Today's episode. We're going to start with something exciting for all our listeners because we love you and every now and then you deserve a little NCR AKA non-contingent reinforcement because you guys have been listening and you don't need an ad so today. Let's get right to the topic Behavior bitches. Hey guys, it's Lia at and Casey and we're back and it is episode 28 Casey. What do you have for us? Well, our lovely listener too narrow sent us to eight give us a rate Inge five guitars on all clapboards. Preferably on the podcast app Apple. What you ain't give us a rating of five stars. Please get to that right now. Low response effort put five stars. Send us love we love it. Then we have reviews to read at the beginning of the show speaking of that, right? Yeah that leads us right into it. It's crazy how we do that 28th episode. Alright today's response. No, that's not the word review guys. Just so you know, we're recording this podcast early in the morning Our Guest is Badass from California who is on Pacific Standard Time and actually enjoys a seven a m-- podcast. We got Meyer at 9 a.m. And 10 a.m. And we're still like can open our eyes can't get words out. So bear with us today. We're gonna we're gonna get in the groove of it. But first let's do the review this comes from Cass Collins. This was a Instagram correctly at yes, this is correct Casey. Thank you. All right. She says I really really really three really swallow. Enjoy. The Imposter podcast, I absolutely love Casey's dorky personality dude. I told you I told you everything I know I am the same way so I get her humor liad. I really love the part where you said that you have no problem admitting when you don't know questions in the past. I've asked questions and sometimes have received the wrong answer just so that person didn't feel dumb. You guys are both hilarious. You guys have also helped me with being able to understand behavioral terms as they should be understood in real life. Rio's you guys really need to have a speaking event. I would love to meet you guys. Keep it up. Please keep the podcast coming. Well, we are going to try our best to get one out every week in our patreon supporters are helping us do that by donating money each month. We appreciate you guys also very much. So so so much which also is a reminder that we need to pick up our patreon level adding more stuff to it all the time. We're on it. So so so much you can always find us on Instagram at Behavior. But just podcast find us on Facebook at Behavior bitches podcast. And yeah go to our website Behavior bitches.com, or is it Behavior, but just podcast.com probably that one. We got our shit together guys, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Anyways, I'm really excited for today's episode. I want to get right into it. You know, we are talking today about severe challenging Behavior. And how to really determine the function of behavior and the guests today she is so she reached out to us via email a while ago. Actually she was like, I'm a BCP a I work with really challenging behavior and she wrote this beautiful email and asked if we would be interested in doing an episode on this topic like five ever ago. She reached out to us in this in the beginning and I like that. Yeah. She was like Mitch came right into our kitchen sink. Is that a is that a saying? Came into our kitchen with it. Yeah, it's cool. I think it's everything but the kitchen sink it's fine. But like whatever I am being a dork. I love it. Alright, so we schedule a phone call with her and the rest is history. We instantly connected with her and we love her. She is super passionate about the Dignity of her clients and she works tirelessly to find the function of their challenging behavior and most people shy away from this type of behavior the best part about her. She reads Jabba. That's the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. That is where all the evidence based research that we are. All should be implementing in our practice is found. She is a beast or anything that you're like that is what we are already doing. I'm just trying to hold us Integrity, you know, I like to go higher and higher I love that about you. So she used to be CBA. She works for Terry Incorporated in Oceanside, California. She mainly Works across to non-public schools and one community-based Adult Day program. Most of our cases are referred due to high levels of severe problem behavior and significant need for Behavior. Intervention, she listened to the episode with Brad Bishop. She said she's obsessed with a sitecore guys, which so are we we love them both Ryan and Brad and her ability to pass the exam was in big part due to them. We agree with you girlfriend. So our guests she went to Augsburg University in Minneapolis with got her Bachelor's in a secondary education and history received her teaching credential as a social studies teacher. That's awesome. She went to Arizona State University for grad school where she got her Master's in Education in curriculum and instruction and a ba she passed her board exam in May 2009 teen so she's a pretty new bcba who's out there doing the good work. She also has a wicked badass Instagram where she breaks down Journal articles in a way that people can understand. So if you want to expand your mind and learn go follow her at always forward underscore a be a when she isn't saving the world one challenging Behavior at a time. You can find her playing soccer hiking at the beach listening to music drinking. Gallons of coffee bicycling self caring AF and weekend trips in California. Welcome to the show Katherine Gorges. Is that how you pronounced it? Yeah. That was pretty good. Gorgeous. Yes, thank you. I think they spelled it wrong. I was gonna send you spelled it wrong. I'm here. I know it looks a little backwards, but it's German. We had an umlaut in Germany. So that was the whole. Wow. It's like the two dots over the oh, oh so when my dad came to this country Chains to Annie wonder if I love hearing what people family's original name was it's like yeah, mine was sexaholic trial Avila, you know, that's like oh but now just lie outside. I didn't hear ya shortened it up a little bit. Well, thank you for that introduction. That was so nice. Did we miss anything amazing about you know, that really covered a lot of it was it was really really made me feel really good. I like to pretend I'm like the third Behavior bitch out here a lot of times. So it's really an are you You are welcome honored member for life. Okay, I love it. Cause you're doing the good work. So they save your principles. Do you mind if I get to those? Yeah, I don't mind at all. We got okay behavioral