Training and Comprehensive Learning Systems with Allyson Wharam Part II

ABA on Tap is proud to spend some time with Allyson Wharam (Part 2 of 2):

Allyson Wharam is the founder of Sidekick Learning, a company dedicated to streamlining training and supervision systems for Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) organizations.

 She brings a wealth of experience to her role, having worked hands-on in various clinical settings and served as a training coordinator for a large organization, gaining a deep understanding of the practicalities involved in creating effective systems in real-world scenarios. Her expertise also extends to instructional design, holding a Master's degree in Instructional Design and Technology from the University of Virginia and currently pursuing her doctorate in the same field at the same university. Wharam is also a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), demonstrating her qualifications in the field of behavior analysis. 

This brew is refreshing and perfect for cerebration. It will make you smarter. Pour heavy, share with plenty of friends and always analyze responsibly.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:10

Welcome to ABA OnTAC, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best-tasting ABA or out. 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 tack. 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 0:53

All right. Welcome back to another installment of ABA on tap. I am your ever-grateful co-host, Mike Rubio, and this is part two of our very interesting interview with Alison Warham. Enjoy. It's it's so uh I mean it's it's it's a very noble uh endeavor to try and recreate experimental control in somebody's living room, and then it's it's not yeah, it's not possible. Well, also so yeah, I think that's what we're talking about here is yeah, we've got all these great procedures and things that have validation and we want to use them for that reason, and then hey, guess what? This is somebody's home, and uh we don't have all the experimental controls that brought these things about. So, what what do we do now, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:38

I think where uh additionally that came from is now because most of our insurances are funded by medical insurance. That client is just uh vinyl and scores or whatever. They're just like, okay, what what what vinyl scores are you gonna try to get to? How long are you gonna need and when can we discharge? So that's kind of you know the the metric of success um from insurances, which is our primary funder, which can lead to some interesting um motivations, I guess. That's where that came from. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

No, I I totally agree. I mean, schools, you see the same thing, test scores and the percentage of time they're spending in general education, and that's the one number we care, you know, all of these things um, I think in any context, we can reduce someone to numbers. And I think one of the strengths of our field is that we do rely on empiricism, right? Like we are database, and that can be beneficial until we start to focus on the numbers instead of the person in front of us. Even with your example of data collection, like if I'm not attending to the learner's bids for connection because I'm here taking data, then that is, you know, gonna hinder the services and things like that. But I mean, even in I'm uh helping a couple of our trainees prepare for the BCBA exam, and even in that, I have to, they're reading these questions and they're thinking like a behavior analyst. They're thinking, well, really to answer this, I need to know 10 other things. Like, what about this? What about that? And you even for that milestone, I have to really tell them like, don't think like a behavior analyst. You have to just read the question in front of you and think about what they are testing me on and what is the response to what they're testing me on. Like, and when I say don't think like a behavior analyst, I guess don't think like a real-world clinician who would be thinking about all of those variables in a real world setting.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

I would that's such an interesting premise there. Again, we talked about it. Like you can pass this test, it doesn't mean you're gonna do well in somebody's living room. There's such a combined skill set that that we have to reflect, that we have to embrace.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

Yeah, no, I was I just relate so much because part of my job was BCBA prep, and that ethics part was the one that would trap and experimental design and ethics, those two chapters for two totally different reasons. But yeah, people would want to overthink it. Um, and to be fair, I I can kind of understand because the BCBA puts a lot of weight on ethics, um, and they're like, Don't mess up ethics, don't do anything unethical, be careful. But then, like you're saying, they might not give enough context in the question, and the people are like, Well, I'm trying to be careful, I need to know this, this, this, but that's not provided in the question, and now it's like, Well, refer out. I mean, that was kind of the you know, the mantra back in the day, right? When in doubt, refer out, but sometimes that wasn't the an option, and people get really stumped. I have a question for you on something you said earlier about the component analysis, um, about really breaking things down, which obviously makes total sense. One thing that we ran into maybe I don't know, five or six years ago, uh, I don't know whether it was an epiphany or what, uh, but we would have a lot of changing criteria and designs, whether it's attending or whatever it is. Um, and we would find that sometimes breaking things down actually slowed the client's progress, right? Because we'd have like attending for one minute, you do that five times, and then you do attending for two minutes five times, and then you do it for three minutes five times, and so on and so forth. And it's like maybe after two minutes, they were ready to go to ten minutes, but that was still six steps away. So we were actually delaying somebody's progress by breaking it down so much. Uh, do you ever run into that or do you ever have thoughts on that? Um, breaking things down into the components and that actually delaying people's progress.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yeah, I mean, I think even with shaping, so an example as we're teaching shaping to trainees, you know, within topographies, across topographies, whatever, we have them look at the entry-level criteria, where do we want them to be? And let's map out some, what we think the successive approximations are going to be. Let's just kind of create a general map so you can start to think about shaping. But the disclaimer of that is you might set steps that are much too big, or you might set steps that are much too small, which is where, again, that interplay comes in of our plans versus the person in front of us and having that framework, but also being able to respond in the moment. And so part of shaping also is like practicing with a learner in the moment and not having a clear plan, like knowing where you are and knowing where you're going, and just responding in the moment. And so for that comes more into um almost like the values and the attitudes and the way that someone thinks about shaping, where it is inherently meeting someone where they are. And so if you go too far, you kind of take a step back and respond to where they are. And if you there, they get it a couple of times, I mean, that's where it is, it's a dance. Like I love that description, or it's you know, it's artistry and where you have to you're trying something and then you change what you're doing based on how they respond in the moment. And so, in terms of again, like training someone from screen, you know, a brand new technician in the moment, the best they can do is probably just to follow that plan. But as someone gets more advanced and can kind of analyze some of the steps between and think about that, then yeah, like uh if if we're not publishing it for for research, our goal is to create progress and to be efficient about it and be effective about it. And so why why not skip to where they are?

