| Abstract: Parents of children with special needs play an important role in their children's learning and development. Many of them face numerous challenges on a daily basis. From getting their children to eat their breakfast to bedtime routine, many activities and routines most families take for granted, can be difficult. To improve the quality of life of these families, empowering them to support their children is essential. Through working with a local special needs school in HK in the school year of 2015/2016, a parent training program designed for Chinese families was created. This parent training program focused on using evidence based strategies on routines that were relevant for the participated parents. The training was run in a small group format. Through short lectures, focus on discussions and role play, and home visits, we had anecdotal reports of dramatic decrease in problem behaviours at home with most of the participants. Encouraged by this outcome, we are working with another local special needs school in HK and with a special education centre in southern China to run this parent training program in the school year of 2016/2017. Data will be collected this time to investigate the effectiveness of this program. |
| Abstract: A characteristic of a quality applied behavior analysis curriculum for teaching young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is that it is comprehensive. Behavior analysts have to master teaching a wide variety of skills such as communication, imitation, play, social, self-help, and academic. In recent years, more emphasis has been placed on teaching play and social skills as part of a quality program. The majority of clients with ASD are boys, and a large component of play and social interactions for many boys involves sports. Thus, it is important for behavior analysts to teach basic locomotor and object-control skills that will facilitate future participation in sports, what we call pre-sports skills. For behavior analysts who have limited experience participating in sports and/or teaching pre-sports skills, collaborating with an expert from the field of kinesiology, the study of body movement, can be valuable. This presentation will introduce the study of body movement to behavior analysts by (a) discussing the benefits of collaboration between behavior analysts and experts in body movement; (b) reviewing an easy to use assessment tool, Test of Gross Motor Development (3rd edition); and (c) presenting teaching targets for pre-sports skills such as jumping, hopping, sliding, striking, catching, and running. |