principles that we're going to cover behavioral principles fbas. We're going to talk about functional behavioral assessment functional analyses. We're going to talk about Behavior Support plans. Obviously, we're going to talk about reinforcement and Punishment because would it be a Vibe Behavior Analysis if we were Talking about those. I'm sure we'll talk about Extinction to just added that in right now. We're going to talk about functional communication training probably some memos up in here and multiple function maintain behaviors, and I'm sure we'll have more but that's a nice start for you to get you all hot and bothered and excited for this episode. So without further Ado Casey, let's go. So Katherine. I want to start off. Can you just give us a little background on what you do? Like, I know I covered that where you work but like Tell the people what you do every day. Yes, so I am a board certified behavior analyst as you mentioned and I work for three different day programs within a non-profit agency. So that includes non public schools, which essentially just means that districts can refer students to us. And that's also one Adult Day program, which is community based. Also the Regional Center in California refers clients to us. If individuals cannot or haven't been able to demonstrate success in a sort of typical Adult Day program with a 1 to 3 ratio. We have an enhanced Staffing ratio. So what anyone in the non-public schools, there are like one of the non-public schools is all one to one. The other one is a mix of 1 2 1 1 2 3 1 2 9 and then the adult Day program is 2 to 3. So it's enhanced all around from there. I do a lot of functional Behavior assessments. Obviously right and and behavior intervention plans, but I also get to really do a lot of Staff training I get to work with certified special ed teachers. We do like clinics every two weeks with the special ed teachers where they get to talk with me about their entire caseload of students and we just kind of run through any behavioral troubleshooting that needs to happen. I kind of oversee our assaultive Behavior safety training. I have Behavior specialists in each of my That also oversee that training and they are Trainers for you know, any kind of restraint or containment that we train for our agency. So we have to really consider all the ethics and the educational codes and state laws and things like that, obviously. So there's a lot that goes into it. Sometimes it's just Consulting, you know, I go to meetings I go to IEPs, I consult with directors and all kinds of people. So there's a lot of different roles I get to play Well, they are lucky to have you and it's like how you talk with your hands. I know right? So you are the first Behavior bitch welcome. We love it. So I know we talked on the phone. We talked a lot about like different types of challenging behavior that you've seen and what do you think and again respecting all Dignity of the clients and you know, no violations here, but what are some of the hardest are most trickiest challenging behaviors that you have maybe come into contact with You know for me the most difficult ones are behaviors that have sort of been functionally misdiagnosed, right? So you see a behavior and to topographically it looks like rituals, but then you do have functional analysis and it turns out it's maintained by attention or it turns out it's maintained by you know, somebody like physically blocking that kind of thing and so topographically it looks like some other kind of function. It's actually maintained by something else. So that could include any kind of weird Behavior. Right? It could be self-injury really extreme self-injury. It could be fecal smearing it could be, you know, I've seen a lot of nudity things like that and I think talking about these kind of odd and extreme behaviors. It's not to really sensationalize them. It's to really bring light to the fact that a lot of people families individuals are out there dealing with this and I want to make that kind of clear like this is not to say hey these behaviors are weird. Let's let's laugh about it. It's really to say, you know, a lot of these individuals are not. Our kind of kept behind closed doors and we should really be including them in our conversations about inclusion about quality of life about dignity about behavioral treatment. I totally agree with that and I think another thing aside from just sometimes we see a behavior topographically you're like, oh look, they're doing pretty quote unquote typical signs and it's for attention. They're looking at me right after right and smiling or something. So you think it's attention or you get a new client and they've already been you're ready. Give given the client with the said function, right? And so that's why it's really important for us to practice philosophical doubt or a healthy skepticism, right and say let me go in and look at this again with the new set of eyes do a functional analysis and see is this really what's maintaining the behavior. Yes, exactly. Philosophical doubt is like one of my favorite Concepts like it's just it's something that drives me I think in life not just my practice as a behavior analyst but when you're dealing with kids whose problem behavior is so extreme somebody in that kid's life is in crisis, whether it's the kid themselves or the family member who is may be afraid of their child's Behavior or you know, the school teacher who is just like at their wit's end doesn't know how to serve this. Vidual and I think that practice of philosophical doubt of always saying hmm. How can we look at this with a different angle? Are we sure that we got this right? Let's try let's try this. Let's look at the data. Let's make sure you know, I think that is so important in terms of treating the population of kids with really extreme behavior. And I think that a lot of people again like I had mentioned in the beginning when there are these extreme challenging behaviors, it's scary and people don't want It really take another second look at it because they're scared and that's no fault to anyone. But the point here that I know you're trying to make is that these are the ones that need the help the most and need to be understood right? I'm reeling on this. I went to the Greg Hanley Workshop yesterday guys. Wow, so exciting the mind blown I've learned so much and it was perfect timing for this podcast because I know we were talking about functional communication training functional analyses all those things and what he said, he said these these clients are the ones that have a fire inside, right? They have a firing and those are the ones that we need to figure out