SPEAKER_04 7:06

Do you have any thoughts on the the creation of targets from like an instructional design perspective? So let's say um, I don't know, our goal is to have the person attend for five minutes. Um I mean, I guess a a DRH would say you go a baseline and a little bit lower and build up from there. Do you have any thoughts on like recommendations for younger professionals on kind of where to set those rudimentary or initial targets?

SPEAKER_00 7:32

It gosh, it depends on so many things. Not not a not a straightforward one, to be totally honest, except to go back to the science piece and the the actual data piece where our data is not just something that we are taking to put in a binder or have live in central reach or you know, wherever. It's not it's not this static thing that we're doing, it's to help us make decisions. And so, I mean, in general, like the the criteria is thinking about what is achievable, what is a reasonable change from here to here, and thinking about how behavior multiplies. So your first steps might be a lot smaller than your later steps as you're building on that skill, for example. Um, so so do think about that. But any plan that we make, if we if we knew exactly how a plan was gonna turn out, why would we take data and why would we modify our programs? Like knowing how and when we're gonna modify our our programs is part of like that scientific process. And that needs to build be built in. And so I think first that really is like the the important piece for someone to understand is like you set you set any plan, any criteria. Um, you want to be mindful about how you're designing that. But in practice, all of this needs to be modified based on how someone is responding.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

Which is tricky, right? Because in the way that a lot of insurance is funded right now is it's like 10 or 20 percent um supervision. The BACB obviously recommends 5%. I think at our company it's probably we give 50 or 60 percent of sessions are supervised, if not more than that. Um, but you bring up that good point of so say it's I'll go on the the high end, 20% of supervision. That means for every one session you supervise, there's gonna be four sessions that are unsupervised. The BCBA says the RBT shouldn't really be changing the programs, they're just implementing what was written for them. So now we might have four sessions. So it's kind of like empowering the RBT to be able to do that, but in some ways that almost, I don't want to say violates the BCBA ethics code, but now they're making decisions. Uh they're not just implementing what was provided for them, they're making and modifying programs. So weird like dance there, I guess. Um I know you brought it up earlier, but I do think that's super relevant and something to think about.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Yeah, I would think about the the skill, like an entry-level technician, you're not even really going to be touching that yet, right? Like they're they're just learning how to even be there in that space with that person. Um, and so what you might work on is just them being attuned. How are they responding to this when you do that? Like that's that's step one. And then over time you might um build more of that in. But they still have, I think the important piece with any of this is they still have clear guardrails. They use, they still know exactly what they're working on. They have this general roadmap of where they're going. And then you're providing flexibility within that. So, even determining when to thin the reinforcement based on the client's responses, that's just responding to the learner in the moment. That's not radically changing the plan. We're not talking about go ahead and throw a token economy in here when we didn't have that before. It's just altering some parameter. And so maybe even building that into the programming, like that is part of it, is you we start on this reinforcement schedule, and then you respond to the learner in the moment with the goal of getting to this reinforcement schedule or a more natural contingency. And so still having something really clear for them that they're because I have I and I've experienced this myself too of having no programs. Like, here's your goal, figure it all out on your own. And like that is not just to be super clear, that is not what I'm saying. They there needs to be a clear program, there needs to be a design for it, there needs to be structure. Um, and then within that, what flexibility can they have?

SPEAKER_04 11:11

So makes total sense, um, especially with reinforcement thinning. I think sometimes with program and target presentation, that can be tricky because the way that you know a lot of people use whether it's central reach or whoever, whatever um electronic data presentation, like there's like a systematic way that things are presented, um, and the other targets or whatever might not even be available uh for the RBT. And I mean, I love I can speak highly for Central Reach. We used to use that at a previous company. This is not a knock on them or anyone. Um, it seems like sometimes by giving people these like uh this pathway, it then limits them because they might not have access to other targets or SDs or things like that that they would potentially benefit from.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah. And maybe, I mean, I would say even introducing a brand new target is probably not gonna be more of the autonomy that you're getting. Like you're gonna have the goal, you might have a set of targets, and then they decide um like what they're introducing when within that set of targets. Um, but it's more of like how they're you still have the goal, it's just how they're responding to that. So they're not gonna decide, we're working on this totally separate, you know, we're we're working on food identification now. I just think it'd be interesting for them to do animals. There's like an opportunity for that. Like, or even within food, I'm not gonna necessarily just introduce this whole new set. But I think this then goes back to the even the granularity of which we program targets themselves. Um and I fall more again, it depends on the learner. Like some learners are gonna need a lot of granularity, others, if they have the prerequisite skills and you're going for generalized repertoires already, just based on the prerequisite, you might not need to know the data for lion versus bear versus blah blah blah. You might be able to say, here's set one, here's the 10 things in set one, and we're just gonna like present them all fluidly, basically, and see how they respond in the moment. So I don't know. I know that's kind of a non-answer, but it just there is there's a lot that goes into all of that.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

