APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS NEURODIVERSITY Teaching Strategies Activity Teaching

APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS & NEURODIVERSITY

Teaching Strategies & Activity Teaching Students with Autism Work with one or two people around you to determine consider strategies you could use to engage with students with the following characteristics in your classroom. - Student feels need to open and close a door for one-minute before sitting down. - Student continuously flaps hands throughout lesson, even when classmates request them to stop. - Student speaks about death and morbid subjects unless redirected, people become uncomfortable often. - Student feels great comfort from physical touch, is often hugging, grabbing hands and laying head on people regardless of relationship with them. - Student has outburst of frustration which includes vulgar language and arm throwing when transitioning unexpectedly, for example: during fire drills, field trips, or semester changes.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) According to Applied Behavioral Strategies, it is “the process of systematically applying interventions based upon the principles of learning theory to improve socially significant behaviors to a meaningful degree, and to demonstrate that the interventions employed are responsible for the improvement in behavior. ” Introduction to Applied Behavior Analysis

Pre-ABA & Development ◦ Before the 60 s, people with learning or intellectual disabilities were commonly relegated to institutions ◦ ABA developed by Ole Ivar Lovaas in the 60 s to “make people with autism “normal”” ◦ Viewed as shifting the paradigm from “hopeless to treatable” ◦ One-size-fits-all approach

ABA Benefits ◦ Skills that may be acquired: ◦ Language, self-help, play, communication, social skills, academic, reading, motor-skills… ◦ Maladaptive behaviors that might be decreased: ◦ Aggression, self-stimulatory behaviors, self-injury ◦ May be more “adapted” to societal expectations? ?

Any Issues? ◦ ABA is founded on an underlying goal of making children with autism “normal” or to fit into society easier but that is not necessarily the goal of the recipients ◦ Aversive “therapy” used to deter behaviors ◦ “The emphasis should be on learning to function in areas the individual chooses, not on changing who she is. ”

Neurodiversity is the diversity of human brains and minds – the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species. This is a biological concept.

Neurodiversity Paradigm 1. ) Neurodiversity is a natural and valuable form of human diversity. 2. ) Idea of “normal” or “healthy” type of brain is a culturally constructed fiction, no more valid than the idea that there is one “normal” or “right” ethnicity, gender, or culture. 3. ) Social power inequalities exist as in other forms of diversity.

Neurodiversity Movement Ask an Autistic ◦ The Neurodiversity Movement is a social justice movement that seeks civil rights, equality, respect, and full How Autism Freed Me to Be Myself societal inclusion for the neurodivergent. Why Autism is a Gift ◦ The Neurodiversity Movement began within the Autism Rights Movement. Life with Autism: In Their Own ◦ “To neurodiversity proponents, people Words are disabled because they are at the edges of the bell curve; not because they are sick or broken. ” There is no word from Autism in Somali

Sources ◦ Images ◦ http: //www. autismtopics. org/t 28%20 autism%20 neurodiversity. html ◦ http: //www. thinkgeek. com/product/iuks/ ◦ Articles ◦ Devita-Raeburg, Elizabeth. Controversy of Autism’s Common Therapy https: //spectrumnews. org/features/deep-dive/controversy-autisms-common-therapy/ ◦ Walker, Nick. Neurocosmopolitanism - http: //neurocosmopolitanism. com/neurodiversity-some-basicterms-definitions/ ◦ Robison, John Elder. What is Neurodiversity? - https: //www. psychologytoday. com/blog/my-lifeaspergers/201310/what-is-neurodiversity ◦ Applied Behavioral Strategies - http: //www. appliedbehavioralstrategies. com/what-is-aba. html