1. Please check, just in case…

2. Quick questions or quandaries?

3. Announcements
PowerPoint is not required, but appreciated, as are handouts.
Upload everything you use/distribute to UNM Learn before class.
Don’t wait to get started on your final assignment.
You MAY include information from your intervention paper and your classmates’ presentations in your final assignment. So look ahead to see what you might need to share/learn.

4. APA Tip of the Day: Attributing action – anthropomorphism
“Inappropriately or illogically attributing action in an effort to be objective can be misleading. Examples of undesirable attribution include use of the third person, anthropomorphism, and use of the editorial we” [emphasis added] (APA, 2010, p. 69).
“Do not attribute human characteristics to animals or to inanimate sources” (p. 69)

5. To avoid anthropomorphism, ask yourself – can X actually do Y?
“An experiment cannot attempt to demonstrate, control unwanted variables, or interpret findings, nor can tables or figures compare (all of these can, however, show or indicate). Use a pronoun or an appropriate noun as the subject of these verbs. I or we (meaning the author or authors) can replace the experiment” (APA, 2010, p. 69).

6. Today’s Topic:
Intervention, cont.

7. Naturalistic Interventions: Directive Interventions:
Distribute learning opportunities
Follow the child’s lead/attentional focus
Rely on antecedents that have a natural association with the targeted behavior.
Provide consequences that have a natural association with the behavior.
Use massed blocks of trials (“drill and kill”).
Are teacher-directed: They determine intervention target and control antecedents to the target behavior.
Provide consequences (e.g., verbal praise) do not have a natural associate with the target behavior.

8. General Considerations for Teaching Beginning Communication Skills:
Get close and on students’ eye level.
Facilitate eye contact (or physical contact):
position yourself, students and their communication partners carefully,
don’t force it (i.e. “look at me”) without a meaningful reason, and
be culturally sensitive.
Look expectant.
From: Downing, J. (1999). Teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD. (pp )

9. General Considerations, cont.
Accept and respect how students currently communicate:
communication partners must be responsive and attentive.
De-emphasize symbolic communication:
shape “inappropriate” nonverbal communication, rather than insisting on a symbolic substitution.
From: Downing, J. (1999). Teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD. (pp )

10. General Considerations, cont.
Provide wait time:
don’t rephrase immediately,
don’t insert a direct question,
don’t immediately state a command, and
don’t supply the answer for the student.
Use fewer directives:
follow the student’s lead, and
support and encourage student initiation.
From: Downing, J. (1999). Teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD. (pp )

11. General Considerations, cont.
Make sure that students have a means to communicate:
allow students to employ a variety of modes of communication,
use available materials in the environment to supplement AAC devices, and
make sure students have access to their AAC devices.
From: Downing, J. (1999). Teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD. (pp )

12. General Considerations, cont.
Teach communication in natural contexts.
Create the need to practice skills.
Foster student motivation to communicate:
make the connection between communication efforts and getting needs met very clear, and
accept and respond to students’ communication efforts.
From: Downing, J. (1999). Teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD. (pp )

13. General Considerations, cont.
Establish a student-centered approach:
follow the student’s lead, and
respond to current attention and interest.
Offer choices:
provide fixed choices (i.e. ‘this’ or ‘this’),
provide easy and clear choices,
make the connection between the choice and the reward clear, and
make sure choices are of interest to the student.
From: Downing, J. (1999). Teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD. (pp )

14. General Considerations, cont.
Enhance the social environment:
provide opportunities for student to interact with typically developing peers.
Make communicating fun.
Shape a desired communication response:
model the behavior,
use prompting strategies,
fade prompts when students recognize and respond to natural cues independently,
reinforce desired behaviors.
From: Downing, J. (1999). Teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD. (pp )

15. Quick Write
What are some of the obstacles to implementing more naturalistic interventions in a classroom setting? What might be some solutions to these barriers?

16. Small Group Work on Intervention Presentations

17. Looking ahead…
Intervention Presentations!

18. Please take a minute for the minute paper.