Applied Behavior Analysis and Early Childhood Development with Maggie Haraburda, Part II

Part 2 of 2

ABA on Tap is proud to spend some time with Maggie Haraburda, founder and director of Unfurling Littles, a unique treatment center combining ABA with best practices in Early Childhood Education.  

Neurodiversity Affirming and rooted in compassionate care; this center takes an approach to supporting children of all neurotypes that is play-based and child-led. Unfurling Littles was created out of a desire to do better for neurodivergent children and create a model of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) that is not implicated in causing harm. Maggie believes that  "The only way to move forward, is to look back with open eyes. We are a small Autistic owned company and will stay that way. We are not your average agency and we don't intend to be, we are just a group of humans trying to help other humans. " 

Given recent concerns and criticisms of ABA as presented by members of the neurodivergent community, Maggie promotes an important message of truly collaborative treatment. 

This is smooth and easy brew. Pour heavy, pour lots and always analyze responsibly.

Please find Maggie and her incredible team at:

https://www.unfurlinglittles.com/

Innovation Moon: ABA Business Consulting
ABA OBM business consulting & services | BCBA & autism therapy owners | Proud sponsor of ABA on Tap

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

All right, all right, and welcome back to another installment of ABA on Tap. I am your co-host, Mike Rubio, and this is part two of our interview with Maggie Haraburda. Enjoy. So that would be to... And please give me your insight on this to see if I've got it anywhere near correct. But the idea that if you're going to expect for the child to sit there for the entirety of the circle time, then there's something you're going to have to open up to allow for that versus you could do it the other way and say... How are they going to participate knowing that once they do these couple things, then maybe you're granting their quote-unquote escape from this as opposed to now making them stick the whole time? Is that a fair contrast? Could you go both ways with that, or would you have a preference?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Well, I think there's this concept of escaping from activities. I feel like it's really misconstrued in what's actually happening, that the child's not assenting to participate. Not necessarily. Yeah. Go

SPEAKER_02 1:48

ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah. It's like, what is the reason behind this? Why is this not accessible to them in this moment? And I think that's the difference in that we're looking at accessibility of routines, not compliance to routines. Do they not want to sit in the circle time because it's too loud? Are they uncomfortable in the way that they have to sit there? Are there rigid expectations in what it looks like for them to sit at the circle time? Does the material matter to them, right? Is it meaningful in any way? Can we pull in their special interests in some way into the circle time and make it more individualized for this person. So again, I think that's where that detective work comes in. Like what truly is it that's not making this accessible for this child in this moment. Right. And then also, you know, If a child doesn't ascend to circle time that day, it's not that deep. I've been saying it's not that deep a lot lately of why does it matter? We're still going to work on it, but today they didn't ascend. No problem. I'm going to mark down they didn't ascend, and now my job starts, and I'm going to figure out why. Why did they not want to come over today?

SPEAKER_02 2:51

That could mean that you're making those stimuli, those songs, those movements accessible to that child at a time outside circle time. Is that fair to say? You're making those things more familiar or less novel or more... whatever it is, such that they might then join Circle Time in a way that the optics are more traditional? Is that... I mean, because there's nothing... You're not saying that any given kid isn't going to achieve that from an optics perspective. You're kind of... From what I understand, you're saying we just don't want to force that issue. So it's not to say that Johnny won't ever sit at Circle Time. But right now, if he isn't, just forcing him to sit at Circle Time isn't the solution.

UNKNOWN 3:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

I don't know if that made any sense.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah. Well, I think it's like, for example, at our center, our circle time, sometimes there's one kid, sometimes all 10 kids are there. And it really varies depending on the day. But what we've seen is over time, while not forcing these kids to come over, they're naturally really motivated. Yeah, they're really motivated to come by because they know that if they say no, we're going to honor that no. Because it's not that deep. Circle time in the scheme of things doesn't really teach light skills that someone needs to be successful and I think when, like you had said the phrase traditional optics. And I often think about like, traditional because it's how it's historically been done, but doesn't mean it's how it will have to be in the future.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

That's a great distinction. I mean, so again, the way you're describing it, I would assume that, man, you're really making me think here. The idea that when all 10 kids show up at your center, there's a different synergy from that circle time as opposed to one kid showing up. And I like the way you put that, where from a traditional optics perspective, I would immediately, you know, be inclined to think when all 10 are there and now I've got a circle time, this is the way it's supposed to look. What you're saying is it's circle time if there's one there and you're singing songs. And yes, it's a different circle time if all 10 kids are there and maybe there's more to observe and maybe there's more volume and there's more of a chance to get used to that volume. But again, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. It would be my mindset traditionally to think of that, you know, those traditional optics as a bigger success than the idea that you have one kid child who's going through the whole circle time and you would overshadow the fact that it's only one and not all 10 in that instance, despite the fact that that one child probably might have gained a lot from that situation or whatever the case is. So you present such a, I guess, an instructional control that's more in flux. And I think that as BCBAs, we have this very linear notion of what instructional control looks like. And it means that I say something and the child responds and then I consecrate and then we do it again and again and again. And you still achieve that in your more open-ended approach. It's just not so linear, not so sequential. It comes together over time, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, I think, you know, for me... And like in general, learning is a lifelong thing, right? That's something we're going to do forever. And so I want the children that we're working with today to have a positive experience with learning. I don't want it to be compliance based and rigid and reward focused, because this is something that they're going to have to do for the rest of their lives. And I think a lot about like proximity. A lot of times there's these goals that like a child will, you know, participate within two feet, five feet. But in our space, we have one large room, it's 3,800 square feed it's set up more like a Montessori room and we have our circle of time towards the front of the room you know a child who's sitting on the other side of the room they might still be orienting towards us and listening even though they're nowhere near us yeah they're still learning and still taking that information in even though they're not within the two to five feet right and so we have to think of like proximity to of like does it really matter if the child is sitting within two feet of the teacher what is the social significance of that