Gotten around it by using a lot more various targets. Um, like because we would find, I don't know, lion, right? We're working on lion, but the person wants to play with the giraffe. Are we gonna force them to play with lion? Because that's the target. Are we gonna force them to find something that's red, even though they want to play with something blue? On the flip side of that, uh, one of the difficulties with various targets is making sure you're actually hitting all of the targets in that set, right? So it is a dance, and um, I don't know that we've perfected that dance. I think we're definitely more on the various side than the specifics. Um, but uh, we were talking about that the other day, actually.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yeah, no, that that's a really important question. I mean, you you you have a goal, you want to hit something specific in terms of a target, and then if you get if all you're aiming for is that bullseye, you're probably gonna miss a lot. It doesn't mean you didn't hit the target somewhere, and I think that's a really tough question to answer. That's the the idea of differential reinforcement comes in there, the idea that we're we're not the only source of SDs uh as much as we'd like to think so within our semblance of instructional control. There are other things that the child could be doing that could be reinforced that fit into your plan. How do you teach that? You know, how do you teach that again back to a a learner, uh uh, you know, uh somebody who doesn't have a whole lot of experience coming in to be an RBT? That that's a it's a tall order. It's a tall order to to to have them uh take and and and complete and execute. And I think that's where then we end up relying on overly specified recipes during training because the optics present well. And if it goes ideally, it presents well, and it probably doesn't go ideally again.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

And if the parent comes up and asks specifically, show me lion, we have data that show that that kid can specifically say lion.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

And it's very rewarding when you hit that one target, whether it's the only target they're hitting, you know, it doesn't matter. It's very rewarding to have hit that target. And there's nothing wrong with the child picking up that one target. We're talking to the speaking to the greater question of well, how does that not just stay there and fixed and and you know, uh not not progress into other targets or foods as opposed to animals or numbers or letters or any you know slew of semantic categories that we can overly fixate on singular targets, and then there's this whole open-ended uh you know, list of animals or foods or whatever we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

So yeah, absolutely. And I I think part of that is thinking about how essential is it for them to know this one specific thing. Like there are some things that they have to know what that thing is to be able to function. Yeah, knowing lion versus tiger, I mean, it depends on how old that that's not essential to the the quality of their life, most likely. And um, you know, if they're four years old, like not every four-year-old knows every single animal. So it's again, is that are we creating this more generalized repertoire, or are we trying to create this kind of rote responding to specific SDs? And those that's that's really kind of where I land. And I think there's some middle ground too, which is where I love electronic data collection. I think it simplifies things, it helps to systematize things. And um we need to, as we're training behavior analysts, not start with the electronic data collection system, but have them really think about what do what is the goal for this learner? And then we try to get that system to reflect that rather than what are the constraints of the system, and then I'm gonna work my goal into that. And what I mean by that is like even for this, we might have more than one thing that we're collecting data on. Um, we might be collecting data on just the percentage or the frequency or the rate of correct responding to whatever the animal is, for example. Um, but we might also just be collecting cumulative data of the different animals that they have answered correctly to, um, in like a cold probe or something like that. And so we know for sure that they haven't just spent all of this time learning just lion and they got 100% and we're done. We can say, okay, they've in this time they've also mastered 20 different targets, but we're not doing data collection on each of them as individual targets. We're just, I mean, we are in terms of a cumulative record sort of perspective, but we're not in terms of taking a percentage or a frequency for each individual target.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

That's a I think that's a perfect description. Um, and uh oddly enough, just this past week was working on that with early intervention, the idea that um this you know child is picking up words, looking at the developmental framework, trying to collaborate with the speech therapist, setting the 50 single-word marker as then RQ to move into modeling more two, three-word phrases. And to your point, is like, hey, mom, this is your data collection. I every time he says something you haven't heard before, so write down the list of things you know he says. Uh, those can be play-related sounds, we, and whatever. Doesn't have to be, you know, words per se, as long as they have meaning. Um, and once we hit 50, then that's our cue to shift into some other gear in terms of how we're gonna uh approach language development. I like that the way you describe that, and that is very helpful because you're still you're still teaching towards something specified as a target, but it's not overly specified, such that you might stunt a young learner by overly focusing on a singular target, you know.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

