces a demand to look at
something, it's no longer jointattention.
It's compliance to a demand.
(14:03):
And so I think that's wherepeople really get tripped up
with things like joint attentionis it has to, to me, In my
definition, it has to beauthentic.
They have to desire to look atwhatever it is because they want
to, not because they're going toaccess some kind of contrived
reward after.
(14:25):
Like I think about, you know, wehave a couple of goals about
children engaging in onlookerplay.
We are not prompting them tolook at other children playing
or tracking the frequency atwhich they are engaging.
internally motivated to look atother children play and seeing
how that goes up over time.
So for example, there's the onechild at the center right now
who really loves the seesaw thatwe got.
(14:46):
It's really neat.
It bounces up and down and thenit spins around and we had had
it over in the corner, right?
We moved it to the center of theroom.
His engagement and onlooker playskyrocketed.
He is now looking at all thedifferent children throughout
the day, smiling in response towhat they're doing, right?
And then the technician is theresmiling with him, attempting to
(15:08):
gain that joint attention fromhim so that they can mutually
enjoy looking at the otherchildren, perhaps by labeling
what they're doing in thosemoments.
So I think that's where likethat Environmental manipulation
can come into play, and movingthe child's seesaw from the side
of the room to the center of theroom increase their onlooker
play.
That is behavior analysis, butit's not necessarily using the
(15:30):
person's prompt as the SD.
Did that answer your question?
Yes,
SPEAKER_02 (15:35):
beautifully.
That answered it beautifully.
That's really, really good.
Well, so here we are, Dan.
That's it.
You got anything else?
I do, but are you doing okay?
Dan, speak now or forever holdyour peace because you know that
once Maggie and I get intoReggio, it's all over.
Yes.
It's the end.
We're coming home after that.
SPEAKER_04 (15:53):
Two things just from what I notated from actually
your intro, Maggie, but my lastquestion on the joint attention
piece is, I think oftentimesindividuals that we work with
maybe struggle with reading bodycues, and it's hard to read body
cues if you're not orientingtowards individuals.
Certainly eye contact has beenvery overgeneralized, and it's
(16:13):
something we don't work on atour...
Let me rephrase that.
We don't specifically target.
We can work on it, but we don'tspecifically target at our
company.
What are your thoughts onbasically orientating Gay shift.
Yeah, gay shift, things likethat, for the benefit of being
able to pick up on bodylanguage, especially if people
(16:35):
are non-speaking, body languageis all of the communication of
that interaction.
So you do have to be in some wayoriented to that person to be
able to understand that.
What are your thoughts there?
SPEAKER_00 (16:46):
Well, I think there's different...
I don't know.
I feel like there's a differencehere in what the skill is that
we're targeting.
Because for me, I think a lotabout inferencing.
Children and adults, we need tobe able to inference what's
happening in a situation toassure our safety and
well-being.
And I don't know if someone'sbody orientation would
necessarily be enoughinformation to help someone to
(17:08):
inference what's happening inthat moment.
So I think that...
For me, I'm always thinkingabout what skills are we
teaching in the moment with thetools that we have accessible?
And when would this be needed?
And so I don't like this wholeidea of like generalization.
I want to be programming fromgeneralization for day one.
And so when children are in ourcenter, we're helping them to
(17:30):
identify who is a safe person.
The people in our center arehonoring their ascent.
They are safe people.
Now, we recently had a physicaltherapist come in to see one of
the kids who was not a safeperson for this child.
The child immediately startedsaying, Whereas mom, go home, go
home.
They have never done thatbefore.
So they didn't necessarily haveto see the person in the way
(17:53):
that they were turning towardsthem.
But they identified how thatperson made them feel.
And that person made them feelunsafe.
And they demanded to go home.
And so we ended the session andasked that person to leave.
And so that's the way that wereinforce that, right?
This person identified for somereason, this is not a safe
person in this moment.
And so we honored that assentwithdrawal and ended that
(18:13):
session.
So I think that it goes deeperthan just seeing someone's body
language and it like it's um idon't know hard to almost like
uh it's hard to even likeclearly define because i think
it is that inferencing scalewhich is can be very nuanced
SPEAKER_04 (18:31):
certainly
SPEAKER_02 (18:32):
really quickly you're it's fascinating because
what you are saying is i thinksomething that people get
tripped up on so In the exampleyou gave with the physical
therapist, somebody would say,well, then what you've just
reinforced there, again, back tothat escape thing, and now how
is a child going to get thoseservices in your center?
And you're saying quite theopposite.
