IISCA and function based treatments

What unique name for such clear and straightforward guidelines for the treatment programming for the behavior folks- The field is evolving with a group of amazing people whose hard work nurture the field of applied behavior analysis everyday.

I first met IISCA and Dr. Hanely through BCBA’s continuing educaiton course, Florida Institute of Tech.

Some of the take aways and thoughts on this topic were:

1. In the past, I had a little doubt about how Functional Behavior Assessment was done at work place where a company has set up a way to deal with FBA and report writing. Vague, more about each BCBA’s prior experience…IISCA can definitely be an efficient way to go about.

2. When creating a treatment plan, FCT was almost, only teaching points in the session- the other points were not clear enough to take on. Now, we are talking about strengthening the simple FCT into complex, age-appropriate CT with social interaction components (“Excuse me” and wait until getting the attention from the listener), teaching how to tolerate delays to or denial of the reinforcements. Also, working on compliance with task directives.

3. Contingency based reinforcement was considered. In the real world, how much of chance the behavior gets reinforced through the time based schedule. What ended up happening could be inevitably reinforcing a chain of inappropriate behaviors.

4. Reinforcement is: function based (not arbitary), differential, Intermittent, veriable in duration

5. Response requirement is Variable and unpredictable.

6. This way of treatment programming will help learners generalize these skills in new settings with different people.

It could been a cold and dry winter. Beside from some extra work waiting for me in my classroom, nothing was planned out in my December 2019. This week, as finishing listening to his lecture, my winter break suddenly glows with full of curiosity, enthusiasm, love and assurance for what we do in this field. This field is growing and trying to find the right direction to embrace the limitations and flaws encountered in the real world.