And one thing um I I did, I'd be interested to get your perspective on this. Um I don't know if you remember, but kind of like the set learning was uh at our at our previous company, I would have RBTs or BCBAs track data on the targets that the RBT presents. So the the data that we would take on the client would be various, but that's putting faith into the RBT that they're presenting all ten targets within that set. Uh because otherwise, maybe you know they're just presenting 10 targets of Lion and it's mastering that they got the whole set, but they've only been exposed to Lion 10 times. So I would have the RBTs just take data on themselves on did you present the targets and then take the data on the various uh because again it's not a hundred percent, um but presumably that would be enough to say, okay, well, they were presented with these and they got, I don't know, nine ninety percent or whatever it is. So uh if we do that over a long enough period of time, they would have been presented with these enough to to show. Now, what was funny is that because sometimes BCBs are very black and white, a lot of them were putting the RBT data into the reports, and I was like, I don't think the insurance cares about what your RBTs are doing. That's just for you to be able to analyze the program. Um, but I don't know if you have any thoughts on um RBTs taking data on themselves and the way and how they present things.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah, I think that can be a great strategy for that and to get them involved in looking at the data too. You know, they're not just collecting it and sending it. Out into the void. In in schools, obviously, you know, if you want paraprofessional, that's even less, it's a different when we're talking about not RBTs in schools, but like paraprofessionals in schools, sure. That might not be a culture of the school to take data. And so with all of this, I think what is potentially reinforcing is seeing the outcome of some of these different things and being able to for just the data for the client data for them to be able to see what how that's influencing the programs, for them to be able to see like the the outcomes of what they're doing. But in terms of self-management data, and this is where like I'm gonna get into some stuff that like might make behavior analysts squirm, but like metacognition is a big um term in the field. Yes, so you're a developmental psychologist, you you understand where I'm going with this. But um yeah, like thinking about thinking and thinking about learning and taking ownership of their learning process. And when they're taking data on themselves, they can start to a big piece of that is self-monitoring to be able to then set goals, self-manage. You know, these are behavior analytic terms. Metacognition, this is where I was kind of starting to before in terms of like cognition, it we they might hear behaviorism and squirm, we might hear cognition and squirm. Um, but there's so much overlap. Like we can break all of that down behaviorally. Um, but the more that they can start to take ownership of their own learning because they are not with a supervisor all the time and self-manage and all of that, I think that that can be really powerful. And then that's where the self-advocacy comes in as well, that once they know maybe they're really struggling with presenting certain, like creating opportunities for certain targets or something like that, then um they can go to their supervisor and ask for advice. But if they're not even aware, like that's that first step is just being aware um and being aware of the strategies that they're using and things like that. They're they need that in order to be able to go back and revisit that with their their supervisor.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

Just talking your language now, brother. I got more questions, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

No, no, I mean go, you you got stuff. Go for it, go for it.

SPEAKER_04 22:40

Um I have a question on so you were talking about kind of the the difference between curriculum development, uh, instructional design and ABA. So I'm gonna butcher this and please please correct me if I'm wrong, because it's been a little while since I've opened up Cooper in the task list and reviewed instructional design. But there is direct instruction, programmed instruction, PSI, and I've I'm drawing a blank on the fourth one. Uh personalized instruction.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Yeah, personalized system, PSI.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

PSI, personalized in there a fourth one or am I okay. Precision teaching, usually for you go. Thank you. And and that's the one that teaches to fluency, right? PSI teaches to um to what it mastery and okay, yeah. So it's coming back. Point being that um with instructional design, um, in schools, like so in ABA, right, we would want to do some sort of PSI, right? Where we're teaching to everybody's mastery, um, and we have the luxury of doing that in a one-on-one setting. Schools don't necessarily have the luxury of doing that because they're not in a one-on-one setting. You have a lot of experience with schools. Can you talk about anything you want to talk about in regards to that juxtaposition?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Good question. Uh, where to even start with any of those.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

I warned you about Dan's questions. So here you go. I also give you the opportunity to take over. That's why I had to let you go. I had to let you loose. Go ahead, Allison.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

The first thing I want to highlight is that that is not on the test content outline anymore. And the reason I want to highlight that is that I think that that is um maybe a step in the wrong direction. Um, because a lot of behavior analysts then maybe aren't exposed to a lot of those things or don't even know that they're out there. Um, so that's why I wanted to highlight that because that that was an integral part of the task list at one point.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

Um thought you were calling me out for being outdated.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