what their fire is. What is their motivation or true? Right? Yes. It's so true. I see like doing sort of classroom observations and school observations. You you see this like perception that a student who is engaged in severe problem behavior is unable to learn right? There's this idea that somehow Behaviors like so behaviors impede learning in the typical sense, right? That's sort of how we classify them. Like, oh, it's socially significant. It's impeding learning but that does not mean that somebody is unable to learn and when you watch and observe somebody engaging in severe problem Behavior, it's clear that they've been learning a lot of different contingencies, right they've learned exactly how to get what they want through their problem behavior and its really like I stand and watch kids and I'm like they are watching everyone else's Behavior. Of Eur shaping the behavior of those around them and really finding the best way to meet their own needs and I had give so much respect to them. I'm like, these are a little Junior Behavior analysts out there sometimes like watching everybody's behavior and really, you know, making sure that they get their needs met but that just you know problem Behavior does not mean someone cannot learn. I think we get so caught up in like, oh, they're just engaged in behavior all day. There's no time to teach. It's like yours you shouldn't worry about you know, You shouldn't feel like problem Behavior prevents you from running a program. The program should be run to deal with the problem Behavior, you know should be shaped around that behavior. Absolutely those teachable moments and you posted something on Instagram. If they can't learn the way we teach we teach the way they learn guys. It's up to us to change the way we teach right exactly. I have a mentor who comes in discusses, you know, he comes every two weeks and consults with us. That Terry and something he says is like let's say that you have a kid who's coming in the door and they're engaging in problem Behavior, like whatever it maybe maybe they're getting gauging in self-injury every time they walk through the doorway of the school. And there's this sense of like, oh we can't get them in the school to teach and get them to learn the learning should be happening right there where the problem behavior is happening. You should bring your learning to wherever problem behaviors happening a problem behaviors happening in the bathroom. That's where you bring your Program right that's where you're doing your teaching because that's what that is. Yeah. It was amazing. That's like I've so many mentors I want to give credit. You know that this is not just me coming up with all this right. This is like so many of our teachers and mentors who have shaped us and and things like that to think of these things. Who's your who's your mentors? You want to give a shout-out to so, dr. Paul dory's is our psychologist that cut and BCD ad who comes and consults and then dr. Christie does Anya who is our like she's kind of she's one of the cofounders of Our agency she is also a b c d a d and she was my supervising bcba. So I did all of my supervision within this context of problem behavior. And you know, I'm really grateful for that. So Greg Hanley actually said in following right along with you is that when he's conducting the eska and that using you know, his practical functional assessment. It's called an Open Door analysis. Meaning you follow the client where they go like if I want to be in the room that you're conducting it in. You're not going to be able to conduct it. Right? So I think it's something yeah, you follow the learner where they if in the he even said that if they go in the women's bathroom you follow him in there and see what is it what you know, you're going to conduct it where they want to be or you're not going to be able to conduct it correctly or with any validity. So yeah, I love that following them where they need to go where they go Casey. Tell me your three top takeaways yesterday. Oh, yes. Sometimes sometimes hers. No, I'm just kidding. It has even been a year. I wish they would roll on over but guess what I'll always keep going. So the three takeaways I would say which I love is that he says that Hold on. I got to find this in my note because I want to get it, right, okay. Love that about you case. I know I know that's the biggest thing but first of all, basically he talks about a lot about how behaviors are not like the functions of behaviors are not isolated. Right? It's not usually just attention. Oh, yes, perfect. It's just a tension that's maintaining this behaviors are multiplied maintained in most cases in a lot of his research says, I will post some stuff in our show notes Journal articles that he has written in Java that talk about the synthesized functional analysis, right? So it's A combination of maintain of functions maintaining a behavior so it could be asked us to tangibles. Right? That's one function attention right sensories automatic and escape and usually it's a kind of like a package of all those different things that are maintaining the behavior but the biggest thing that made me crack up that he said Basu tell why do kids engage in problem Behavior? Okay. This was his question to get shit. They want to get out of shit. They don't want to do do it with people. They give a shit about and Deuce and get someone to do some shit for them. Right? These are the reasons and I love using it. Yeah, he did. He's funny like I broke down and I love him but he was even it seriously. It's like simple right? It's really actually not that crazy. It's like when people engage in these problem behaviors, and he also talked about how when like especially like self-injurious behaviors, right? If they're we like, oh my God what like I can't believe they do that to themselves he goes Just something that mammals do this is an Autism right when mammals are frustrated or someone they scratch or they, you know, bite their selves or something like that. That's a mammal Behavior. Right? So it's not loud the autism. I know I was like, wow, I have a notebook full of stuff over here, but the takeaway big is that there's multiple things maintaining Behavior. There's multiple consequences maintaining a behavior and the the okay, so I want to get this right there a response. Could topographically look different right so there could be a bunch of different problem behaviors. It could be hitting kicking biting right and mostly they're maintained by a set of reinforcement contingencies, right so it could all be this for the same function. So when you're doing an analysis and you find all these different co-occurring