SPEAKER_04 6:47

Totally agree. It's that we use the phrase lab to living room. A lot of, you know, love us. And back in the day, everything had to be done in lab to prove if ABA works. So the tight controls, the very rigid SDR, SR relationship. But we know ABA works. They proved that we don't have to be within that lab space. two to five feet to show what if they're six feet? Does that mean, what if it's seven feet? So all these arbitrary metrics that it seems like people are still doing from the lab orientation that lose social significance, like you're saying, because we're still trying to prove that it works when we've proven that it works.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

It's the, uh, It's the misinterpretation between experimental control and instructional control. You just made me think of that. Because when you're running an experiment in a lab, those details do matter to some extent toward replication. What Maggie's saying is now in vivo, it's less about ensuring that my SD led to the desired response and more about presenting those SDs continually and then watching and knowing that the child may emit the response to that SD continuously Yeah. I'm going to say it. We are at about an hour because I want to make sure that we're all staying fresh. Maggie stuck with us through a lot of technical difficulties in the beginning. So I'm going to have to jump in then with the big question that I'm sitting on for a while. Do you want to do anything before I get to Reggio? Because once we talk Reggio, it's all over.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

I do. I have a couple. I'm going to let you go at it. Maggie, how are you doing? Are you good to keep going? Yeah. I'm good. Thank you. Thanks for sticking with us. the way ABA has been done, and that's why a lot of our goals have gone to frequency, because it was only the RBTs can deliver the SDs, the child has to respond in one specific response, and then they get one specific reinforcer. And as a result of that, I think, because we oftentimes didn't have the individual's attention, We then had this misconception that we need to present a whole lot of trials and there needs to be a whole lot of repetition. So, you know, we would do DTT and ask the kid what red is 50,000 times because they were only paying attention two times. So we just go over and over and over and over again. And especially with communication, you know, historically, we taught it through man training. But I know you've been a big proponent of joint attention. And if we can help this person get engaged, which might take a little bit longer on the front end rather than just presenting trials, but help them become engaged in something and engage with us and find us reinforcing, that might take a little bit. But then communication will kind of blossom from there rather than focusing on such titrated, like, utterances of communication. Yeah. Any thoughts on that? And then I'd be very interested to get Maggie's thoughts. I probably know what your thoughts on that are.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Well, yeah, I mean, I... So I guess... And now Maggie sort of changed my thoughts on that just today in terms, I guess, the fluidity or the flux of what attending means. Again, if we're not careful, it becomes this one linear thing where you're... gaze is right on my face as I present this SD and I think the optics are perfect and then you respond and then I deliver this pre-planned consequence which I'm sure is reinforcing and so on and so forth and I think that what we're talking about here is more that idea that I am I am within reason in your space. I am commenting on some of the things you're doing. And then as I see that maybe that guides some level of attention toward me, I might present something for you and see what happens. And again, even in Maggie describing it today, it's looking for that response. Maybe 10 minutes from now, looking for that response at some point so I can go, oh, yeah, hey, that's what I was. That's what the SD was about earlier today. And good. And now I can maybe provide some level of reinforcement. Now I'm going to let Maggie talk about that because I think she's going to describe it much better than I did. But that's kind of my. Even from the beginning, that premise of joint attention and that we had this fixed eye contact foundation that we were trying to teach from, and that just didn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense, the idea that what's the eye contact for? Well, maybe one premise is so that developmentally speaking, you're able to see sometimes how somebody's mouth moves when you hear them make that sound. And now we've got a bimodal connection that maybe... helps you develop some level of response from that, right? Not knowing what that might be. For me, it might be the fact that, again, you're getting two inputs for the same sound. You get to see what it looks like visually, and then maybe that helps you produce that sound. But that doesn't mean that a child can't then replicate a sound from just hearing it and not seeing your face. So there's always, I guess, what you call the investigative work. You always have to be watching, and I think that's been the traditional approach you know, concern from your challenge with things like discrete trial is there's already a huge assumption that this one SD is going to elicit this one response that we're going to consecrate perfectly with this reinforcement. And then we're going to do it nine more times because if you don't do it 10 times, the learning doesn't happen. I know Maggie knows that. It has to happen 80%. It has to happen at least 80% of those opportunities. Otherwise, it's been a waste of time. I'm being very facetious. Maggie, I'll pass it over to you if that made any sense. What are your thoughts on joint attention, Maggie? What does that mean, joint attention? It's a buzzword and then we can get that wrong too.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