No, no, no. It was on the task list when I did it. And it's like something that I still we we make sure we teach our folks, but it's like technically it's not on here, but that's why we don't teach to just the test content outline. Um but yeah, so gosh, where to even start? I think this is where even being in a school of education has been really interesting. So again, I mentioned uh an advanced instruction course, and uh part of that was direct instruction. There's big D, big I, which is direct instruction as we think of like the scripted Engelman curriculum. Um, and then there's little D, little I, which is just like being more explicit in how we're teaching learners. And um even within these doctoral level professionals studying curriculum and instruction, there's a lot of pushback. We were learning that direct instruction is a solid teaching methodology. We learned about project follow. This is gonna surprise a lot of people. Um, maybe that this was in a general school of education and maybe make people glad because um, yeah, we we learned about project follow-through and the data that supports direct instruction, all these different things. And yet, still in the dreaded discussion forums, there were a lot of people that were like, well, but it's scripted, it's you know, all of these things we're teaching in this really kind of routine-based way. Are people going to be able to apply the, you know, the common things that you you hear? And so I think um, and Kim Barrens has a book, I forget what it's called. Um I think it's called Blind Spots, um, that talks about kind of the the history of education and a lot of these different things, and that it's very much ideology-based, which I do think I mean, we've talked about some ideology and behavior analysis, it's not exclusive to education, um, but there is a lot of what feels good in education um or what we've already always done, because it's a huge bureaucratic system. So where I'm going with all of this is that what the research bears to be true, even even the research itself, as sound instruction or the best way to do things, isn't always what happens in a classroom. And I love public education, I believe in public education, um, but we also know that the data indicates that we are often failing kids because we're not effectively teaching them how to read. For example, science of reading is a big movement that is going, uh, kind of there's a pendulum from any educator that you've talked to for a really long time, pendulum that kind of swings back and forth with all these things. Um, where I'm going with this is that behavior and instruction and all of that, especially in schools, are intricately related. Like I remember going into a sixth grade classroom to do an FPA for a student who has really been struggling, was like throwing furniture, just disrupting the class often. Um and then I looked at his scores and he couldn't, he couldn't read. And he's in this general education classroom. He technically was receiving special education services, but couldn't read. And then in my observation, I watched him be presented with a quiz that was not differentiated at all, that was all reading-based. And so all this to say, I think um in an ideal world, we're programming individually for learners, but that there are a lot of constraints within the public education system. But I also think that we could be doing more to effectively teach students and that some of these gaps in background skills, you know, we're talking about the component composite analysis, it just gets harder and harder and harder as they go. And so if someone doesn't have a solid foundation in reading, for example, in the early grades, it just makes it that much harder. And then the problems compound, and then we might see some uh that manifests sort of behaviorally as well in terms of disengagement from learning. Um, I know this is a big question, so I'm just kind of rambling because I'm like, I don't even know where to kind of go with the case.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah, go for it. Yeah, you're covering good ground there. It was a big question. I I warned you, Dan, had one at least one. No, it's a great question. It's we we keep talking about that dance too. I mean, you it's this idea that you have to have a plan, you have to be specific, you have to have your targets, and then you have to be ready for all of that to kind of go out the window a little bit, and then how are you gonna reel it back in? Um, so time flies when we're all having fun. I knew this would happen to us, but I want to make sure that we give you plenty of time to talk about sidekick, uh, how it started. Everything you've talked about till now, I'm sure, is integrated uh somehow in what you're doing and how you're helping folks and uh providing training and resources. Tell us how it got started. Tell us what you guys are doing currently.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yeah, so uh I think as I mentioned, as I was a supervisor, I saw a huge gap in the resources that were available to me. There were some books out there and things like that, but in terms of something I could just take and implement in my supervision as someone who was wearing many, many, many hats, and that was one of the hats. Um, I just could not find anything that was practical for me to just kind of take and run with, uh, but that was also robust enough to give me a framework. And so I just started creating uh like lessons for group supervision, structure, structure, mapping out the competencies, because as we've already talked about as well, the task list or test content outline is not everything that you need to know as a behavior analyst. It's just a piece of it. And the board, even in renaming it to TCO, that's part of what they're trying to clarify is that this is not all-encompassing. Um, so all that to say, I was working really hard to kind of reinvent the wheel, um, but maybe not reinvent because there were things out there, but not things in the format that were usable. And so um as I was talking to other supervisors, it became really, really clear I was not the only one with this problem. And so um it was something I clearly felt really passionate about as well in terms of identifying this gap really early on. Um, and so it just kind of snowballed from there of how do I make this usable? How do I really build out this framework in terms of a curriculum that has a specific scope and sequence, but that's also flexible enough to be, you know, any curriculum needs to be flexible enough to be used with the person in front of you. Um, so that was a big consideration. Um, so that's where we started was in a fieldwork supervision curriculum that was really practical, that gave you specific um handouts and resources and applied activities and tools for evaluating the skills and all of that that built on itself as well, but that could be taken and used with the person that you have there. Um, so that's where we started. Uh, that was in 2022 that we first um began offering that and um got a lot of great traction and that's just grown and evolved. We've um are in a learning system now that allows us to have like linked supervisor and trainee accounts. So all of this is in an online platform because that gives a lot of affordances in terms of how we present information, how we update information, how we make it usable, um, all of that. And so now more and more organizations are deploying it at scale across their entire supervision program. That's mostly what we see actually at this point, is we're working more on the organizational level because we wanted it to be accessible to supervisors, but they already, again, they are carrying so much of that load. It's been very encouraging to see organizations acknowledging that it shouldn't be left up to individual supervisors to create this whole huge structure and to bear that experience in their hands. Um, and so organizations and universities and things are um using the curriculum at scale. And then our vision, this was always kind of the starting point, but uh my vision long term has always been to create kind of a central training hub across the different levels of experience. And so um step two of that was we um launched our 40-hour training last summer and have gotten really great feedback on that as well. That's designed to be um, again, using those more instructional strategies to it's not just someone talking at you for an hour and then taking a quiz. It's very much interactive, thinking about how you're gonna use this skill so um and minimizing the constraints of being in an online platform. There are going to be constraints for being on an online platform. And so um, how do we maximize though what is beneficial about that by embedding a lot of like quizzing and interactivity and matching and all sorts of things? Um, and minimizing some of that by making it relevant to the real world. So when we're doing data collection, let's actually watch videos and practice collecting data, similar to what you would be doing, hopefully, in kind of a real world classroom where you're doing some of that BST and things like that. Um, so that's where we're at right now. Our eight-hour supervision training is set to launch this summer. Um, but in our platform, also organizations can create their own courses. We're working on um additional tools for competency development and things like that. And so really we're just trying to snowball out into this um framework that just kind of helps an ABA organization take ownership of all of these things and not um, you know, maybe rely on disjointed systems and things like that, or uh the the first thing they find or the free RBT training or you know, things like that.