behaviors, right? It's usually for the same function. So if you can treat it at the first instance of that may be the precursor is they start moving their body right before they get to the high levels of aggression. But if you catch that behavior, you don't have to see those high levels of aggression because you're giving them what they want at the first instance of problem Behavior, right? You're reinforcing that problem Behavior essentially because you don't want to escalate we can do editor if you can see precursors. Yes, and you know, but you're like let Me get this before I would say like really extreme behaviors if you could catch it in the antecedent like or like all right, like right before it's like especially when it's someone, you know, when you're working with really big clients or really aggressive or I'm like, okay. So at this point, you know, I don't know if it would be the best to try see, you know, what exactly is or like allow them to get to that point to work using, you know, like punishment or extinction because it's You know, I know like if there's gonna be a battle between me and someone who's 250 pounds like they're gonna win and a lot of these people we work with are strong, you know, when that like really strong it's interesting because a lot of it like like you work with adults, you know Casey and I've worked with adult or bigger students, you know kids too and you can't always use escaped Extinction right escaped Extinction requires some level of physical prompting or or any even with attention like it. It's really hard to put attention maintain behavior on extinction in the community. Yeah, I was gonna say exactly like if you scream or do something odd in the community people are going to look we can't control that and so this effort to put everything on extinction is not always the answer and what we end up doing is putting it on a very long intermittence reinforcement schedule, right? Which then yes it was. Yeah Behavior, you know, and it's another thing that like, I follow a lot of doctor hanley's stuff. And I know there's like it's a really interesting debate sort of in the field about synthesized contingencies versus standard isolated conditions within a functional analysis. And the cool thing about that whole debate is that it's so good for our science, right? Like think like philosophical doubt questioning the way we've always done things is so good for our science and for us as Behavior analysts to just go out there and try it both ways, but To Ultimate for me. It's about ultimately landing on individualized functional functional analyses because you really have to identify the specific antecedents and the specific consequences that are maintaining that individuals behavior. And yeah if you and I the thing I love about the precursor conversation is that he argues he uses that as a an argument to say behavior analyst go do functional analyses. Don't be afraid of doing Analyses on problem Behavior because if you've done a good job of identifying your precursor behaviors, you can reinforce that lower levels and you won't ever have to see that really extreme dangerous Behavior. So, you know, there's that article well, we'll have to I'll send it to you guys and have to put in the show notes where he writes for perspective perspectives, which is the Journal of abai and after and I think you're so cool. I'm sorry. I just want to give you some some reinforcements in a conflict while I'm listening to eat like a chorus. This is what people in the field need to see that there are young Behavior animals. I mean, I'm a new behavior analyst to I became one way two years ago, but if you want to come up on my ear, right and your freshly minted in to see I think it's really important to people in the field see like it's not only these people who have been be cba's for ever or that are able to have this love and And keep learning and realize that what you studied for the test because yeah, when you study for the test you talk about okay a behavior that's reinforced. You're going to put it on extinction. Right? But there's also further application like and for individual situations that maybe it's not the best to just have to allow the behavior to fully take place for you to put it on extinction. Right? And this is obviously further learning and you need to know different things when you're taking the test as to what actually you're going to apply I would say, you know I'm sorry. I just think it's so awesome. And you sound like so well-rounded in the field and I'm just idolizing you because I'm looking in your background and it looks like a very Zen area that you sit in over there. Is that all essential oils? Yeah, like I got my salt lamp over there and I love it. I have wait. I got to show you I know no one can see this but I love it. We have to bring our own environments for the behavior. We want right we got structure our own sin environments to a vote kind of. Those variables set up the environment for success and at the end of the day, it's all about the client. It's client doesn't matter what arguments are going on about what type of function analysis or this or that it's true. We need to treat these problem behaviors because our clients are what matter and safety is the most important thing when we are dealing with our clients. We want to keep them safe, right? So yeah, and there was an article that you had dissected and I want it and I wanted to see if you want to talk about it a little bit but but it was about how I think it was I have it in here. It was reducing problem behaviors through functional communication training by car and Durant in the behavior analysis. What are your takeaways from that like the importance of functional communication training? Can you talk a bit about that? Also, can you say what functional communication training is for anyone listening who doesn't even know what it is to say what it is so functional communication training and especially in that article in 1985 Condor and that's when they really started to define it. And they basically were at a place in Behavior Analysis where punishment was being used to reduce problem Behavior. We know that punishment reduces Behavior, right? And that was one of the main things that was being used and they came along and did this study where they taught functionally equivalent replacement responses right function. So they did a functional analysis. They were able to determine that two of the students were there problem Behavior was maintained by escape from Difficult tasks and one of the students problem Behavior was maintained by the teachers attention. And so they taught two different responses. And one of the