This week, we present Part 2 of Rachel’s interview Jenifer Eaton & Marya Hoff, two BCBAs who own Rooted in Play (rootedinplay.co), an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) practice in Orange County, California. This week, Rachel, Jenifer, and Marya discuss dealing with rigid ABA therapists, why Jenifer and Marya’s ABA practice is different than some older methods, their thoughts on anti-ABA sentiments from some Autistic adults, and more! 

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss the recent release of the Matrix Revolutions movie, and some of the things from the movie that reminded Chris of AAC implementation. This includes the idea that we don’t need to “ask permission” to pursue better practices around AAC, (e.g., providing robust language systems), in many cases we can start putting them into our own practice right away.

Key ideas this week:

🔑 Response effort - the harder something is, the more response effort it requires. The easier it is, the less response effort required. Once we have learned a skill, it takes less response effort. When teaching something new to a child, you want to minimize the response effort. If we put too much response effort into a task, the person won’t want to continue doing the task.

🔑 While there are rigid ABA practitioners out there, there is a newer, more naturalistic, and more collaborative approach for ABA. Under the old approach, there is less room for generalization and  socialization. We aren’t teaching kids just to respond, we need them to be more spontaneous. 

🔑 If you are dealing with a less collaborative BCBA who has a much different perspective on how to approach working with a student, you can always say “Lets do it your way for 2 weeks and then my way for 2 weeks and then look at the numbers.” You can also approach the parent for help - show them different approaches for ABA, they may not know the different approaches out there. BCBAs should be able to figure out how to make their program BA in nature while also accommodating the needs of speech and OT.

🔑 If you experience a BCBA engaging in unethical practices, you can report them to their governing board. Find out more at https://www.bacb.com/ethics-information/reporting-to-ethics-department/

Links this week:

Sign up for 7-day free trial from Vooks: www.vooks.com

Vooks on Apple App Store 

Vooks on Google Play Store

Vooks Mentioned by Rachel & Chris:

Stop & Go - https://watch.vooks.com/videos/stop-and-go

Benji, the Bad Day, and Me: https://watch.vooks.com/videos/benji-the-bad-day-and-me

Rachel Dorsey Podcast: https://www.talkingwithtech.org/episodes/rachel-dorsey-2