SPEAKER_04 33:30

So you're the initial product was training supervisors to train other supervisors. Is that is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Sort of. It was it's really more of the tools and resources. So not the not the training or CEU, we have CEUs and things like that, um, but really just okay, you've taken that eight-hour supervisor training. You need to now go put all this into practice. And even if you have a ton of knowledge and experience, digging up all of those resources, finding them, putting them into a usable format, making sure you're addressing all of the skills in supervision. Um, because I know that's something I found was like, I think we've hit everything. You know, we have the task list, but again, within your context, within what your clients have opportunities for, are we hitting all of the what you need to know? And so it just kind of lays all of that out there for you so that you can see the big picture of everything and then work your way through it in whatever way makes sense for the supervise, uh, the trainee that you have.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

Gotcha. So it's designed to help supervisors train RBTs or designed to help supervisors train people in BCBA programs.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Fieldwork, yeah, Fieldwork students. Um, we um have additional like tools and resources and things like that for um technicians. But the other thing is that supervisors and uh trainees, student analysts, they both access the system. So it's not the student analyst isn't sitting around waiting for the supervisor to provide them with opportunities for unrestricted hours. For example, obviously they want to use it closely with their supervisor, but it gives that trainee a lot more agency to start to see what they need to be working on, gives them templates and things like that to start to scaffold those skills. For example, the the shaping example. Here's what shaping is. Let's talk about the ways that we can shape behavior, why it's important, um, some of the concepts and terms that underlie all of this so that you're ready for the exam. But also let's think about a map for how we might shape from A to wherever you're going with the client that you actually have. So, one kind of misconcept, and there are supervision curriculums out there that um are not necessarily client-based, they just kind of go through the task list. Um, but it was really important for us to design something that everything relates back to a client. So, for this, what is if you're thinking about skill for your client, how do you shape that skill for your client from A to wherever they're going?

SPEAKER_04 35:49

Gotcha. That is that is definitely um well needed. So, what what did you find? Like, what did you get any additional feedback or what have you was there anything different in creating the program that um you found since you created it? You were like, oh, I think people need this, and it turned out to be something different, or I think this would be the best way to present it. Because what it sounds like is you're using ABA strategies for people doing ABA, which sounds so intuitive, but it's so infrequently used.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah, it sounds intuitive, but it's not frequently used, like you said. Um, so yes, I had to really think about in that first iteration a lot of different things. What are the essential skills? What does the literature say? What do they need to know? I had to think about from that component composite analysis perspective, how do we scaffold um and build from these more foundational skills to like FBAs near the end? So, how do we build that up? Um, and then within that, um, things that have evolved are some of like the really the biggest pieces. Like I am one person, and so um resources, obviously, as someone who's like launching something totally new a few years ago, I had to go with a system that was like, here's how I can just get this out here and get it validated and get feedback. Um so we still maintain that system as like a low-cost option. Um, but we've moved to a much more robust system now for organizations, because the biggest thing that we saw was that people wanted to see connectivity between the supervisor and training accounts. So in our old system, they would both get access, but they wouldn't see each other in the system. So you still had to use an external tool, like we had a Google Sheet with everything to evaluate the skills over time. Now the system that we have does all of that kind of in one together. And so it's been more like those sort of things that have evolved. And then um, we did do a user experience survey um last year. And actually, for my uh doctoral program, that's I'm doing a curriculum evaluation. And so we've tried to do some research, some surveys and things like that uh to get feedback and make changes based on that.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

So you had all these ideas, all this content, all this information to lend, and then what I hear you're talking about is you had to learn how to launch it all out onto some sort of tech. That's that's quite I've I've a little bit involved in that. Um that's quite a journey. Tell us a little bit about that. Is there anything that you feel fell short that you weren't so happy with because you had to fit it into this now, whether it's an authoring tool or you know, something I don't want to get into that because I don't know enough about it. But I think you know what I'm asking is that that can be a little bit challenging to say, oh, that didn't quite hit the mark, or hey, guess what? That presented really well on that video, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think as with anything, the like from a design perspective, there are affordances and constraints. So any system we're using, there are things that it enables and there are things that make it more difficult. Same just even in-person versus online learning, like there are aspects of that. And how do we maximize what makes it good? And then how do we minimize what the barriers are? And so yeah, I would say constraint number one, or the the difficult piece was that first iteration, knowing that it wasn't where I wanted it to be, especially in like the tools and things that I had access to with the budget that I had at the time. Um, and so I had control over the content and poured my heart and soul into that and then worked with the platform to make it as usable as possible, but I didn't have control to uh over how that looked. So, like when people wanted linked accounts, I I couldn't just create that out of thin air in this platform that I had. And so that was something as a perfectionist, something that was very tricky for me was knowing where I wanted to be. And even now, like having this vision for here's where I want to go, here's my how I hope to be changing and supporting ABA businesses and supporting schools and supporting the people within them and that kind of where I want to be and where I see this going and how I see this helping people, and then um what we can reasonably do and produce. So um, so yeah, I mean it's been it's grown a lot since then. We're again mostly not in that system except to provide a low-cost option to keep it accessible. Um but yeah, I would say that's the biggest part of this journey is just um just working with getting it out there, getting it validated, but knowing that we're continuously improving.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Can you can you share any um any content? Or I'm not obviously asking you um to share the entire thing, but anything like maybe from your course that somebody could listen to this and be like, oh wow, that's that's amazing. Let me check that out. Anything yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Are you thinking more RBT training wise or the supervision curriculum?