You know, I think that like a lot of things in our field, the definition of joint attention was not written by someone who is neurodivergent, right? It was written by someone who is neurotypical. And so when I think about joint attention, for me, it's this idea of shared joy. I don't think it has to include objects at all. It's simply shared joy with another person, shared attention of whatever it might be. And so I think for every child, it's going to look different of what their joint attention expression is. How are they expressing that they are engaged with someone else with a shared object or activity or whatever it may be? So I think that my... My views on joint attention, I think, has changed over the years. And I think that I have focused a lot more on studying a child's gaze of what they're looking at. What are they naturally gravitating towards? Because as soon as someone places a demand to look at something, it's no longer joint attention. It's compliance to a demand. And so I think that's where people really get tripped up with things like joint attention is it has to, to me, In my definition, it has to be authentic. They have to desire to look at whatever it is because they want to, not because they're going to access some kind of contrived reward after. Like I think about, you know, we have a couple of goals about children engaging in onlooker play. We are not prompting them to look at other children playing or tracking the frequency at which they are engaging. internally motivated to look at other children play and seeing how that goes up over time. So for example, there's the one child at the center right now who really loves the seesaw that we got. It's really neat. It bounces up and down and then it spins around and we had had it over in the corner, right? We moved it to the center of the room. His engagement and onlooker play skyrocketed. He is now looking at all the different children throughout the day, smiling in response to what they're doing, right? And then the technician is there smiling with him, attempting to gain that joint attention from him so that they can mutually enjoy looking at the other children, perhaps by labeling what they're doing in those moments. So I think that's where like that Environmental manipulation can come into play, and moving the child's seesaw from the side of the room to the center of the room increase their onlooker play. That is behavior analysis, but it's not necessarily using the person's prompt as the SD. Did that answer your question? Yes,

SPEAKER_02 15:35

beautifully. That answered it beautifully. That's really, really good. Well, so here we are, Dan. That's it. You got anything else? I do, but are you doing okay? Dan, speak now or forever hold your peace because you know that once Maggie and I get into Reggio, it's all over. Yes. It's the end. We're coming home after that.

SPEAKER_04 15:53

Two things just from what I notated from actually your intro, Maggie, but my last question on the joint attention piece is, I think oftentimes individuals that we work with maybe struggle with reading body cues, and it's hard to read body cues if you're not orienting towards individuals. Certainly eye contact has been very overgeneralized, and it's something we don't work on at our... Let me rephrase that. We don't specifically target. We can work on it, but we don't specifically target at our company. What are your thoughts on basically orientating Gay shift. Yeah, gay shift, things like that, for the benefit of being able to pick up on body language, especially if people are non-speaking, body language is all of the communication of that interaction. So you do have to be in some way oriented to that person to be able to understand that. What are your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Well, I think there's different... I don't know. I feel like there's a difference here in what the skill is that we're targeting. Because for me, I think a lot about inferencing. Children and adults, we need to be able to inference what's happening in a situation to assure our safety and well-being. And I don't know if someone's body orientation would necessarily be enough information to help someone to inference what's happening in that moment. So I think that... For me, I'm always thinking about what skills are we teaching in the moment with the tools that we have accessible? And when would this be needed? And so I don't like this whole idea of like generalization. I want to be programming from generalization for day one. And so when children are in our center, we're helping them to identify who is a safe person. The people in our center are honoring their ascent. They are safe people. Now, we recently had a physical therapist come in to see one of the kids who was not a safe person for this child. The child immediately started saying, Whereas mom, go home, go home. They have never done that before. So they didn't necessarily have to see the person in the way that they were turning towards them. But they identified how that person made them feel. And that person made them feel unsafe. And they demanded to go home. And so we ended the session and asked that person to leave. And so that's the way that we reinforce that, right? This person identified for some reason, this is not a safe person in this moment. And so we honored that assent withdrawal and ended that session. So I think that it goes deeper than just seeing someone's body language and it like it's um i don't know hard to almost like uh it's hard to even like clearly define because i think it is that inferencing scale which is can be very nuanced

SPEAKER_04 18:31

certainly

SPEAKER_02 18:32

really quickly you're it's fascinating because what you are saying is i think something that people get tripped up on so In the example you gave with the physical therapist, somebody would say, well, then what you've just reinforced there, again, back to that escape thing, and now how is a child going to get those services in your center? And you're saying quite the opposite. You're saying by listening to the child's negation and letting them know that by saying no, this might make it more likely that they'll accept this person in the future.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, I mean, even for me, when I start with a new family, which I have to stop doing because I just need to run the business. But when I do start, I often one of the first things I say to that child is, you know, is always okay with me. Um, if you tell me now, I will always respect that now. And so sometimes that might look like doing a 10 minute session and the kids saying, go home and me saying, you got it. I'll see you next week. And slowly building that relationship between, between us. And so I think the answer is it's not no, never, but it's not now. That