responses was I don't understand I think was the the functional equivalent response for the Escape maintained behavior. And then the other one for attention was how am I doing? Good work, right and that Garner the teacher to come over and say wow. Look at this amazing job you're doing and the cool thing about that article. Is they isolated the fact that it was the functionally equivalent behavior that reduced problem behaviors. So the kids whose Behavior was maintained by Escape teaching them to say am I doing good work did not reduce Behavior because that one get got attention. It didn't get them escaped from a difficult task and so in you know to kind of look at the big picture and what what I'm doing and what we're doing in terms of problem Behavior, you know functional communication training is something that's now used by a ton by anybody right? It's so common, you know, even in IEPs, you have to you have to identify a functional equivalent replacement behavior and Target that in an IEP. We call it the Ferb, you know, and the important thing about that for me and what I've done what I've found and learned through through all my mentors is if you if you like let's say you identify that problem behavior is maintained by Escape so you teach the kid to say Take and you reinforce break on a first and then every time they say break you reinforce that by taking away their work or whatever. It is. The biggest thing is you have to make sure that whatever that response that you're teaching has the same effect on the environment that the problem Behavior so I think in my Instagram like talk I said, you know, if somebody engages in problem behavior and that clears the entire classroom, you know, everybody leaves and their now left alone in a room and then you teach them to say break. And all you do is take away the work that's not a that's not having the same effect on the environment and you won't really see a reduction in behavior and you you can do trial and error, right? And that's what we do. We have hypotheses. We test them. We apply an intervention. If it doesn't reduce Behavior, then we know we're missing something about that functional equivalent. It's so important to determine the function because again, if you're just throwing the kitchen sink at these problems and not conduct it conducting, you know a functional analysis A Heater assessment to really determine the function then you're you're actually probably doing more harm than anything. Yeah, you see it all the time. Like, you know people just especially with kids with autism. It's like give them a weighted vest and give them headphones and give them this or that you know, and which is all fine. If that's what the kid is really into. But if that's just your response to problem Behavior your now adding things to the environment that are difficult to fade, you know, so I really like, dr. Hanley's work. In I think it was as 2014 article where he really went through his escapades process and presented that but in that article he presents a treatment which is really functional communication training, but he really really focuses on the functional piece of it. Like he teaches kids to just say my way right and that gets said everything that they want and that ensures that you really are make your really having the same effect on the environment when you say my way as when you engage in problem Behavior, because when problem Behavior happens A lot of people are like give them their way. We don't want them to we want them to blow right? So you just give them everything. So does that same he teaches that same risk? He teaches a response my way in order for that person to access all of that reinforcement. Yep, and it's our job as we're analysts to win. They do engage in that functionally what thank you brain fart. Looks like equivalent Behavior. That's appropriate. Like right so saying my way or saying break instead of hitting themselves in the head a hundred times, you need to reinforce that immediately. The immediacy of reinforcement is so important right? Because I don't know then guess what then they're like well then this isn't working right this my way isn't working if I'm not getting what I want. Yeah. It has to be more efficient more effective than the problem Behavior and the problem Behavior has to become, you know irrelevant and I mean, sometimes we can't put the problem behavior on extinction, right so Instead we can use matching law, right if we reinforce the appropriate behavior on a richer schedule then the problem behavior is getting reinforced. Then we should at least see a tip of the scales and something else. I really, you know dot Dr. Hanley's description of delay and denial training. We've been using it a lot, you know, and I'm sure there's a lot of other literature out there about it, but we've been using it a lot in that, you know you reinforced on a continuous schedule when you teach each a functional communicative response, right? So if you every time a kid says break you reinforce, but eventually, you know, you have to fade in some delay and you can do that in so many ways. He has them asking longer questions. Excuse me. May I please have a break or whatever it may be complex complex communication training exactly. It's so good. And I mean we do we do a lot, you know break please, you know, hold on. Let me see if the area is available and you know, we kind of like delay that way. And so we're doing a lot of that in with my kiddos and adults that I work with and love that. It's huge. It's so important teaching people to tolerate minor of versus is so important. I know I did. My life is hard like hard for everyone in person. Exactly. Another great person that I kind of follow is dr. Merrill Winston and he loved him. He talks about restraint and seclusion in really Why such a beneficial way and he has I found this random like presentation that he did it's called Way Beyond functional analysis, but he gets to some of these same points. Is that instead of just stopping at hey, the behavior is maintained by Escape we should say well, why are they you know, why are they engaging in problem Behavior to escape test? Well, why are they try and doing Escape path? Because they never learned to tolerate minor of versus right and then we can deal with some of those underlying issues. Not just the Of that initial problem Behavior, right? And I think what you're talking about what you know before I got into a ba II just had my masters in special ed. Not just because that I was a badass and I was but I know I accidentally I think Casey and I both have like just used just before I'm like that is not a just it's not just to our Beatty they do