SPEAKER_04 40:28

I was thinking more supervision uh curriculum, but either one could work.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Yeah. Um let me see. So uh I have already kind of talked about shaping a little bit. I'll give another Like this is uh maybe even like program planning. That's a pretty big that's a uh a skill that has many skills underneath of it. So before they go through program planning, they and again, you don't have to go through it in order linearly, but you do want the supervisor to think, okay, all these things came before it. So are they ready for this based on all of that? Um and so before they're program planning, they're learning about generalization, they're learning about um shaping, they're learning about data collection and prompting and all of those things that go into developing a program. And then once they get there, they're pulling all of those skills together. Um, but within this, uh any of the individual sort of like modules, for example, um, it starts with something to do ahead of the meeting. So some pre-work. So read this article, watch this video, do something so that you're not coming to supervision super green. Um, and then something to bring in most cases. So in this case, like what program do you want to, we're not gonna troubleshoot that necessarily as much during supervision. What skill do you want to teach and um what's already kind of happening in relation to this? So, like, what's that current present level of performance? Um, and then during the meetings, it gives them um like a presentation. They can use it to kind of structure that that has like essential questions. So, what are the big things to uh understand about programming? I can't remember what those are. Um, but you know, maybe things like how do we document this so that it is a lot of the things we talked about today would be into those essential questions. So we're starting to help student analysts think of that bigger picture. Um, why do we document this? How do we allow for flexibility? How does this relate to generalization and how we're programming from the offset? All of those different things. Um, often there's a BST component. So, okay, let's talk through and show a plan, let's practice writing one together, you write one. Um, and then some conceptual, we've tried to not obviously not just cover the task list or test content outline, um, but to tie those things back as well. So again, if you don't have a really foundational understanding, like it starts pretty rudimentary. Like, can you even define behavior or discriminate between behavior, what's behavior and not behavior? If someone doesn't need that, you don't do that with them. But in my experience, there are trainees that come to me that need that. And so um it does build on itself. And then the application piece, there's a template for a program plan, but you can use what you have. And then here's where how we're gonna evaluate that together. So it gives them criteria for how they think about um the supervisor can think about evaluating that plan and how that trainee can start to self-assess against all those things. Again, back to that sort of metacognition, so that they can start to evaluate their own work products and develop a better understanding of where they should be versus where they are. So that's kind of the general structure. And so it goes through all of these um sections, and then at the end, there are culminating projects that are really like, okay, you've been taught all of these kind of individual skills. Now take and run as you would do it in context with an actual client. So there is an FBA module or section that goes through each of the steps of an FBA and kind of walks them through as in a similar structure to what I just mentioned. And then when they get to the culminating project for an FBA and VIP, like you're owning that process. I'm still here to help you and support you during it, but I'm not gonna walk you through, okay, here's how you do an interview, okay, here's how you do a records review, here's how you just you know collect data. It's you go own this process in the same way that you're going to have to do it as a BCBA.

SPEAKER_04 44:06

That's exciting. And that's that's so needed. Um, the the support that new B C BAs, RBTs transitioning to new B C BAs have gotten my experience, has been very lackluster. Um so that is absolutely needed. You you use two words, use module and meeting. So how do those um like so you said you read an article, watch a video, and then you come to the meeting. Is the is the supervisor there with the um the trainee or the person doing the field work, I guess would be the better way to say it, or is this all done kind of asynchronously?

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah, so it's very much done in partnership with the supervisor. So that that article and the things like that are here are some extra things you can do that build to this application that maybe give you some new ways to think about how you're going to do it or give you more of a, usually in a video, it's more of a here's your tutorial to show you how to do this if you don't know already. Um so typically those are done outside of the meeting so that when you come to the meeting and you're there with your supervisor, they're not teaching you. It's almost like you know, flipped classroom if you've done an education where you front load the content. And then when we're together, we're really focused on diving deeper. So you're ready to really dive into talking about the essential questions and the big ideas here, and you're ready to talk about how we actually apply it and create that permanent product and things like that. And so it just front loads some of that work for the supervisor, and that's what takes place during the meetings. And there is not a module is really just a collection of content related to a specific skill or competency. Um, and so even within that, like there's not a one-to-one correspondence of like one module is one meeting, like the FBA section is really robust, and you have multiple different application activities within that in terms of doing the records reviews, interviews, all of that sort of stuff, for example. Whereas something like task analysis is much more streamlined because it's a much more discrete sort of skill. So um, yeah, that's a good question. Hopefully, I I kind of hit that.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

