Newsletter
Volume 31 | 2008 | Number 1
2008 ABA Organizational Members
This section of the newsletter introduces ABAI’s organizational members. ABAI is pleased to announce the new 2008 organizational members: BEACON Services, Evergreen Center, and SEEK. Organizational members prepare a description of their work and services to introduce themselves to the larger ABAI community. The inclusion of this material is not an endorsement, authorization, sponsorship, or affiliation by ABAI of these members or their work and services or of the content of the material they present.
BEACON Services
Behavioral Education, Assessment, and Consultation Inc. (BEACON Services) is a private group practice dedicated to using only empirically validated teaching procedures for the treatment of young children with autism or developmental disabilities. BEACON is headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts, (35 miles from Boston) with satellite offices in Lawrence, Springfield, and Brockton, MA.
BEACON’s treatment philosophy is heavily influenced by the research of Lovaas and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles. As early educational and behavioral research continues to develop, BEACON further develops and refines its supervision and treatment models to support high quality early educational services for children and families using the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA). BEACON uses ABA techniques exclusively in all areas of the practice including management, training, and employee supports.
BEACON provides a variety of services including intensive home-based education, 1:1 inclusion supports, behavioral consultation, behavioral assessment, and ABA training services for early interventionists, parents, and public school staff. BEACON also works closely with public schools and has developed partnership programs, in which pre-school students diagnosed with autism receive intensive behavioral instruction within public school settings, while parent training occurs in the home setting. The staff at BEACON also provides behavioral supports to developmentally disabled adults and chair professional review committees for a variety of community-based service providers.
Staff Supervision:
BEACON values quality behavioral supervision of its educators implementing behavioral instruction to young children. Each behavioral educator receives a minimum of one hour of weekly overlap/supervision per child. BEACON’s supervision model is based on empirically validated research incorporating best practice methods for instructing young children with autism. BEACON supervisors must meet strict educational criteria, experience level, and must achieve professional performance competencies to attain a supervisor’s position. Supervision occurs in the primary treatment setting, where data sheets, graphs, program books, and demonstration of teaching techniques are observed. The practice’s executive clinical team that includes Board Certificated Behavior Analysts (BCBA) routinely reviews graphs and progress notes.
Training:
All BEACON staff receive training in ABA treatment techniques upon hire. Training is competency-based and consists of both lectures on the basic principles of ABA and hands-on experience applying ABA principles with young children with autism. BEACON’s training department completes competency skill checklists on each new employee to assist in the development of individualized training plans to enhance their professional development. Following initial training, Regional Directors work intensively with new staff during their early employment. Subsequently, on-going clinical supervision is regularly provided to all staff.
Additional in-service training is provided for staff at quarterly training meetings. Topics for meetings are based on the most recent behavioral research and review of staff performance assessments. Speakers from outside BEACON’s executive staff are contracted to present at these quarterly training meetings.
Research:
BEACON facilitates participation in on-going behavioral research through its Research Committee. BEACON’s commitment to research extends to all employees and has resulted in over 150 presentations at local and national behavioral/educational conferences, including regular talks at the ABA International convention. BEACON staff also assist graduate ABA students to obtain their Master’s degrees by providing tuition support, participating on university theses committees, and providing Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB)® supervision.
Developing Independence:
BEACON implements educational programming and parent training that is focused on developing age-appropriate personal independence. Although BEACON provides intensive educational programming relative to functional academics, programming to promote adaptive skills and communication is also a priority. BEACON has developed specific curricula to teach young children self care, social, and safety skills essential for personal independence.
Errorless Teaching:
The educational curriculum focuses on the use of “errorless teaching” procedures at the early stages of treatment. Emphasis is placed on learning skills correctly and systematically fading instructional support as skills are acquired. BEACON employs most-to-least prompting procedures to minimize errors and the use of correction procedures that may be inadvertently reinforcing for some individuals. BEACON considers high levels of errors and frequent correction at the early stages of instruction to be a non-preferred instructional strategy for achieving student outcomes. As a result, the practice emphasizes generalization principles where skills are transferable across instructors and settings.
Future Directions:
BEACON is currently seeking a doctoral level Senior Clinician to further develop our supervision and professional development model. The practice also integrates a Web-based training model to more flexibly meet the professional development needs of employees. BEACON views the development of this training capacity as crucial to efforts to deliver quality behavior analytic training and supervision to settings where geographic considerations limit the availability of ABA services.