everything have so but like I remember being in special ed teacher right and The way before I got into a ba I was like it's gonna be so easy for me ABA because my behavior my program was so behavior-based. I didn't realize how much more there was to learn. But like when you're writing an IEP or something for a student, they give you like a checklist of things to check off like what are you doing? Okay, this kid has this extreme Behavior. So we're just gonna we're gonna sit them closer to the board. We're going to shorten the amount of problems. They have on their math assignment. We're going to offer them breaks. We're going to put a visual on their desk and it's like just these Derek things that you're putting on there. You're just check check check checking off as you go through like this, you know as he checked through on the IEP and interventions. Yeah, but it's like you're putting these things they're not even figuring out the function of Y someone's doing it. So it's like if the problem for this kid is not that there's 300 math problems. I mean, they probably a problem for anyone so that's not a great example, but and then you're like like this person just wanted attention and the you're just shortening the assignment for them. Right. And so you're just giving you know, these other accommodations that essentially aren't even serving as accommodations because it's not based on the function. So it's just so important that we match whatever antecedent interventions were doing or consequent interventions that we're doing to match the actual function and I just think that's so so so important well and I'm sure Casey you've seen this with your adult is a lot of times what happens is kids go through school and those those antecedent Put in place, which is great when you're trying to initially reduce a problem Behavior, but eventually you have to teach somebody to tolerate day-to-day minor a versus you can't just remove all demand or reduce all demand for ever and ever because those kids become adults and now when somebody in an adult program which by the way has a lot less support and a lot less Services, you know has to say, excuse me, please wait, I have three other clients and that kid blowing. Blows because they've never learned to wait they've never learned to tolerate the minor aversive of waiting. You know. Now you've got a 200-pound individual engaging a severe problem behavior and that and it's it's really I mean, we see it all the time and they're saying my way yeah, like let's just stand there like this line. No one Cuts. I'm straight the first and then please like what's going on, you know, it's it's a huge. It's a huge issue the transition piece of it. It's so so so important we've been really, you know, it's hard because you really get caught up and just making the world easier and more manageable because we love our kiddos in our people that we serve so much we want to just make everything easy on them, which is really great in order to get that initial compliance or to build that relationship or two pair. But and then we have to start fading in, you know, regular life things systematically teaching for generalization and maintenance because in an adult program, you know, California, we're kind of lucky because we have guaranteed Adult Services through the lifespan, right? This is like not common, but it does mean that our individuals when they become adults they get they get referred by the regional center to different settings. And if that individual has severe problem Behavior, they will typically either be exited quickly or they won't be allowed in at all and they're so limited programs for adults with severe. There's not to mention that a lot of those programs don't have bcba access don't have speech and language pathology access, you know, it kills me. It really does because my brother is 22 and I'm just like it's one of these places that looked at as like the best in the community and I'm not saying names of anything but it's just like I know that they're going there and it's just like a holding place for these adults to be during the day. It's like, okay, we're going to make beds for two hours or we're gonna I'll watch a movie every day or we're going on an outing here, but it's like are you actually working on skills when you're doing those things and and I find that a lot with adults in it because like I mean, I have a really personal connection with it. It breaks my heart because I'm like dude he's 22, but he could still learn you know, and learning never ends never what I see a lot is the prompt dependency, right? So for their entire lives, they've been prompted prompted prompted told what to do given a choice between Listen this like and then they're still waiting for like they still can't make decisions because we've always made the decisions for that and you know, what give them a chance like maybe it takes a little bit longer for them to make a decision and that's okay and I know it might not feel natural as us because we know when like silence or you know, the way our world is now it's like immediate immediate immediate but like a lot of that Amazon and was right. I was so busy. I had to wait two days for something. I'm like, are you kidding? I really need that. New set of pens. Are you joking me? Yeah, but like I'm getting that like almost unknown. I'm like my way. I'm comfortable silence. I'm like giving them time to process and not making all the decisions for them. That's what I see a lot of issues and you know the other cool thing that Greg Hanley said yesterday. Dr. Han Lee might my new Found Love. He said dr. Handly if by any chance you're listening. At all, will you please come on to the podcast, please? Please please. I asked Casey to ask you yesterday. And she said it wasn't the right time. So if you or someone who happens to be in near relation to dr. Handly or anyone wants to send this exact part of the podcast over please come on her soda, really cool, you know that their dramatic you like never even listened to him here. Like anyways, he said it's not like the functional analysis. It's it's actually not too. Find the function of the behavior. It's so that we can turn the behavior on and off. We want to fly. So Behavior, right? We want to be able to teach the client that their behavior has power, right? So when they engage in that behavior, we're going to give them what they want right that their behavior has power. Yes. We see you we hear you gotcha. And that's the part of if you cannot turn a behavior off, right? You're not sending anyone into a functional analysis with a 200-pound aggressive person. You're not and you're not going to do any progress it