(18:52):
You're saying by listening tothe child's negation and letting
them know that by saying no,this might make it more likely
that they'll accept this personin the future.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
Yeah, I mean, even for me, when I start with a new
family, which I have to stopdoing because I just need to run
the business.
But when I do start, I often oneof the first things I say to
that child is, you know, isalways okay with me.
Um, if you tell me now, I willalways respect that now.
And so sometimes that might looklike doing a 10 minute session
(19:24):
and the kids saying, go home andme saying, you got it.
I'll see you next week.
And slowly building thatrelationship between, between
us.
And so I think the answer isit's not no, never, but it's not
now.
That
SPEAKER_02 (19:38):
is, man, I am going to steal that from you.
Actually, I won't steal it.
I will quote you.
That's beautiful.
No, and again, I think thatapplies to so many things in
what we do because it's beendrilled into us that this
particular three-partcontingency has to happen 10
times or 8 out of 10 times, andif not, the learning doesn't
happen.
And you're saying, hey, the factthat the child's gaining some
(20:01):
locus of control and sayingno...
While that seems to work againstyour presence there to provide
the intervention, that in and ofitself is the intervention for
that day and saying, hey, wow,this person is safe.
And over time, I'm going tobuild that.
And again, as much as I knowthat that is the right answer,
in my opinion, I know howchallenging that can be because
(20:22):
you mentioned earlier, peoplehave the concept of time.
That fourth dimension is alwayson our minds and we're worried
about time and time and time.
And what you're saying is, well,if you worry so much about time,
you're going to end up losingit.
It's building up graduallytoward that particular
contingency.
Again, really, really hard.
I think that I have the benefitof being somewhat comfortable
(20:43):
with that because of mychild-directed, play-based
approach from way back as adevelopmental psych student, as
an undergrad.
So a little story time here, andI'll break into it.
1991, Time Magazine puts outtheir top...
10 best educational models inthe world and the United States
(21:03):
and a lot of early childhoodeducators in the United States
now get mass exposed to the ideaof Reggio Emilia that was the
number one educational model forTime Magazine at that time.
I entered my undergrad in 1992.
Yes, many eons ago.
But it means that as adevelopmental psych student who
did his practicum and then gotto work at this developmental
(21:24):
lab on campus, Reggio Emilia wasall the buzz.
And the moment that I wasintroduced to Reggio Emilia, it
made complete sense.
And then I shifted into this ABAthing.
I remember going, wow, thesekids get all this stuff.
And then these kids get M&Ms foremitting these really nominal
answers that somebody's tryingto build up to some greater
(21:47):
response.
How come early childhood bestpractices per regio don't
translate into these children?
They're early childhood kidstoo, aren't they?
How do you mix those two?
And it's been my quest since Danmet me almost 20 years ago to
make those things work bettertogether.
And luckily I can say We'rehappy with the product we've
(22:10):
had.
Had the pleasure of meeting youback in October, and you were
the first BCBA that had ever putthe words Reggio Emilia and ABA
together in the same phrase.
So I was thrilled to meet you.
Let us know what yourintroduction was to Reggio.
Tell us about your center andhow those philosophies are
integrated into your ABApractice.
(22:30):
Tell us all about how those twothings work together.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
So, yeah, I...
I was working at the Universityof Vermont as I was getting my
undergrad and I was placed inwith their early childhood
program, which was Reggio.
So very similar to you in alearning environment.
And I really fell in love withthe idea of the environment as
the third teacher.
And as I, you know, dove intothe world of ABA, I thought
(22:59):
we're using people so much asthe reason to change behavior,
but why can't we shift and usethe environment?
And so that's really been themodel of what we're trying to do
at Inferno and Littles in ourcenter is using the environment
as that third teacher instead ofthe adults that are in the room.
And I think that what we'reseeing is these children are
(23:21):
Nice.
Yes.
Nice.
(23:41):
just a mindset shift of what isour goal here and how can we
help the child to move towardsmeaningful interactions with the
world around them.
SPEAKER_02 (23:53):
Perfect.
Will you expand a little bit onthat idea of internal motivation
versus external?
You just referenced it, right?
So it's very easy for somebodyduring a 40 hour RBT training,
run of the mill training tothink that that external
motivation motivator isnecessary as a consequence.
What you described is muchdifferent.
(24:14):
What you described isn'tnecessarily positive
reinforcement.
It's concurrent, meaning it'shappening actively, which is why
the child is doing certainthings.
If you can expand on that alittle bit, I think that's super
important idea.
SPEAKER_00 (24:28):
Well, I think it's this idea of a child's behavior
doesn't necessarily need to bereinforced by an external
motivator.
