CONSULTATION AND SUPERVISION SERVICES

Consultation:

Behavioural consultations are available to families running an ABA programme for their child with autism and/or other developmental disabilities, and to schools and other organisations requiring expert behavioural recommendations for individual children. To be eligible for this service, clients must already have in place an experienced and competent supervisor or lead tutor. Behavioural consultations are recommended to take place at eight-weekly intervals.

Supervision:

Behavioural supervision is available on a two- and three-weekly basis to families who wish to run an ABA programme for their child with autism and/or other developmental disabilities. Each supervision session consists of three hour team meetings during which the educational programme is reviewed. It is expected that these meetings will be attended by all staff working with the individual child.

DESCRITPION OF INTERVENTION MODEL:

My clinical practice relies on the use of techniques and procedures derived from the scientific literature on Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). Thirty years of research have consistently shown that educational programmes based on ABA are the most effective means of teaching adaptive skills and reducing problem behaviours in individuals with autism and other disorders.

My intervention model is the result of years of practice and research carried out at the University of Southampton. It largely focuses on the teaching of communication and verbal behaviour and it includes the following components:

•  Intensive Intervention: The intervention is carried out during all important aspects of an individual's daily life.

•  Family commitment: A successful intervention requires commitment not only from the individual's immediate family but also from all those involved in the individual's life, such as teachers and carers.

•  An individualised and comprehensive curriculum addressing all developmental areas: This specifically addresses an individual's unique areas of deficit with the skills selected following a developmental sequence. The curriculum I propose is the result of extensive research I carried out during the Southampton Childhood Autism Programme, it is designed to bring together the behavioural and developmental literature and it uses Skinner's analysis verbal behaviour for categorizing and teaching language. The curriculum focuses on the areas of: imitation, communication, espressive and receptive language, social, cognitive, visuo-spatial and self help skills.

•  Structured Teaching: Skill areas are divided into long and short term objectives through the use of precise task analysis and broken down into smaller units manageable for both the learner and the teacher. The agreed objectives are then taught through fast paced discrete trial training and errorless learning. I also use elements of Precision Teaching to teach skills to fluency and Direct Instruction programmes for academic skills (reading and maths)

•  Natural Environment Training (NET): The environment is arranged in such a way to manipulate and capture a child's motivation. During NET teachers mainly focus on using the child's motivation to guide their learning objectives and focus heavily on encouraging spontaneous communication.

•  Total Communication training: My first teaching priority is to enable the individual to communicate his or her needs. This is achieved through very careful programming built around the individual's motivation. When an individual is unable to produce vocal responses, an augmentative and alternative communication system (signs or pictures) is introduced to enable him or her to influence his environment in a socially appropriate manner instead of displaying challenging behaviour. In addition to this, a parallel programme based on the use of stimulus-stimulus pairing procedures and shaping is introduced to increase the frequency and range of vocalizations.

•  Programmed generalisation: Specific procedures are used to faciltiate generalisation of each individual objective.

•  Challenging behaviour management: Challenging behaviours require ongoing and consistent management in order to avoid negative impact on an individual's learning. Intervention programmes are designed, following preliminary functional analysis, to address the exact functions of the problem behaviour. This will be followed by the implementation of a pro-active intervention plan aimed to teach a substitute more appropriate behaviour and a reactive plan to manage problem behaviour immediately after its occurrence.

Behaviour Management and Outreach.