No, you did. That that's awesome. It doesn't take the uh interaction out of it, which is which is awesome. We've done a lot of um uh pods recently with people on the a AI front. Um, and that I think is Mike and I's fear is that AI will continue to take the interaction out of it and just lead things. Although both of the people that that talked about it, um, it seemed like they were actually bringing um people together through AI and enhancing the face-to-face time through AI. So that's why I was just curious because that's awesome that you're you're bringing people together, you're not sending them to a module to just watch it in expense of the interaction, you're actually enhancing the interaction by your modules. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's kind of my fear with AI as well. I I agree. And even with I had I saw someone in a Facebook group that was asking about like AI clients and saying that that would be really great to do AI clients and like even within like thinking about hypothetical scenarios versus real scenarios, like providing some of those for discussion and supervision is one thing, but doing all of your hours in hypotheticals is not gonna prepare you for the real world, as we've discussed this whole time, because it's all about being attuned to the actual person and all of the contextual variables in any hypothetical scenario is not gonna be able to hit all of that. And so that's why, you know, and I think different people think about that differently. But the way that I interpret it from the VA C V is that a client is a client that is receiving ABA services. And so hypotheticals and things like that again can be used during supervision meetings as more of like a training mechanism, but not as the content of your hours itself.

unknown 47:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

I like the way you describe it. I mean, there is again, we we keep I keep going back to this concept. You're talking about one possibility, one straight line based on a good operational set of definitions, and then we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of other things that could happen. And I think that that is that's a that's a great way to conceptualize sort of a full scope of saying that there is one way to do this. And if we know anything about the actual work we're doing, that one way is likely to fail a good 90% of the time. So you have to be ready with the same framework, the same concept to draw some other line uh between you and your client or the person you're working with. I I really do think there's a lot of value in that. And what you're describing is the interaction. So these are this is the content, and then the content has to come to life with our meeting. This is the module, and then without the meeting, the module is just a bunch of words.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah, exactly. Um, and they all build again to application. It's not just here's some content. It's the you can even the only reason you can even encounter any of the content is because it's all building to actual application. We're not just like didactically consuming all of this random information. It's we're learning about designing a task analysis for a learner. Okay, here are the things I'm gonna review ahead of time, and then I'm actually coming, and at the end of this, I'm gonna have a completed plan and products and a plan for teaching this via chaining procedures that I would use with a client. And so um, so yeah, I think that's the the key piece with all of this is it has to really be building to that. And often, I mean, I think if you've been in any ABA Facebook group, you see posts all the time, what can I do for unrestricted hours, what counts as unrestricted hours, all of that. And I just think we're thinking about a lot of these activities in a vacuum as like, what can I do? And not what does someone need to be a behavior analyst? What are those essential skills and what do they need to be able to do? And then let's design activities around that. Again, back to that backward design, rather than this kind of like, here's target A that I just think sounds like a good goal, or maybe it's not even that intentional. Um, and so I think when we think about unrestricted hours, when we think about the content of what someone is doing, we have to be really intentional about the skills that it's building, not just is it filling time?

SPEAKER_04 49:55

I love it. That's that's awesome. Because, like you said, I when I was doing it, I was figuring it out on my own. Everybody figures it out on their own. And if there can be some uh resource to assist with that, but also form to help people talk about what worked for them, what didn't work for them, that's well, well, well needed. So, where can people find that?

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Yeah, so if you go to sidekicklearning.net, um, that's our website. You can find information about our curriculum, about just our training platform and things like that. Um, and happy to answer any questions as well. Um, I'm active on Instagram at Supervision Sidekick and then um LinkedIn as well. And yeah, happy to connect with anyone there.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Awesome. Wow, we've covered a lot of ground. Man. Covered a lot of ground. Um we really appreciate your time and all your knowledge. Uh, this has been super exciting. I am sure we will cross paths again. We will certainly be checking out your content and your materials uh just for our own use as we uh explore our own venture. Um, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you so, so much. I like to uh do a little synopsis here at the end uh to proceed our catchphrase. And you've given us a lot of gems.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

So before you get to that, uh you also do a podcast as well. Can you speak to your podcast real quick? Because we hopefully will be a guest on there and do a little pod swap. Oh, yeah, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah. Um, so it's in the field, the ABA podcast, and uh we talk about a variety of topics, but mostly things related to supervision, training, leadership um within the field of ABA. And so, yeah, I'm looking forward to having you guys on there as well.

SPEAKER_04 51:28

In the field podcast, anywhere podcast can be found.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

Yep, anywhere podcast can be found.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Yeah, all right. Thank you, thank you for for catching that, that's for sure. So uh it's been a great discussion with Alison Warham. Put forth a thoughtful instructional design. Look at the person in front of you, be ready to think in the moment, and always analyze responsibly. Cheers. Thank you, Allison. Thank you so much. ABA on CAP 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.