Evergreen Center
In the early 1980’s there were only a handful of residential schools dedicated to the exclusive use of applied behavior analysis to address the educational and behavioral needs of children with autism and other developmental disabilities; the Evergreen Center was one of them. Celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, the school is just a short 30-minute drive from Boston, scenically located on a hill overlooking wooded areas and the town of Milford, Massachusetts. The school has 92 enrolled day and residential students who range in age up to 22 years old and live in 12 Evergreen Center community homes within a ten-mile radius of the school. Since 1982, 192 students have graduated from the school, many of whom successfully live in community settings and maintain jobs, based on skills acquired at the Evergreen Center.
School Program
The school consists of two programs, the Center for Basic Skills and the Center for Behavior Development. Students in the Center for Basic Skills are typically diagnosed with autism or mental retardation and may also have physical disabilities, or medical needs. They may also have mild or low intensity behavior problems. Students in the Center for Behavior Development may also be diagnosed with autism or mental retardation but also have a diagnosis of mental illness, traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder or have severe maladaptive behaviors. The educational and behavioral needs of the students in these two programs are managed by Educational Team Supervisors who are Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA)®. In addition, severe maladaptive behaviors and treatment resistant behaviors are addressed by Behavior Educators, who are also BCBAs. The Behavior Educators are assigned to specific classrooms to develop behavior plans and instruct and supervise the teachers and residential staff in accurate implementation of the behavioral procedures.
Educational Curriculum
The students at the Evergreen Center are taught individually and in small groups. Academic skills including reading, spelling, writing, and math are taught using Direct Instruction (DI), a structured behavioral-based methodology, which has a history of research demonstrating effectiveness with special populations dating back to the 1960’s. All staff is trained in DI, not only to teach basic academics, but also because the teaching methods and instructional strategies inherent in DI increase the overall efficiency of teaching. Within the first year of employment at the Evergreen Center all staff complete initial training in DI and must pass a written competency to receive certification. Staff progress through levels of behavioral competencies as DI teachers finally achieving the status of advanced level instructor after one year of observation, feedback, and supervision by a DI mentor.
Data is collected on each student’s DI session so that data-based decisions can be made regarding student progress. Students who have not acquired the pre-academic skills necessary to participate in DI receive instruction through discrete trial training.
Students also receive instruction, utilizing well-established behavioral procedures, in functional daily living and social skills such as tooth brushing, pedestrian skills, dining skills and greeting skills to increase independence in community, residential, and school settings. Functional daily living and social skills taught in the school setting are often also practiced in the residences or other community locations resulting in effective generalization across settings. Students are also taught residential specific skills in the home including domestic, self-care, and leisure skills such as meal preparation, showering and dressing and expressing personal preferences and choices. Data is collected and graphed on all student goals in the school and residences and reviewed regularly to adjust goals and procedures based on student performance.
The Evergreen Center’s pre-vocational and vocational programs have proven to be very successful in teaching relevant skills necessary for many students to acquire and maintain community employment. Students are taught how to complete job applications and to perform some basic employment tasks in the school such as photocopying, delivering mail, recycling and associated job relevant social skills. In addition, contained within the school is a small functioning store that is used to train students in the pre-vocational skills of monetary transactions and job relevant social skills. Students also earn the privilege of making small purchases in the store as part of an individualized motivational system that may be implemented to address behavior problems within their classroom and residence. Vocational coaching is also provided to some students working for community businesses in the surrounding neighborhoods where they have earned high ratings of employer satisfaction. Pre-vocational and vocational skills are taught using effective behavioral procedures and data collection on skill acquisition to assess student progress.
For some students, severe maladaptive and treatment-resistant behaviors significantly interfere with their education. Their curriculum includes a specific behavior plan developed on the basis of formal testing, observation, and data collection that is designed to decrease their maladaptive behaviors and teach positive replacement behaviors, which enable them to increase their functional skills and independence.
All staff are required to participate in institutes designed to teach and enhance their effectiveness in implementing treatment programs based on the principles of applied behavior analysis during their initial period of employment and throughout their career at the Evergreen Center. In their first week, staff receive instruction in positive and negative reinforcement techniques that are used to increase appropriate behaviors displayed by the students. In addition, they are instructed in Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) techniques that are used to safely and non-punitively decrease and discourage potentially harmful behaviors displayed by students such as self-injury, property destruction, or physical aggression. Following their initial orientation training, staff participate in advanced trainings on topics in applied behavior analysis that include readings and discussion of the principles and procedures and guided classroom and residence assignments in which they apply the principles that were reviewed. In addition, staff are encouraged to participate in ongoing research projects and a research discussion group, in which topics in applied behavior analysis are comprehensively reviewed.