SPEAKER_02 19:38

is, man, I am going to steal that from you. Actually, I won't steal it. I will quote you. That's beautiful. No, and again, I think that applies to so many things in what we do because it's been drilled into us that this particular three-part contingency has to happen 10 times or 8 out of 10 times, and if not, the learning doesn't happen. And you're saying, hey, the fact that the child's gaining some locus of control and saying no... While that seems to work against your presence there to provide the intervention, that in and of itself is the intervention for that day and saying, hey, wow, this person is safe. And over time, I'm going to build that. And again, as much as I know that that is the right answer, in my opinion, I know how challenging that can be because you mentioned earlier, people have the concept of time. That fourth dimension is always on our minds and we're worried about time and time and time. And what you're saying is, well, if you worry so much about time, you're going to end up losing it. It's building up gradually toward that particular contingency. Again, really, really hard. I think that I have the benefit of being somewhat comfortable with that because of my child-directed, play-based approach from way back as a developmental psych student, as an undergrad. So a little story time here, and I'll break into it. 1991, Time Magazine puts out their top... 10 best educational models in the world and the United States and a lot of early childhood educators in the United States now get mass exposed to the idea of Reggio Emilia that was the number one educational model for Time Magazine at that time. I entered my undergrad in 1992. Yes, many eons ago. But it means that as a developmental psych student who did his practicum and then got to work at this developmental lab on campus, Reggio Emilia was all the buzz. And the moment that I was introduced to Reggio Emilia, it made complete sense. And then I shifted into this ABA thing. I remember going, wow, these kids get all this stuff. And then these kids get M&Ms for emitting these really nominal answers that somebody's trying to build up to some greater response. How come early childhood best practices per regio don't translate into these children? They're early childhood kids too, aren't they? How do you mix those two? And it's been my quest since Dan met me almost 20 years ago to make those things work better together. And luckily I can say We're happy with the product we've had. Had the pleasure of meeting you back in October, and you were the first BCBA that had ever put the words Reggio Emilia and ABA together in the same phrase. So I was thrilled to meet you. Let us know what your introduction was to Reggio. Tell us about your center and how those philosophies are integrated into your ABA practice. Tell us all about how those two things work together.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

So, yeah, I... I was working at the University of Vermont as I was getting my undergrad and I was placed in with their early childhood program, which was Reggio. So very similar to you in a learning environment. And I really fell in love with the idea of the environment as the third teacher. And as I, you know, dove into the world of ABA, I thought we're using people so much as the reason to change behavior, but why can't we shift and use the environment? And so that's really been the model of what we're trying to do at Inferno and Littles in our center is using the environment as that third teacher instead of the adults that are in the room. And I think that what we're seeing is these children are Nice. Yes. Nice. just a mindset shift of what is our goal here and how can we help the child to move towards meaningful interactions with the world around them.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Perfect. Will you expand a little bit on that idea of internal motivation versus external? You just referenced it, right? So it's very easy for somebody during a 40 hour RBT training, run of the mill training to think that that external motivation motivator is necessary as a consequence. What you described is much different. What you described isn't necessarily positive reinforcement. It's concurrent, meaning it's happening actively, which is why the child is doing certain things. If you can expand on that a little bit, I think that's super important idea.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Well, I think it's this idea of a child's behavior doesn't necessarily need to be reinforced by an external motivator. If a child is learning how to create a structure or they're learning to build something, engaging with materials in a meaningful way, when they complete that activity, when they complete the structure, whatever it may be, and they step back, there's your reinforcement. They just worked through this thing and they're placing the items on there and they're building a schema, whatever it may be, and then they can visually see what they created. And so for me, that is all the reinforcement that they need in that moment. They don't need someone saying over, giving them a token, wow, you engaged for five minutes, here's your star. Or you did a great job, right? That verbal praise that we hear so often because they're accessing it in that moment while they're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Would you give us an example of what the external might look like? So it's not to say that as a teacher, you're monitoring those things as they happen in the environment. You see that child succeed and finally, fit that peg and whatever they were trying to put it in, as opposed to, you know, maybe getting frustrated and tossing it to the side. You see it. Is there an appropriate external vocal response from that? Of course, it's good job, Mike. Right. It's got to be good job. It has to be good job. But I mean, I'm sure you're not sitting there silently. You're saying something or maybe you're not. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Maybe if I was, I would just tact what just happened. You put the piece

SPEAKER_01 25:54

in,

SPEAKER_00 25:54

and maybe that's all I would say. But in that moment, I wouldn't say a good job because it's not relevant, right? What job did they do good? Hey, that worked. It doesn't make

SPEAKER_01 26:04

sense.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you put it in there. It's stuck. And so I think we need to be more creative in the way that we're thinking about reinforcement.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