If a child is learning how tocreate a structure or they're
learning to build something,engaging with materials in a
meaningful way, when theycomplete that activity, when
they complete the structure,whatever it may be, and they
(24:48):
step back, there's yourreinforcement.
They just worked through thisthing and they're placing the
items on there and they'rebuilding a schema, whatever it
may be, and then they canvisually see what they created.
And so for me, that is all thereinforcement that they need in
that moment.
They don't need someone sayingover, giving them a token, wow,
you engaged for five minutes,here's your star.
(25:08):
Or you did a great job, right?
That verbal praise that we hearso often because they're
accessing it in that momentwhile they're doing it.
SPEAKER_02 (25:16):
Would you give us an example of what the external
might look like?
So it's not to say that as ateacher, you're monitoring those
things as they happen in theenvironment.
You see that child succeed andfinally, fit that peg and
whatever they were trying to putit in, as opposed to, you know,
maybe getting frustrated andtossing it to the side.
You see it.
Is there an appropriate externalvocal response from that?
(25:38):
Of course, it's good job, Mike.
Right.
It's got to be good job.
It has to be good job.
But I mean, I'm sure you're notsitting there silently.
You're saying something or maybeyou're not.
Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00 (25:49):
Maybe if I was, I would just tact what just
happened.
You put the piece
SPEAKER_01 (25:54):
in,
SPEAKER_00 (25:54):
and maybe that's all I would say.
But in that moment, I wouldn'tsay a good job because it's not
relevant, right?
What job did they do good?
Hey, that worked.
It doesn't make
SPEAKER_01 (26:04):
sense.
SPEAKER_00 (26:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you put it in there.
It's stuck.
And so I think we need to bemore creative in the way that
we're thinking aboutreinforcement.
SPEAKER_02 (26:13):
So even like you've been working on that for a while
now.
That kind of thing might, okay.
Yeah, that's great.
I mean, again, I think it's, wedid a recent episode for this
season and it was taking off ofBecky Kennedy, Dr.
Becky, talking about good job.
And it's something we've talkedabout a lot too, is what does
that mean?
We think it's reinforcing.
Maybe we're excited that thatchild did it, which is why we're
(26:33):
saying it.
But I mean, if those words arejust used ad nauseum, do they,
ever really gain full meaningyou know at some point sure you
know pat on the back pat on theback hey good job Dan we get it
but yeah I think you make a muchmore important point in terms of
enriching the environment witheven the variety of our vocal
responses and what those meanthat they may not always be the
(26:54):
reinforcement that we think theyare that's super valuable
SPEAKER_04 (26:58):
well can you can you elaborate on what you or give an
example on what you mean for theenvironment to be the third
teacher I think I totallyunderstand what you mean but I
think that's a super importantconcept
SPEAKER_00 (27:09):
So I think it's the way in which we're...
Can I share my screen for asecond?
Yeah, you sure can.
Would that work?
And then I can talk through somevisuals?
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (27:18):
That's perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (27:20):
Okay.
I feel like that would be...
I send these weekly updates toour staff.
And I feel like this would be agood way to differentiate.
One of the visuals I'm gonnashow you talks about the melting
of permanent products anddocumentation.
So in Reggio Emilia, we think alot about documenting the
(27:40):
child's work.
And I think that is a perfectway to meld with ABA, thinking
about the use of permanentproducts.
SPEAKER_04 (27:46):
Love it.
Is this a presentation that wecould also link in our
description or anything likethat, Maggie?
UNKNOWN (27:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
Yeah, I'm happy to share it with you.
So it's just I send weeklyupdates to our staff at
Enrolling Lettles aboutdifferent topics.
And one of the ones I'm going toshow is about the permanent
products.
And then the other one is aboutplay provocations or the way
that we're setting up theenvironment to encourage play
and engagement with materials.
SPEAKER_02 (28:14):
Setting up the environment.
That's a big part of it.
SPEAKER_00 (28:18):
Here it is.
UNKNOWN (28:19):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (28:20):
Show my screen.
So here on this one, I talkedabout, like this is the play
schema here that a child.
SPEAKER_04 (28:30):
Maggie, is it possible to zoom in just a
little bit?
It's a little small.
SPEAKER_00 (28:33):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (28:34):
There you go.
Perfect.
That's way better.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
Is that good?
SPEAKER_04 (28:36):
Yeah, perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (28:37):
Yeah.
So, and I'll explain this later.
for the people who can't see it,but it's a picture of a child's
play that was a combination ofblocks and people and little
lights.
