'Agricultural specialisterne': rural employment revolution for those with Autism

[Visionary7903]

Here is a link to a set of slides from a presentation, ‘Preventing Challenging Behavior: A Model for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder’, given by Glen Dunlap and Phil Strain of the Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional Intervention for Young Children (TACSEI): http://www.challengingbehavior.org/explore/webinars/11.2.09_tacsei_webinar/handouts_tacsei_webinar_11.2.09.pdf

Note that near the end of the slides, the focus is on Intensive Individualized Interventions when challenging behaviours are more severe and cannot be sufficiently controlled by other strategies.

DDtrac, a research-based software solution, supports individualised data collection that gives educators a comprehensive view of a student’s progress towards their goals…

…Behavioral support and interventions should address diagnostic behavioral concerns identified in the student’s IEP (Individualized Education Plan), FBA (Functional Behavioral Analysis) or the BIP (Behavioral Intervention Plan).
…For students with multiple behavior problems or behavior plans that require more extensive monitoring, a tool like DDtrac can be used to record: the number and duration of specific behaviors, the context (where/when/how) the behavior occurred, as well as teacher observations about the incident. DDtrac’s behavior monitoring features allow teachers to identify significant behaviors to target for change and allows educators to evaluate the efficacy of implemented behavioral interventions…

Indeed systematic data collection does seem to have a lot to offer in terms of reducing problem behaviours and a specialised software package like DDtrac may help somewhat in reducing the data collection burden on educators…

…One important part of these behavior support programs is to measure target behavior(s) using direct observation of behavior episodes and then to graph behavior patterns to better understand how effective teaching and other behavior management strategies are for managing and reducing problem behaviors. The type of data to be collected about behavior episodes includes:

• Behavior: The specific behavior that is being tracked in the student’s behavior plan.
• Duration of the Behavior: The length of time a specific lasts.
• Number of Behaviors: The number of behaviors (e.g. number of hits) that occurred during the behavior episode.
• Date/Time
• Trigger: The specific context that likely resulted in the occurrence of an inappropriate behavior.
• Location: The location where the specific behavior began.
  This data allows educators to understand the function of specific behaviors, the pattern of behavior and the effectiveness of various education strategies and interventions…

For visual examples of DDtrac’s potential utilisation in this area, see the data entry form, report and chart at http://developingmindssoftware.com/product/behavior.html

(sources: http://news.developingmindssoftware.com/?p=394; Developing Minds Software: News)