So even like you've been working on that for a while now. That kind of thing might, okay. Yeah, that's great. I mean, again, I think it's, we did a recent episode for this season and it was taking off of Becky Kennedy, Dr. Becky, talking about good job. And it's something we've talked about a lot too, is what does that mean? We think it's reinforcing. Maybe we're excited that that child did it, which is why we're saying it. But I mean, if those words are just used ad nauseum, do they, ever really gain full meaning you know at some point sure you know pat on the back pat on the back hey good job Dan we get it but yeah I think you make a much more important point in terms of enriching the environment with even the variety of our vocal responses and what those mean that they may not always be the reinforcement that we think they are that's super valuable

SPEAKER_04 26:58

well can you can you elaborate on what you or give an example on what you mean for the environment to be the third teacher I think I totally understand what you mean but I think that's a super important concept

SPEAKER_00 27:09

So I think it's the way in which we're... Can I share my screen for a second? Yeah, you sure can. Would that work? And then I can talk through some visuals? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

That's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Okay. I feel like that would be... I send these weekly updates to our staff. And I feel like this would be a good way to differentiate. One of the visuals I'm gonna show you talks about the melting of permanent products and documentation. So in Reggio Emilia, we think a lot about documenting the child's work. And I think that is a perfect way to meld with ABA, thinking about the use of permanent products.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Love it. Is this a presentation that we could also link in our description or anything like that, Maggie?

UNKNOWN 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Yeah, I'm happy to share it with you. So it's just I send weekly updates to our staff at Enrolling Lettles about different topics. And one of the ones I'm going to show is about the permanent products. And then the other one is about play provocations or the way that we're setting up the environment to encourage play and engagement with materials.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Setting up the environment. That's a big part of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Here it is.

UNKNOWN 28:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Show my screen. So here on this one, I talked about, like this is the play schema here that a child.

SPEAKER_04 28:30

Maggie, is it possible to zoom in just a little bit? It's a little small.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

There you go. Perfect. That's way better.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Is that good?

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah. So, and I'll explain this later. for the people who can't see it, but it's a picture of a child's play that was a combination of blocks and people and little lights. And an analysis from Reggio might be that the child depicted the scene in a way that portrays the magic of storytelling. Notice the way she turns the people's heads in the same direction. She put people on the sides as if they were watching them go by. Could it be the parents saying goodbye as the children go to school? What is the origin of the story versus the way that we might analyze this picture in ABA We might target the duration of time spent with materials, perhaps a motor imitation, parallel play, cooperative play, turn-taking, assenting to play expansions, independent engagement, problem-solving, accepting a mistake. So I think when we take this child-led approach and we're using meaningful materials, we can still get the same goals that we're targeting, but it's the way in which we're getting there that's different. We're not prompting for the child to do these things. We might model... And then we're providing materials that would encourage this type of engagement. And then in thinking about the environment as the third teacher, I had gone into the center and I took a picture of the shelves as it was when I arrived, which is materials in baskets on the shelf. And then I... be an example for the staff of what a play provocation could look like. So I arranged the materials in a more meaningful way to encourage engagement. So in this situation, traditional ABA might take these two materials, the hair ties and those little blocks, and prompt the child put in, Put it in versus in this situation, there's already a visual model of what the child could do. Same for like these little people down here. There could be color matching, right? I matched some of the colors intentionally and then intentionally didn't match the other one. There's also some of these little silicone bowls that they're doing stacking with. In this situation, they're doing some pretend play. It's on one of their heads like a hat. And so I'm really trying to support and train our staff about the way in which we're preparing materials and showing them how when we do use the environment as the third teacher, we can encourage engagement in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Now, the traditional ABA brain is going to go, well, clearly, if you set the environment up that way, then they're supposed to put those things in, and then if they don't, I go back and I prompt them to do so, right? So that's dangerous because that's, again, everybody's always thinking about this one singular response. What you're saying there is I'm suggesting a certain use of these items, and then if the child chooses to use them in a different way, now my investigative work starts. Is that a fair assessment?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah, and one of the, yeah. No, what were you going

SPEAKER_02 31:34

to say? No, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

One of the goals we'll target a lot on is assenting to play expansion. So perhaps the child is engaging in a set of materials in one way, we might join them and we offer engagement in a different way. Now, whether they do that or not, then we're tracking the goal if they assented to that expansion. Did it bring them joy and did they continue it or did it not? So then that's our data analysis right there. Did this expansion that we offered, did it encourage them to then continue to do that same thing or do they withdraw assent and move away from the activity.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

And the really important difference I see there is instead of this now being a linear response, meaning this is the only thing that your response can continue the play with, now it puts the onus on the teacher, the RBT, as it were, in our circumstance, to go find a different way to join and expand the play as opposed to try to force in the same thing. That's fantastic. And

SPEAKER_04 32:33

how come it has to be, you know, how come the, if that's the way that it's supposed to be, the whatever, the hair ties have to go into the block, right? Like what, we've determined that, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:42

So it's weird. That's just a suggestion and then you watch what the child does, right? So, and the idea again that, you know, Brejo's so, this idea of hundred languages of children I think fits right into, you know, the traditional diagnostic notion of stereotopy or stimming or whatever it is. That's just a different language. It's just a different mode of communication. It's telling you something and yes, it might have a different impact in certain settings versus others and therein lies the analysis for is this brute force, make that stop because it's abnormal. That's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

That's a huge difference. Yeah. And even this concept of like earlier, one of you mentioned like man training, like communication is so much more than just man training.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

And so that's why I love this lens of Reggio within ABA because we're being so intentional about analyzing the child's engagement and the way in which they're communicating every little thing that they do, whether it be through micro expressions or gestures or gestalt or AAC. There's so many different ways and different reasons for communication.