And an analysis from Reggiomight be that the child depicted
the scene in a way that portraysthe magic of storytelling.
(28:57):
Notice the way she turns thepeople's heads in the same
direction.
She put people on the sides asif they were watching them go
by.
Could it be the parents sayinggoodbye as the children go to
school?
What is the origin of the storyversus the way that we might
analyze this picture in ABA Wemight target the duration of
time spent with materials,perhaps a motor imitation,
(29:18):
parallel play, cooperative play,turn-taking, assenting to play
expansions, independentengagement, problem-solving,
accepting a mistake.
So I think when we take thischild-led approach and we're
using meaningful materials, wecan still get the same goals
that we're targeting, but it'sthe way in which we're getting
there that's different.
We're not prompting for thechild to do these things.
(29:39):
We might model...
And then we're providingmaterials that would encourage
this type of engagement.
And then in thinking about theenvironment as the third
teacher, I had gone into thecenter and I took a picture of
the shelves as it was when Iarrived, which is materials in
(29:59):
baskets on the shelf.
And then I...
be an example for the staff ofwhat a play provocation could
look like.
So I arranged the materials in amore meaningful way to encourage
engagement.
So in this situation,traditional ABA might take these
two materials, the hair ties andthose little blocks, and prompt
(30:20):
the child put in, Put it inversus in this situation,
there's already a visual modelof what the child could do.
Same for like these littlepeople down here.
There could be color matching,right?
I matched some of the colorsintentionally and then
intentionally didn't match theother one.
There's also some of theselittle silicone bowls that
(30:41):
they're doing stacking with.
In this situation, they're doingsome pretend play.
It's on one of their heads likea hat.
And so I'm really trying tosupport and train our staff
about the way in which we'repreparing materials and showing
them how when we do use theenvironment as the third
teacher, we can encourageengagement in a different way.
SPEAKER_02 (31:03):
Now, the traditional ABA brain is going to go, well,
clearly, if you set theenvironment up that way, then
they're supposed to put thosethings in, and then if they
don't, I go back and I promptthem to do so, right?
So that's dangerous becausethat's, again, everybody's
always thinking about this onesingular response.
What you're saying there is I'msuggesting a certain use of
these items, and then if thechild chooses to use them in a
(31:25):
different way, now myinvestigative work starts.
Is that a fair assessment?
SPEAKER_00 (31:31):
Yeah, and one of the, yeah.
No, what were you going
SPEAKER_02 (31:34):
to say?
No, go ahead, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00 (31:36):
One of the goals we'll target a lot on is
assenting to play expansion.
So perhaps the child is engagingin a set of materials in one
way, we might join them and weoffer engagement in a different
way.
Now, whether they do that ornot, then we're tracking the
goal if they assented to thatexpansion.
Did it bring them joy and didthey continue it or did it not?
(31:59):
So then that's our data analysisright there.
Did this expansion that weoffered, did it encourage them
to then continue to do that samething or do they withdraw assent
and move away from the activity.
SPEAKER_02 (32:09):
And the really important difference I see there
is instead of this now being alinear response, meaning this is
the only thing that yourresponse can continue the play
with, now it puts the onus onthe teacher, the RBT, as it
were, in our circumstance, to gofind a different way to join and
expand the play as opposed totry to force in the same thing.
(32:31):
That's fantastic.
And
SPEAKER_04 (32:33):
how come it has to be, you know, how come the, if
that's the way that it'ssupposed to be, the whatever,
the hair ties have to go intothe block, right?
Like what, we've determinedthat, right?
SPEAKER_02 (32:42):
So it's weird.
That's just a suggestion andthen you watch what the child
does, right?
So, and the idea again that, youknow, Brejo's so, this idea of
hundred languages of children Ithink fits right into, you know,
the traditional diagnosticnotion of stereotopy or stimming
or whatever it is.
That's just a differentlanguage.
It's just a different mode ofcommunication.
It's telling you something andyes, it might have a different
(33:04):
impact in certain settingsversus others and therein lies
the analysis for is this bruteforce, make that stop because
it's abnormal.
That's a huge difference.
SPEAKER_00 (33:14):
That's a huge difference.
Yeah.
And even this concept of likeearlier, one of you mentioned
like man training, likecommunication is so much more
than just man training.
SPEAKER_01 (33:24):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (33:25):
And so that's why I love this lens of Reggio within
ABA because we're being sointentional about analyzing the
child's engagement and the wayin which they're communicating
every little thing that they do,whether it be through micro
expressions or gestures orgestalt or AAC.
There's so many different waysand different reasons for
(33:45):
communication.
