“Consistency is the key”

One of the biggest barriers to intervention success is the ability of all those involved to accurately and consistently follow the plan as written.

We all know that to learn a new behaviour it needs to be consistently reinforced, to change an old behaviour it needs to be consistently consequated and to successfully have a positive impact on client outcomes we need everyone involved “on the same page”.

As a program supervisor you frequently field questions and queries from junior therapists around intervention procedures that “aren’t working”. When working in a large team, with minimal chance for collaboration across multiple clients and settings, it’s hard to ensure everyone is doing the same thing; people misinterpret the written instruction and procedures shift as the intervention goes on. With multiple professionals, care-givers and family members involved in each child’s life and intervention, it can become very difficult to manage the consistency and accuracy of procedures.

Woodbury Autism Education and Research has just completed a two year research grant on the implementation of ABA within a classroom setting, focusing on the effective implementation of procedures by a general educator under the supervision of a certified behaviour analyst.

With a limited number of certified behaviour analysts here in Australia there is a necessity for dissemination of knowledge and hands on training for the application of basic behaviour analytic tools.

This 3 hour course will provide attendees with an overview of our research project and findings. Attendees will leave the training with a staff performance management checklist which can be individualised/ adapted to assess the treatment integrity and procedural fidelity for behaviour analytic strategies implemented by general educators.