SPEAKER_04 33:46

For sure. And historically, a lot of times, at least in the companies I've worked with, we say, you know, we start with the man training and we're like, well, a lot of times individuals on the spectrum don't Well, no wonder they don't tact because tacting is not meaningful to them because you haven't established a relationship. Everything's just been a do this. Why would they tact? Because you're probably going to correct it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

You didn't tact correctly.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Two things I wanted to just ask you to either elaborate on from what you said actually in your intro story that I think are very important. And I think you understand what they are. We understand what they are. but I don't know if a lot of the listeners do. The first thing you said, and please correct me and expand on it, is I think you say kind of your guiding light or what really got you into the ABA field was actually ACT therapy. So a lot of people probably don't know what that is. Can you talk a little bit about ACT therapy and whatever you'd like to about that?

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Yes, and it's ACT, so not ACT. Oh,

SPEAKER_02 34:43

ACT therapy, excuse me. Acceptance commitment, yes. Is that the...

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah, acceptance and commitment therapy. Yeah. So I love this idea of identifying what someone's values are and what matters to them. And so in our work with the kids that we're supporting, we're not creating goals based off of standardized assessments. We're creating goals off of a person's values, what truly matters to them. And I think that where ABA kind of went off, you know, the way it was, I believe, was always meant to go is when we took out private events from the work that we're doing. But when we're only analyzing what we can observably see, we're not we're only getting half of the story. We're getting half of the picture. And so for me, we not only look at the four functions, but we also look at the six core yearnings developed by Dr. Stephen Haynes. But what is the intention behind this behavior? What is this person yearning for in this moment? And how do I look at the person's history as well as what I can see in this moment to help determine what that yearning is? And so for me, ACT really melds in the observable with the unobservable. And we can see how it can help to create meaningful behavior change in that moment. Like, I might have a session with the child. Think of one, one child I've been working with who really loves video games. And for a lot of our sessions, it was spent just listening to him talk about video games, but through listening him to the way that we, he talked about the games, I could identify what his values were through what he was describing. Whether it was a tricky, a particularly hard level that he really felt great about after he got, got to the end. Great. He values problem solving. It felt really good for him to get, to get to the end result. And so for, me, the melding of ACT with ABA really helps us to look at the full picture of a human and take a more holistic approach. Because when we only look at the four functions, we're missing so much of the story for that person and so much of why they might be doing what they're doing.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

So basing your therapy goals or objectives on the individual's values in addition to the functions of behavior, am I understanding that correctly?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Primarily just the person's values. We're not targeting something unless it's going to be meaningful for that child in their life and that they have the motivation in which to work on whatever that skill is. So it's kind of putting the standardized assessments to the side and using them as a guide for what skills the child might be missing, but then using their values as a way to work towards whatever those skills might be. And so I think that our approach to ABA is not... easy, I would say it's substantially harder, right? Because we're really having to do a lot more analysis and spend a lot more time thinking. But I think up to this point in our history, we've been really lazy in our approach to analyzing human behavior.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Yeah. And functions, the way we're discussing them now, they're so subjective, right? They're so authoritarian. It's just about what I think the function is and how it impacts me. And I'm going to change the behavior based on that because I'm annoyed that you're flapping your hands or something. That's rough. I mean, that changes the whole perspective there in terms of now the interaction, the environment, the idea that I am a part of your environment as much as you're a part of mine. And how does that work? So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. My favorite is the

SPEAKER_04 38:07

attention. Oh, they're just doing it for attention. It just allows people to be so dismissive of every behavior that they don't enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Well, and we always think about that. They're doing it for attention versus they're getting my attention for it, which is why it might be maintained whether or not It's impactful or annoying to me. I mean, this goes so much deeper in terms of what that means. What is the function it's serving versus the idea that the individual is using it toward that function?

SPEAKER_04 38:33

Pretty cool that they

SPEAKER_02 38:34

might value your attention. Yeah, again, now the value system comes in. Oh, my attention seems to have value. Okay, how do I apply that as quote-unquote reinforcement?

