Just give him the tent!
Ever since seeing Paula Kluth speak about special interests to motivate students with autism spectrum disorder, I have kept the phrase, “Just give him the whale!” in my consultant’s tool box. Based on the book she and fellow author, Patrick Schwarz describe ways to embed a person’s fascinations, obsessions and special interests into their day to enhance motivation and learning, to bring mastery and focus in times of stress.
It is often discussed that access to or time spent with these high interest items or themes should be non-contingent (i.e., the student does not need to work to earn it); rather they are built into the schedule and/or incorporated into the curriculum. This is the same premise behind an ABA-based strategy referred to as, Noncontingent Reinforcement (NCR). In this strategy, reinforcers that typically follow behaviours that challenge are provided to the person upfront and on a schedule that would most please them based on how often the behaviour is occurring. No “work” or other expectation is required to gain access to it. That reinforcer could be access to one or more tangibles, adult attention, a sensory experience or a break and is determined via the process of a functional behaviour assessment or functional analysis.
In one such functional behaviour assessment I kept coming across data samples where a student’s behaviours that challenge were followed by access to a chill out room where there was a tent*. Several more ABC data logs and I kept seeing the same thing: access to this tent*. I thought to myself, Just give him the tent! Upon further analysis I hypothesized an escape function, where the student was using the tent to give themselves a break during routines that were overwhelming for them.
We would later work with the school to have regular and scheduled access to this chill out room and, more importantly, the tent. We developed a schedule so that our student got to the tent before a time where it was shown their behaviours that challenge would bring them there.
Giving them this time and access means they do not have to use challenging behaviours to get it, staff are spending less time de-escalating from unsafe situations and the student is no longer seen by their peers as, “The kid who does....” It also means the student can take time for getting ready and come back to join their classmates, ready for more learning. While this is happening, we will look at building skills in the areas of self-regulation and social skills. As these skills develop we anticipate needing less of the tent, but until then, we can all agree to “just give him the tent!”
*I subbed the word tent as an example and not the specific item a student is actually accessing.
Sources:
Noncontingent Reinforcement (intervention brief) from University of Missouri’s Evidence Based Intervention Network http://ebi.missouri.edu/