is you need to be able to say reliably when he engages in aggression and I give him the iPad. He stops whatever it may be that's just an example, but turning the behavior on and off right and he talks about when someone behaviors escalating, right? So you see these precursors. It's escalating that behavior is operant. Meaning that it is affected by consequences so it can be affected stopped but when it's Pete when they reach that National Stage 5 meltdown it is now Peak to this emotional place that we actually cannot provide any like real treatment right there in full meltdown mode and it's not safe. Yeah, they're all of us in an emergency in our cognitive abilities are not where they are normally, right? Yeah, you treat the whining you treat the aggression, right? So say the first thing is whining and you're treating it there, right? Okay, what do you need? Let's do it now versus. Oh, let's just wait to see what he does next or next. It's like they're gonna escalate right there telling you something you need to let them know that their behavior has power. I love that line. Yeah that piece of turning the behavior on and off, you know, we try to think of it a lot because you know, if you can't turn it off right then you know that you haven't you don't have all of the reinforcers you don't have the full contingency because if that if you're able to turn it off you've delivered what that the problem Behavior was trying to access or remove and especially with problem Behavior because so many of our kids are sort of outliers, right they get sent to us after so many different places have said I don't understand this kid. I can't figure it out. I can't get rid of their problem Behavior. We've done all of the stuff that we normally do and we cannot figure it out. They no longer can attend the school and that's when they get sent to a non-public school or enhanced ratio adult program. And so Us we really have to consider that like if we can't turn the behavior off we haven't figured it out yet. I mean and there are times where years we're spending years trying to figure it out. You know, we just never stop trying to figure it out until we do and it's so there's just something about kids with problem behavior. These are just my people. Those are my favorite of for yourself. When you are the one to figure that out, it's like it's so satisfying better than watching like a murder mystery and figuring out how it was before the scene because you're like I get to play detective here and someone that's everyone else like was like, oh we can't do anything for this kid at this point. We just need to make like Medicaid time to the point of anything and it's like dude and also there's like, you know some pragmatism there and it's like wait or maybe I should say parsimony like it simple. Explanation as to why someone is doing something, you know when you're like, oh, well, we went into all these crazy deep details at this mad and it's like, oh they just needed this which I think is really cool. I don't know is not simple, but it's so rewarding. Yeah, it's so rewarding and to see I mean, especially the family who's just been like in crisis and you know living you see families just kind of held hostage by problem Behavior. Their whole lives have to revolve around it, you know to try to avoid it to try to manage it. To try to keep themselves safe. They can't go certain places and to see that change or to see that change in a student when they're like, oh all I have to do. Is this other really easy behavior and I can get my same need met like and to see it. You see it change quickly. That's what's so exciting is when you do really find the function of the behavior you teach a skill to access that exact same reinforcer. You see that behavior change so quickly and somebody go from Ever it may be, you know pulling peoples hair out to access something that they want. You know, you see that change quickly and we've had a lot of really interesting experience with kids who are like their behavior is maintained by access to rituals, right or you could say I guess you could say it's escaped from Interruption of rituals to right kind of like two sides of the same coin and we've had a lot of good experience in teaching kids to just say fix it fix it. Please you know, and then we're like, oh sure you could fix it. And then we do the whole delay in denial situation. Once once we've seen Mastery of fix it then we can teach delay and denial down the road. But I mean you see people who are willing to do crazy things to access something they want to fix or something. They want to adjust, you know, truly extreme Behavior. I had a client or you know an experience where same exact thing if something didn't go his way with a IPad or electronic right? It's like like Google wasn't working or YouTube wasn't bringing up what he wanted at that moment. Like he would literally just shatter everything right like break everything and we taught him again fix it. Please fix it, please and he bring it over and you know, if we couldn't fix it, right? So say if something out of our control like the internet was down or something we were able to build up that tolerance by teaching him. What would we say something like oh like we're calling. Someone to fix it. So now he knows that we have to wait till someone comes to fix it say it was Comcast or it was you know, anyone trying to fix it or your provider. Please fix it, please and he'd bring it right over and we'd be like, okay we do to fix it. My brother knows that yeah, or we be like, oh we gotta call someone you need to wait and be like wait cubic he be waiting for the Fix-It man waiting for the victim and really that's great man. Like yeah, you're waiting awesome, man, and they'll you know reinforced like that waiting right? Because that's - yeah, it doesn't work. I'm like, I'm about to throw shit when I'm moving out. I love that now that's a perfect to be able to share those ideas. Like that's exactly what I want this to be about is like, you know, I never even thought of that like adding in that piece of oh, I gotta call somebody and we can do that with our clients now where we like we have a kid who loves to turn lights off and on, you know, and we could say like, oh, you know what I got to call the supervisor. Sure and ask if this is okay. So like hold on a second. Let me get on the phone. I mean there's so many because I think management I'll do it. All right, if you think about that in us like you don't just tell me to wait and then don't tell me what I'm waiting for or like it's like oh wait over there. It's like for what? Oh because you're going to do something to fix it. Right you're engaging in