SPEAKER_04 (33:46):
For sure.
And historically, a lot oftimes, at least in the companies
I've worked with, we say, youknow, we start with the man
training and we're like, well, alot of times individuals on the
spectrum don't Well, no wonderthey don't tact because tacting
is not meaningful to thembecause you haven't established
a relationship.
Everything's just been a dothis.
Why would they tact?
Because you're probably going tocorrect it anyway.
SPEAKER_02 (34:06):
You didn't tact correctly.
SPEAKER_04 (34:08):
Two things I wanted to just ask you to either
elaborate on from what you saidactually in your intro story
that I think are very important.
And I think you understand whatthey are.
We understand what they are.
but I don't know if a lot of thelisteners do.
The first thing you said, andplease correct me and expand on
it, is I think you say kind ofyour guiding light or what
really got you into the ABAfield was actually ACT therapy.
(34:31):
So a lot of people probablydon't know what that is.
Can you talk a little bit aboutACT therapy and whatever you'd
like to about that?
SPEAKER_00 (34:39):
Yes, and it's ACT, so not ACT.
Oh,
SPEAKER_02 (34:43):
ACT therapy, excuse me.
Acceptance commitment, yes.
Is that the...
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
Yeah, acceptance and commitment therapy.
Yeah.
So I love this idea ofidentifying what someone's
values are and what matters tothem.
And so in our work with the kidsthat we're supporting, we're not
creating goals based off ofstandardized assessments.
We're creating goals off of aperson's values, what truly
(35:08):
matters to them.
And I think that where ABA kindof went off, you know, the way
it was, I believe, was alwaysmeant to go is when we took out
private events from the workthat we're doing.
But when we're only analyzingwhat we can observably see,
we're not we're only gettinghalf of the story.
We're getting half of thepicture.
And so for me, we not only lookat the four functions, but we
(35:29):
also look at the six coreyearnings developed by Dr.
Stephen Haynes.
But what is the intention behindthis behavior?
What is this person yearning forin this moment?
And how do I look at theperson's history as well as what
I can see in this moment to helpdetermine what that yearning is?
And so for me, ACT really meldsin the observable with the
(35:50):
unobservable.
And we can see how it can helpto create meaningful behavior
change in that moment.
Like, I might have a sessionwith the child.
Think of one, one child I'vebeen working with who really
loves video games.
And for a lot of our sessions,it was spent just listening to
him talk about video games, butthrough listening him to the way
that we, he talked about thegames, I could identify what his
(36:12):
values were through what he wasdescribing.
Whether it was a tricky, aparticularly hard level that he
really felt great about after hegot, got to the end.
Great.
He values problem solving.
It felt really good for him toget, to get to the end result.
And so for, me, the melding ofACT with ABA really helps us to
look at the full picture of ahuman and take a more holistic
(36:36):
approach.
Because when we only look at thefour functions, we're missing so
much of the story for thatperson and so much of why they
might be doing what they'redoing.
SPEAKER_04 (36:46):
So basing your therapy goals or objectives on
the individual's values inaddition to the functions of
behavior, am I understandingthat correctly?
SPEAKER_00 (36:55):
Primarily just the person's values.
We're not targeting somethingunless it's going to be
meaningful for that child intheir life and that they have
the motivation in which to workon whatever that skill is.
So it's kind of putting thestandardized assessments to the
side and using them as a guidefor what skills the child might
be missing, but then using theirvalues as a way to work towards
(37:17):
whatever those skills might be.
And so I think that our approachto ABA is not...
easy, I would say it'ssubstantially harder, right?
Because we're really having todo a lot more analysis and spend
a lot more time thinking.
But I think up to this point inour history, we've been really
lazy in our approach toanalyzing human behavior.
SPEAKER_02 (37:37):
Yeah.
And functions, the way we'rediscussing them now, they're so
subjective, right?
They're so authoritarian.
It's just about what I think thefunction is and how it impacts
me.
And I'm going to change thebehavior based on that because
I'm annoyed that you're flappingyour hands or something.
That's rough.
I mean, that changes the wholeperspective there in terms of
now the interaction, theenvironment, the idea that I am
(38:00):
a part of your environment asmuch as you're a part of mine.
And how does that work?
So yeah, it makes a lot ofsense.
My favorite is the
SPEAKER_04 (38:07):
attention.
Oh, they're just doing it forattention.
It just allows people to be sodismissive of every behavior
that they don't enjoy.
SPEAKER_02 (38:13):
Well, and we always think about that.
They're doing it for attentionversus they're getting my
attention for it, which is whyit might be maintained whether
or not It's impactful orannoying to me.