SPEAKER_04 38:43

So where do you... Since we work primarily with... At least we work primarily with kids. I think you do too, unfurling littles. Where do you... How do you include, because a lot of times it's the parents that speak for the kids and express their values and their goals and desires, so how do you juxtapose that with the kids' values and within the ACT therapy realm?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

So I think it's through observation, especially if we're working with a child who might be not speaking at the time when we started therapy, it might be just spending the day watching them. What do they do? What are they gravitating towards? What do they gravitate away from? And why is it meaningful to them? And so that's really where we're pulling values from. So, you know, perhaps historically a child would have been referred to as non-social or antisocial if they're playing alone. But for us, we would say, oh, they value independence. They enjoy being on And that's okay, right? We're not going to start working toward like, if we working with a child who's not engaging in any onlooker play, and they're, you know, engaging by lining a block, so they're not going towards other peers, we're not putting in a social goal, it's not meaningful for that child yet. And I think that's the biggest thing of working with parents is at this point, your child is not showing natural intrinsic motivation to engage with others. That is okay. We're not going to put it as a target right now because it is not identified as a value to them. You know, over time, it is. It will be a value. And we see that with every child we've ever supported. Over time, it becomes a value. And that's the time in which to work on it.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

So it's almost always focused on the child's values I don't want to say not the parents' values, but only the parents' values that are in line with the child's values are the ones that you're going to focus on. Is that right? Well,

SPEAKER_00 40:34

I think it's a gray area. And that's not necessarily a value for their child yet. And the child is getting up and running around while they're eating, which is a choking hazard. We would work on that because it's an essential life skill. And so I think where the gray area is comes in those essential skills that are required in this world for a person's safety and well-being. If it's not required for their safety and well-being, we'll get to it at a later date.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

It's just interesting because it makes me think of a lot of that can be cultural too. Different cultures prioritize and value different things. And I guess what you're saying is potentially if they're not in line with the unfurling littles, you just might say, hey, we're not the right provider for you because the things that you are prioritizing are not the things that we typically prioritize. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Yeah. I mean, we put the writing on the wall. Like we have very, very in-depth writing. policies and procedures about what we do and what we won't do so we have policies about masking that we will not encourage masking we have policies about gender affirming care that we will always provide gender affirming care and so the families that are coming to us know exactly what they're getting and if they're not during that intake call they get to know what we're doing and we send them you know different handouts that say practices we won't engage in we send them a screener they fill out because it's investment not only in their time but in our time and We want to make sure that we're educating those who are ready and willing to be educated in neurodiversity affirming care. It's not that we only work with one type of family, but it's that we need to have open transparency from day one about what we do and what we won't do so that we're not compromising our values as a company.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

I love it. My last question, I want to pull up my note here, is something you said in the beginning of your introduction. You said you wanted to disrupt what was happening. Mm-hmm. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think we can relate and we are on board and that's why we ended up starting our own company because we didn't feel like we could disrupt what was happening sufficiently enough under anyone else's guidance.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

This whole podcast was created to criticize ABA. It really was. To

SPEAKER_04 43:21

provide a middle ground because ABA has a reputation. We wanted to figure out what about ABA maybe needs to change. What about people's implementation of ABA needs to change?

SPEAKER_02 43:33

That's probably the biggest part. What You know, ABA is what it is. How are you practicing it? So, yeah, go right ahead.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

Disrupt what was

SPEAKER_00 43:40

happening.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Expand. We're glad for your disruptiveness.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Thank you. And I'm glad for your guidance too. It's really cool to get to be on this wave. I feel like there is like a wave happening in the field right now that is making change. When I was first exposed to ABA, it was with that child who I described when I was his personal care assistant. And he was, I went to his school one day to visit him and he was in an ABA session and they had a box of like cookies and crumbs. Really it was like a box of crumbs from cookies and chips. And they were doing DTE discrete trial training with him and then when he would get one right, they would give him one of the crumbs. And it broke my heart to see the session because when I was with him at home and we would be playing with Thomas and friends and I would be modeling language and following his lead, he was a different kid. He was so actively engaged with me in what we were doing and I heard so much language and then I was in this ABA session and he was a different kid. He looked anxious, he looked nervous, he was talking in one word phrases He usually used really in-depth gestalts when he was with me. And so that was my first exposure to ABI. And so I did not like it when I founded the field at all. Really did not like it. And what made me curious about the field was when I found Project Impact and was trained in Project Impact. Because up to that point, I was working as a special instructor for early intervention. But what I wanted to do is apply the science, right? Because as you said, the science is undeniable. That is the science of behavior. But the application of that science is up to the individual. And so if we get... Exactly. What are we doing with the science? And for me, I wanted to combine things like development, attachment theory, relational based care with the science and see how we could take a more holistic approach to truly helping these people. Everything we do is relational, right? I just had a call with a parent this week and she said, you know, we're getting to the point where we're probably going to be ending services and I'm so sad for our child to lose this. Like, what do you do in this approach? You form such a strong bond with the child. You make this meaningful connection. What happens when you're gone? And I said, that child will remember how we made them feel. And that's what I want to be repeated over time. That when there's a child who finds someone that is a safe person, they form a strong bond the way that I formed one with that child. And so I think for so long, we've treated, you know, kids like dogs in this field. It makes sense. I mean, you know, when this really came up, we were looking at things like the industrial revolution and kids had to be in school and they had to comply and this, that, and the other. But we're, you know, we're higher level humans now. It goes so much deeper than just compliance. It's about compliance. For me, at the end of the day, my end goal is to bring a child instrumentally more joy than they felt the day before because life is just too short to do anything else.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