something that's going to eventually help me out. Yes, and that delay you can expand and either you can make it longer and longer and longer so that it's really you're at a point where you can essentially denied. Buddy, but you're just saying later, you know, and they don't know when later will be. It's an intermittent schedule right? Because realistically how many things are we truly saying? No never again, you know, it's rare. Yes, that's super fascinating. I love it. I I've had this like amazing feeling that we're going to have you back on the show for more amazing sharing talking. I would love a safe place for you know talking about, you know, whether it's collaborating in talking about how are we effectively Treating problem Behavior. How are we doing you no, good work. Right keeping the good work is what we want everyone to do. I'm sure everyone's going to appreciate this episode if you're driving in your car and you're like, oh my gosh. I have no idea what to do with a student. I hope we can be some inspiration that maybe you need to look outside of the box dig a Little Deeper find that clients motivation because they have a fire inside of them that we need to figure out. So yes, and I want to encourage everyone, you know, don't be afraid. Raid to seek out experience with problem Behavior, you know, if you are either an rvt, or you're working in a school or you're in your supervision process to become a bcba or whatever. It may be really take an active role in finding experience with running functional analyses with working with kids with problem Behavior, you know, don't be afraid of that population. It's such a rewarding fulfilling thing and I'm so I'm so so so humbled every single day by the kids that I work with and the challenges that they face and they kind of present, you know, when they come to us, and I'm so honored to work with a team that really like gets it and fights hard not only for these kids but to make the world better and more inclusive for kids who experience and deal with problem Behavior, right? Like we want the world to see them too. That's that's the Important thing Catherine, you're a great and I love your story and that you work for an amazing company and Terry Incorporated. They need to do some more work out here on the East Coast. I know thank you very much such a great place that you learned so much and you're happy as I really came here. I learned how to most important thing like over more so than my behavioral experience there. Like obviously I learned that but I learned how to treat people and I learned how to interact with people with special needs with with autism with developmental disabilities that is huge, you know, not treating people like they have a disability essentially, you know, I can remember who they are. It's not the person for who they are and appreciating them and and let me give you guys some positive reinforcement real quick because my whole team, you know teachers Behavior specialist Behavior analysts are education coordinator my mentors, you know, they're all out there listening to you and you are present. Do behavior analysis in a way that makes people feel included and that is so important. You know behavior analysis is for everybody, right? Yeah exactly what you guys are sharing and doing so, you know now that that's so incredibly sweet of you to say in the we don't really we didn't really realize the reach that we had and we owe it to everyone like to keep bringing episodes that are disseminating ABA correctly that are examining ABA using evidence-based research and but also keeping it real Rotten relatable so that people listening are like we've heard all the time like I feel so alone and then I listen and I know that I'm not alone. And so thank you so much Catherine for those words is so sweet. Thank you for coming on and on and we have some ideas. Thanks so much guys. And as always love you mean it. Hey guys, it's Lia Dan Casey. We just want to take a second to let you know that if you're thinking of being a millennial like us and starting your own podcast, there is a way you can do your show without having to become an audio editing and production wizard because guess what we don't know shit with that, but we have Alan at pretty easy podcast who helped us get started. He records are. Shows he post them. He adds awesome awesome music and cool shit. When we don't even know what he's doing. He sends us teaser episodes. He does it all. We just sit here and freaking talk. We shoot the shit and you can record from home your office the park a bathroom stall at work. It doesn't matter. He provides a complete podcast studio. All you need is a microphone and you're good Alan caters to your schedule. Cool and gives you a producer for your show at your beck and call he has been super flexible with our schedule whenever we need him. We were Google Calendar. We just booked him and he does all the hard work. It's like so incredibly easy. That's why it's probably called pretty easy podcast. So be heard and have some fun podcasting like us go to pretty easy podcast.com today.
On today’s episode we have BCBA, Kathryn Goerges on the show to discuss how she works with extremely challenging behavior and how important it is to look at the true function of the behavior. We talk about about the importance of conducting functional analysis in your practice and not just throwing the kitchen sink at problem behaviors. Casey was still reeling after seeing Dr. Gregory Hanley present his work on the IISCA and Practical Functional Assessment so there are a ton of amazing “AH-HA” moments during this episode. If you are struggling with trying to treat  problem behaviors and need some inspiration, then tune in baby. We have Journal Articles referenced in the show notes that can hopefully help you, help your clients. After all, they deserve the BEST. Reducing behavior problems through functional communication training. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 18(2), 111–126. doi:10.1901/jaba.1985.18-111   Hanley, G.P., Jin, C.S., Vanselow, N.R. and Hanratty, L.A. (2014), Producing meaningful improvements in problem behavior of children with autism via synthesized analyses and treatments. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 47: 16-36. doi:10.1002/jaba.106    Slaton, J.D., Hanley, G.P. and Raftery, K.J. (2017), Interview‐informed functional analyses: A comparison of synthesized and isolated components. Jnl of Applied Behavior Analysis, 50: 252-277. doi:10.1002/jaba.384    Go follow Kathryn on instagra @alwaysforward_aba   Become a Patreon Member to help us keep putting out this podcast each week @ https://www.patreon.com/behaviorbitchespodcast 