I mean, this goes so much deeperin terms of what that means.
What is the function it'sserving versus the idea that the
individual is using it towardthat function?
SPEAKER_04 (38:33):
Pretty cool that they
SPEAKER_02 (38:34):
might value your attention.
Yeah, again, now the valuesystem comes in.
Oh, my attention seems to havevalue.
Okay, how do I apply that asquote-unquote reinforcement?
SPEAKER_04 (38:43):
So where do you...
Since we work primarily with...
At least we work primarily withkids.
I think you do too, unfurlinglittles.
Where do you...
How do you include, because alot of times it's the parents
that speak for the kids andexpress their values and their
goals and desires, so how do youjuxtapose that with the kids'
values and within the ACTtherapy realm?
SPEAKER_00 (39:08):
So I think it's through observation, especially
if we're working with a childwho might be not speaking at the
time when we started therapy, itmight be just spending the day
watching them.
What do they do?
What are they gravitatingtowards?
What do they gravitate awayfrom?
And why is it meaningful tothem?
And so that's really where we'repulling values from.
So, you know, perhapshistorically a child would have
(39:31):
been referred to as non-socialor antisocial if they're playing
alone.
But for us, we would say, oh,they value independence.
They enjoy being on And that'sokay, right?
We're not going to start workingtoward like, if we working with
a child who's not engaging inany onlooker play, and they're,
you know, engaging by lining ablock, so they're not going
towards other peers, we're notputting in a social goal, it's
(39:52):
not meaningful for that childyet.
And I think that's the biggestthing of working with parents is
at this point, your child is notshowing natural intrinsic
motivation to engage withothers.
That is okay.
We're not going to put it as atarget right now because it is
not identified as a value tothem.
You know, over time, it is.
It will be a value.
(40:13):
And we see that with every childwe've ever supported.
Over time, it becomes a value.
And that's the time in which towork on it.
SPEAKER_04 (40:19):
So it's almost always focused on the child's
values I don't want to say notthe parents' values, but only
the parents' values that are inline with the child's values are
the ones that you're going tofocus on.
Is that right?
Well,
SPEAKER_00 (40:34):
I think it's a gray area.
(41:04):
And that's not necessarily avalue for their child yet.
And the child is getting up andrunning around while they're
eating, which is a chokinghazard.
We would work on that becauseit's an essential life skill.
And so I think where the grayarea is comes in those essential
skills that are required in thisworld for a person's safety and
well-being.
If it's not required for theirsafety and well-being, we'll get
(41:27):
to it at a later date.
SPEAKER_04 (41:29):
It's just interesting because it makes me
think of a lot of that can becultural too.
Different cultures prioritizeand value different things.
And I guess what you're sayingis potentially if they're not in
line with the unfurling littles,you just might say, hey, we're
not the right provider for youbecause the things that you are
prioritizing are not the thingsthat we typically prioritize.
(41:51):
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (41:53):
Yeah.
I mean, we put the writing onthe wall.
Like we have very, very in-depthwriting.
policies and procedures aboutwhat we do and what we won't do
so we have policies aboutmasking that we will not
encourage masking we havepolicies about gender affirming
care that we will always providegender affirming care and so the
families that are coming to usknow exactly what they're
(42:13):
getting and if they're notduring that intake call they get
to know what we're doing and wesend them you know different
handouts that say practices wewon't engage in we send them a
screener they fill out becauseit's investment not only in
their time but in our time andWe want to make sure that we're
educating those who are readyand willing to be educated in
(42:34):
neurodiversity affirming care.
It's not that we only work withone type of family, but it's
that we need to have opentransparency from day one about
what we do and what we won't doso that we're not compromising
our values as a company.
SPEAKER_04 (42:48):
I love it.
My last question, I want to pullup my note here, is something
you said in the beginning ofyour introduction.
You said you wanted to disruptwhat was happening.
Mm-hmm.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Because I think we can relateand we are on board and that's
why we ended up starting our owncompany because we didn't feel
like we could disrupt what washappening sufficiently enough
(43:09):
under anyone else's guidance.
SPEAKER_02 (43:13):
This whole podcast was created to criticize ABA.
It really was.
To
SPEAKER_04 (43:21):
provide a middle ground because ABA has a
reputation.
We wanted to figure out whatabout ABA maybe needs to change.
What about people'simplementation of ABA needs to
change?
SPEAKER_02 (43:33):
That's probably the biggest part.
What You know, ABA is what itis.
How are you practicing it?
So, yeah, go right ahead.
SPEAKER_04 (43:40):
Disrupt what was
SPEAKER_00 (43:40):
happening.