Wow. So with that, yeah, you made me think earlier when you were talking about individuals masking all day and how they might be exhausted coming home and how historically ABA – And even not historically, even currently, a lot of companies, it's a lot of hours at home as well and how that can even be borderline abusive. So hearing your description of kind of disrupting the norm, I'll just say one thing from my personal perspective, and then I'll pass it to Mike. Just a heartfelt thank you, and I'll explain what I mean from that. I've been in this field for almost 15 years, and... There was just a point, there have been many points, but recently there was a point, that's why we started our own company, where I was just, and I think a lot of people that I associate with are all just kind of burnt out with ABA and kind of corporate ABA. And we were all just kind of finding it very unfulfilling. Again, I'll speak for myself, but I can think I can speak for a lot of them as well. Just finding it unfulfilling and not what we thought we were getting into. And again, this is 15 years down the road. So I met with Mike and, you know, we decided to embark on this venture of starting our own company. And that was also that had its challenges, you know, insurance rates and stuff like that. And just dealing with them and what just the challenges of trying to accommodate and capitulate to all of their demands, you know, for the first like six months of we didn't have any clients at this point. It was just dealing with them, figuring out program designs, you And it was just like, wow, I left this field. I didn't leave this field. I left this company or companies. And it's just, it's not any easier. It's still heavy. It's all just like hours and... Medical notes and are you doing this? And oh, we're not writing the goal the exact way you want it. And it was just like, I remember we did the CPABA conference and it was like, oh, we're going to do this on a Friday and Saturday. It was exhausting. And I was just kind of almost at the end of my rope of like, is this really what I want to do? I left the ABA field to create my own company and it seems like the confines. And then I met professionals like yourself and Michelle, a lot of other professionals. Obviously, you're one of the ones that stood out. We brought you on to our company to talk to us as well. But it was like, wow, there are other people doing amazing things. And the ABA... that we always thought was possible is out there. And it was really invigorating. It probably is honestly what's kept me in the field. I know it lit Mike up when he heard Reggio and like, it's like, oh my God, that exists. So that was a long diatribe, but thank you because without you, I honestly might not be in the field anymore. Thank you very much because it's just amazing the work you're doing and on the East Coast, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. It's really neat to see how there are these people making change, right? And one of the things that I do is I offer free mentorship for people who want to start their own ABA businesses because I think we need more companies like yours and mine. We are trying to pave a way for a better future for these kids.

SPEAKER_04 49:59

And you would be really, really happy. Mike and I last... after the podcast and the previous week we got a program designed for an adult program that we're about to submit um and we basically we got a template um and we went through it and spent hours taking all of the more traditionally based goals like you know client will do this client will tolerate changes in routine client will be able to dress themselves and Still might not be the end goal, but taking those more traditional deficit-based model. In fact, I think we took deficit out of pretty much everything. Yeah, we did. And making it more of a strength-based model. And that was so, I mean, we did it on a Sunday. We were exhausted from work and then we had podcasts, but it was like so invigorating to do that. Probably wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for your, or wouldn't have done it the way we did it if it wasn't for your insight.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

Yeah, thank you so much. It's been a real inspiration to get to know you. Thank you for your time again on the podcast. It is. It's just these nuances that I think we need to think about. I love the way you talk about, you know, we've been lazy so far. I think that's a really good way to put it. It's been expecting a child or a client to do exactly as we want them to do, as opposed to doing our investigative work, as you put it again. Just great phrasing. So yes, from both of us, from ABA on tap, from Ascend Behavioral Solutions, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for your time, for everything you're doing over there in Philadelphia. The moment we have a chance to Come out and see you. You're going to see us. Dan, you had something else to

SPEAKER_04 51:34

say? Anything that you would like to... Unfurling Littles, your mentorship, anything you would like to promote or bring up on the podcast? Please. So people know where to find you?

SPEAKER_00 51:43

I feel like I just... If you're scared of starting your own thing, just do it. We have... In the last year, we had over 300 families reach out. And so I think that the world is hungry for something different. And we have no intention of growing at Affiliate. And so we need more people to start their own businesses and say no to private equity and these big corporate companies.

SPEAKER_04 52:07

And where do people find you? Or do you not want people to find you? That's okay, too. They

SPEAKER_00 52:13

can find me. So I have the Instagram unfurlinglittles and then unfurlinglittles.com is our website. And then my email is just maggie.h at unfurlinglittles.com. So I'm happy to hear from people. I'm not great at getting back to everything right now, but I will do it when I have the time. But if you do want to, if you are thinking about starting a company, I do offer free group mentorship once a month and you can sign up through our website. It's been a lot of really amazing BCBAs across the country who are the foundations of starting their own company. So I encourage you, if you are thinking of doing it, come to the group and I'll help you.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

And when you say through the website, the Unfurling Littles website, or is it a different website?

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'd like to do a little synopsis here as we end. And Maggie put out some real bangers. So reconsider your extrinsic motivators. Don't be lazy. Do your investigative work. And like we like to say here on ABA on Tap, always

SPEAKER_04 53:08

analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Cheers. Thanks so much, Maggie.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Thanks, guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

ABA on Tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.