Research Initiatives
The Evergreen Center places a major emphasis on conducting research intended to evaluate and extend knowledge of effective behavioral procedures that may be useful for enhancing skill teaching and reducing problem behaviors of the students and contributing to advancement of the field of applied behavior analysis; as a result all staff are encouraged to participate in research projects. Currently, the Evergreen Center is carrying out research in three areas: I) Effective procedures to reduce maladaptive and problem behaviors; 2) Experimental validation of DI procedures adapted to students with developmental disabilities; and 3) Development of supplementary curriculum components and student assessment techniques.
Recent Developments
The Evergreen Center has recently added a state of the art observational area used to conduct functional analysis of behavior and focused observation and analysis of maladaptive and treatment-resistant behaviors. In addition, the Evergreen Center is evaluating an online training methodology that will allow more efficient and convenient staff training.
SEEK
At SEEK, each child’s individual needs and the interests of the family are our highest concern. SEEK works closely with family members, schools, regional centers, and other community organizations in order to provide the most comprehensive treatment for each child. Our professional staff receives ongoing training by leaders in the field and academic realm to provide the highest level of quality services for our clients.
SEEK was founded in 2000 by a group composed of local parents of developmentally disabled children. These parents first began as SEEK Fellowship, a support group that met regularly at Evangelical Formosan Church in EI Monte, California, and served as a source of mutual understanding and collective strength. These early members shared both sympathetic encouragement as well their individual experiences with practical treatments and educational methods. They found applied behavior analysis to be a crucially effective treatment in addressing and alleviating their children’s disabilities. Unfortunately, most agencies that provide the ABA treatment are hampered by long waiting lists, often making services less accessible to those in need of them. The SEEK Fellowship was inspired in turn to create an organization that would make this influential treatment available to greater numbers of families.
As a non-profit agency, SEEK works to contribute a vital service to the community through the growth of quality programs for children with developmental disabilities. SEEK has grown tremendously in the past seven years. We currently have roughly 120 employees, both full-time and part-time, serving more than 220 families in Southern California.
At SEEK, we specialize in providing applied behavior analysis interventions and functional skills teaching programs for people with autistic spectrum disorders, Asperger’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, mental retardation, and attention deficit disorders. We also offer a social skills program and an after school program.
SEEK Education, Inc. follows the philosophy of positive programming. Through the implementation of this philosophy, our clinical staff will train family members to address behavioral deficits while simultaneously reducing behavior excesses. Our agency’s goal is to teach the principles of applied behavior analysis to parents of consumers with special needs to enhance the quality of the consumer’s life. SEEK provides interventions in the home, school, and community in order to have the most comprehensive treatment plan for the consumer. This research-based intervention provides the primary caretakers, family members, and school staff with a team that works in close communication with all its members, and allows the supervisor of the consumer’s behavioral program to monitor his/her progress on a consistent basis. This intervention includes functional assessment, training of primary caretaker’s family members and/or school staff under the guidance of our Behavior Consultant. Also, SEEK Education, Inc. adherers to the “trainer of trainers” model, in that primary caretakers and family members will be trained to target deficit skills in areas such as social, self-help, play, and functional communication skills as well as in the implementation of applied behavior analysis principles to reduce behavior excesses with the child with special needs. Behavior excess will be addressed through the implementation of positive behavior intervention plans designed throughout the program.
DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING AND FUNCTIONAL SKILLS TEACHING SERVICE (DTT AND FST)
This is an intensive treatment program that can be provided in the home and/or school environments for:
- A consumer, aged 2-22, who meets the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria or is diagnosed with developmental disorders and/or displays disruptive or maladaptive behaviors such as stereotypic, perseverative, ritualistic and/or dangerous behaviors that interfere with communication, self-help, socialization, and functional skills.
- A consumer demonstrating deficits in functional communication skills, social and play skills, independent living and generalization skills and/or those with behavior excesses that interfere with learning and/or socialization may qualify for DTT programs, FST programs, and/or behavior modification programs focusing on community integration and vocational skills (depending on the needs of the individual consumer).
- A consumer is in good health without chronic or sensory deficits that would preclude from full participation in treatment.
- A consumer’s home environment supports the behavior intervention program.
Seek Care is an after school social recreation program. It provides children (from the ages of four years and seven months to 13 years) a safe environment to have the opportunity to interact with peers with and without disabilities. It is where children with disabilities can also develop better functional and communication skills. We will supply the child’s existing educational, social and recreational goals and objectives as established by the family, school or agencies such as Regional Center.
Connect with Me is a social skills training program designed to meet the needs of school age clients, beginning at three and one half years of age, who have deficits in the area of social development, secondary to other developmental disabilities. Schools, service coordinators, and professionals who have worked with the special needs of these clients can make referrals.