SPEAKER_02 (43:41):
Expand.
We're glad for yourdisruptiveness.
SPEAKER_00 (43:45):
Thank you.
And I'm glad for your guidancetoo.
It's really cool to get to be onthis wave.
I feel like there is like a wavehappening in the field right now
that is making change.
When I was first exposed to ABA,it was with that child who I
described when I was hispersonal care assistant.
And he was, I went to his schoolone day to visit him and he was
(44:05):
in an ABA session and they had abox of like cookies and crumbs.
Really it was like a box ofcrumbs from cookies and chips.
And they were doing DTE discretetrial training with him and then
when he would get one right,they would give him one of the
crumbs.
And it broke my heart to see thesession because when I was with
him at home and we would beplaying with Thomas and friends
(44:27):
and I would be modeling languageand following his lead, he was a
different kid.
He was so actively engaged withme in what we were doing and I
heard so much language and thenI was in this ABA session and he
was a different kid.
He looked anxious, he lookednervous, he was talking in one
word phrases He usually usedreally in-depth gestalts when he
(44:47):
was with me.
And so that was my firstexposure to ABI.
And so I did not like it when Ifounded the field at all.
Really did not like it.
And what made me curious aboutthe field was when I found
Project Impact and was trainedin Project Impact.
Because up to that point, I wasworking as a special instructor
(45:08):
for early intervention.
But what I wanted to do is applythe science, right?
Because as you said, the scienceis undeniable.
That is the science of behavior.
But the application of thatscience is up to the individual.
And so if we get...
Exactly.
What are we doing with thescience?
And for me, I wanted to combinethings like development,
(45:32):
attachment theory, relationalbased care with the science and
see how we could take a moreholistic approach to truly
helping these people.
Everything we do is relational,right?
I just had a call with a parentthis week and she said, you
know, we're getting to the pointwhere we're probably going to be
ending services and I'm so sadfor our child to lose this.
(45:54):
Like, what do you do in thisapproach?
You form such a strong bond withthe child.
You make this meaningfulconnection.
What happens when you're gone?
And I said, that child willremember how we made them feel.
And that's what I want to berepeated over time.
That when there's a child whofinds someone that is a safe
person, they form a strong bondthe way that I formed one with
that child.
(46:15):
And so I think for so long,we've treated, you know, kids
like dogs in this field.
It makes sense.
I mean, you know, when thisreally came up, we were looking
at things like the industrialrevolution and kids had to be in
school and they had to complyand this, that, and the other.
But we're, you know, we'rehigher level humans now.
It goes so much deeper than justcompliance.
(46:37):
It's about compliance.
For me, at the end of the day,my end goal is to bring a child
instrumentally more joy thanthey felt the day before because
life is just too short to doanything else.
SPEAKER_04 (46:49):
Wow.
So with that, yeah, you made methink earlier when you were
talking about individualsmasking all day and how they
might be exhausted coming homeand how historically ABA– And
even not historically, evencurrently, a lot of companies,
it's a lot of hours at home aswell and how that can even be
(47:10):
borderline abusive.
So hearing your description ofkind of disrupting the norm,
I'll just say one thing from mypersonal perspective, and then
I'll pass it to Mike.
Just a heartfelt thank you, andI'll explain what I mean from
that.
I've been in this field foralmost 15 years, and...
There was just a point, therehave been many points, but
(47:32):
recently there was a point,that's why we started our own
company, where I was just, and Ithink a lot of people that I
associate with are all just kindof burnt out with ABA and kind
of corporate ABA.
And we were all just kind offinding it very unfulfilling.
Again, I'll speak for myself,but I can think I can speak for
a lot of them as well.
Just finding it unfulfilling andnot what we thought we were
(47:53):
getting into.
And again, this is 15 years downthe road.
So I met with Mike and, youknow, we decided to embark on
this venture of starting our owncompany.
And that was also that had itschallenges, you know, insurance
rates and stuff like that.
And just dealing with them andwhat just the challenges of
(48:16):
trying to accommodate andcapitulate to all of their
demands, you know, for the firstlike six months of we didn't
have any clients at this point.
It was just dealing with them,figuring out program designs,
you And it was just like, wow, Ileft this field.
I didn't leave this field.
I left this company orcompanies.
And it's just, it's not anyeasier.
It's still heavy.
It's all just like hours and...
(48:38):
Medical notes and are you doingthis?
And oh, we're not writing thegoal the exact way you want it.
And it was just like, I rememberwe did the CPABA conference and
it was like, oh, we're going todo this on a Friday and
Saturday.
It was exhausting.
And I was just kind of almost atthe end of my rope of like, is
this really what I want to do?
I left the ABA field to createmy own company and it seems like
(48:59):
the confines.
And then I met professionalslike yourself and Michelle, a
lot of other professionals.
Obviously, you're one of theones that stood out.
We brought you on to our companyto talk to us as well.
But it was like, wow, there areother people doing amazing
things.
And the ABA...
that we always thought waspossible is out there.
And it was really invigorating.
It probably is honestly what'skept me in the field.
(49:21):
I know it lit Mike up when heheard Reggio and like, it's
like, oh my God, that exists.
So that was a long diatribe, butthank you because without you, I
honestly might not be in thefield anymore.
Thank you very much because it'sjust amazing the work you're
doing and on the East Coast,thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00 (49:39):
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
It's really neat to see howthere are these people making
change, right?
And one of the things that I dois I offer free mentorship for
people who want to start theirown ABA businesses because I
think we need more companieslike yours and mine.
We are trying to pave a way fora better future for these kids.
SPEAKER_04 (49:59):
And you would be really, really happy.
Mike and I last...
after the podcast and theprevious week we got a program
designed for an adult programthat we're about to submit um
and we basically we got atemplate um and we went through
it and spent hours taking all ofthe more traditionally based
(50:19):
goals like you know client willdo this client will tolerate
changes in routine client willbe able to dress themselves and
Still might not be the end goal,but taking those more
traditional deficit-based model.
In fact, I think we took deficitout of pretty much everything.
Yeah, we did.
And making it more of astrength-based model.
And that was so, I mean, we didit on a Sunday.
We were exhausted from work andthen we had podcasts, but it was
(50:42):
like so invigorating to do that.
Probably wouldn't have done thatif it wasn't for your, or
wouldn't have done it the way wedid it if it wasn't for your
insight.
SPEAKER_02 (50:50):
Yeah, thank you so much.
It's been a real inspiration toget to know you.
Thank you for your time again onthe podcast.
It is.
It's just these nuances that Ithink we need to think about.
I love the way you talk about,you know, we've been lazy so
far.
I think that's a really good wayto put it.
It's been expecting a child or aclient to do exactly as we want
(51:14):
them to do, as opposed to doingour investigative work, as you
put it again.
Just great phrasing.
So yes, from both of us, fromABA on tap, from Ascend
Behavioral Solutions, from thebottom of our hearts, thank you
so much for your time, foreverything you're doing over
there in Philadelphia.
The moment we have a chance toCome out and see you.
You're going to see us.
Dan, you had something else to
SPEAKER_04 (51:34):
say?
Anything that you would liketo...
Unfurling Littles, yourmentorship, anything you would
like to promote or bring up onthe podcast?
Please.
So people know where to findyou?
SPEAKER_00 (51:43):
I feel like I just...
If you're scared of startingyour own thing, just do it.
We have...
In the last year, we had over300 families reach out.
And so I think that the world ishungry for something different.
And we have no intention ofgrowing at Affiliate.
And so we need more people tostart their own businesses and
say no to private equity andthese big corporate companies.
SPEAKER_04 (52:07):
And where do people find you?
Or do you not want people tofind you?
That's okay, too.
They
SPEAKER_00 (52:13):
can find me.
So I have the Instagramunfurlinglittles and then
unfurlinglittles.com is ourwebsite.
And then my email is justmaggie.h at
unfurlinglittles.com.
So I'm happy to hear frompeople.
I'm not great at getting back toeverything right now, but I will
do it when I have the time.
But if you do want to, if youare thinking about starting a
(52:33):
company, I do offer free groupmentorship once a month and you
can sign up through our website.
It's been a lot of reallyamazing BCBAs across the country
who are the foundations ofstarting their own company.
So I encourage you, if you arethinking of doing it, come to
the group and I'll help you.
SPEAKER_04 (52:48):
And when you say through the website, the
Unfurling Littles website, or isit a different website?
SPEAKER_00 (52:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (52:52):
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I'd like to do a littlesynopsis here as we end.
And Maggie put out some realbangers.
So reconsider your extrinsicmotivators.
Don't be lazy.
Do your investigative work.
And like we like to say here onABA on Tap, always
SPEAKER_04 (53:08):
analyze responsibly.
SPEAKER_02 (53:09):
Cheers.
Thanks so much, Maggie.
SPEAKER_00 (53:12):
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (53:15):
ABA on Tap is recorded live and unfiltered.
We're done for today.
You don't have to go home, butyou can't stay here.
See you next time.
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