Learning to Learn Skills as a Foundation

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental disabilities often lack skills that are pre-requisites for success in school. Before a child can acquire language, hold a scissors or pencil, or learn from instruction, he or she needs to be able to sit still, pay attention and imitate the behaviors or remember the content of instruction. These skills are commonly known, among practitioners of Applied Behavior Analysis, as Learning to Learn Skills: In order to succeed with children with Autism, it is important that you evaluate whether they have those learning to learn skills. The Skill Set Waiting: Can the student stay in place while you arrange materials, or begin a session?Sitting: Can the student stay seated, on both buttocks, in a chair?Attending to others and materials: Can you get the student to pay attention to you (the instructor) or when presented with materials?Changing responses based on prompts: Will the student change what he/she is doing if directed to do so, with physical, gestural or verbal prompts.Following instructions: When given instructions, will the child comply? This implies that the child has receptive language.Following choral, or group instructions: Does the child follow directions when given to a whole group? Or does the child only respond to directions given with their name? The Continuum The learning to learn skills above are really arranged in a continuum. A child may learn to wait, but may not be able to sit appropriately, at a table. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders often have co-morbid problems, such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD ) and may have never sat for more than a few seconds in one spot. By finding reinforcement that a child really wants, you can often shape these primary behavioral skills. Once you have completed a reinforcement assessment (evaluating and discovering reinforcement that your child will work for,) you can begin to assess where a child is on the continuum. Will he sit and wait for a preferred food item? You can move from the preferred food item to a favorite or preferred toy. If the child has sitting and waiting skills, you can expand it to find if the child will attend to materials or instruction. Once that is evaluated, you can move on. Most often, if a child has attending skills, he may also have receptive language. If not, that will be the first step of teaching the ability to respond to prompts. Prompting. Prompting also falls on a continuum, from hand over hand to gestural prompts, with the focus on fading prompts to reach independence. When paired with language, it will also build receptive language. Receptive language is critical for the next step. Following directions If a child will respond correctly to prompts, when paired with words, you can teach following directions. If a child already responds to verbal directions, the next thing to assess is: Does a child follow choral or group instructions? When a child can do this, he or she is ready to spend time in the general education classroom. This should hopefully be an outcome for all our children, even if only in a limited way. Teaching the Learning to Learn Skills The learning to learn skills can be taught either in one to one sessions with an ABA therapist (should be supervised by a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, or BCBA) or in an early intervention classroom by the teacher or a classroom aide with training. Often, in early intervention classrooms, you will have children who come in with a range of abilities in the learning to learn skills and you will need to focus the attention of a single aide on children who most need to build the basic sitting and waiting skills. The instructional model for ABA, like the model for behavior, follows an ABC sequence: A: Instruction. This needs to fit the outcome. If the first instruction is to sit, you may have to physically guide the child into the chair, accompanied by a verbal description of what is happening: Sit down, please. Okay, were sitting with our feet on the floor, our bum on the chair.B: Behavior. What the behavior is will determine the next step.C: Feedback. This is either correcting the response or praise, either paired with reinforcement, a token (secondary reinforcement) or once you have some behavioral momentum, every second to fourth correct response, or correction. The most important thing is to be clear about what is the desired response - you never want to reinforce an incorrect response (although an approximation is appropriate when shaping behavior. Called Discrete Trial Teaching, each instructional trial is very brief. The trick is to mass the trials, in other words, bring the instruction on hard and heavy, increasing the amount of time that the child/client is engaged in the targeted behavior, whether it is sitting, sorting, or writing a novel. (Okay, thats a bit of an exaggeration.) At the same time the teacher/therapist will be spreading out the reinforcement, so that each successful trial will get feedback, but not necessarily access to reinforcement. The Goal The final outcome should be that students with Autism Spectrum Disorders will be able to succeed in more naturalistic settings, if not actually in a general education classroom. Pairing secondary or social reinforcers with those primary reinforcers (preferred items, food, etc.) will help children with more challenging disabilities function appropriately in the community, interact with people appropriately and learn to communicate, if not to use language and interact with typical peers.

Essay about Virgin Suicides - 1044 Words

Each year suicide is becoming more common in the United States among adolescents, according to the Suicide and Mental Health Association International. The main reason why adolescents commit suicide is because they are depressed. In the article Nightmare in the Mirror by Scott Long, he explains that adolescence has changed throughout the years. An assertion he makes is that teens have Angst and bouts of suicidal despair distinguish this gloomy figureÂ… (Long 156). Long explains that throughout the years, adolescents have become sadder and depressed. Adolescents, who suffer from depression and are suicidal, dont usually inform others. Those adolescents fall into the third quadrant of the Johari Window. The Johari Window is a useful†¦show more content†¦As a result of being isolated from others, the girls become depressed. Lux makes the statement I cant breathe in here (The Virgin Suicides). The girls become extremely lonely. Even before Cecilia, the youngest daughter, committed suicide the girls were still sheltered. Cecilias psychiatrist told the parents that the girls needed another social outlet besides school. This proves that it is not healthy for adolescents to not be social. With the girls now without the social outlet of school, the girls became lonely and depressed. According to neuropsychiatrist, Rajesh Parikh, Alcoholism and suicide become a handmaiden due to loneliness and depression. In other words, people who are lonely and depressed have a higher risk of committing suicide. Since the girls were lonely and depressed, they were at a higher risk of committing suicide. Since the girls were depressed, this later resulted in their suicide. Suicide attempts are usu ally made when a person is seriously depressed and feels that there is no way out of their problems according to DArcy Lyness, PhD. Adolescents commit suicide because they feel as if they can not escape emotional pain. The Lisbon girls were simply depressed. The majority of adolescents who commit suicide suffer from depression. From the film The Virgin Suicides, it is obvious that the Lisbon girls are depressed. The Lisbon girls depression was the cause of theirShow MoreRelatedCharacters in The Virgin Suicides621 Words   |  3 Pageslove and alcohol. The neighborhood boys watch in awe as girls flock to Trip’s side. They bake him pies, warm his bed, leave notes inside of his car. Trip’s hedonistic nature sets him against the religious Mr. Lisbon, but also the boys (Hoskin). As virgins, the boys both envy and admire Trip. Watching Trip rein in girl after girl becomes a lesson to the boys. They watch Trip very closely, studying him, in hopes of one day being as cool and confident. Trip’s relationship with his father is very unusualRead MoreThe Great Gatsby And The Virgin Suicides1563 Words   |  7 Pagesand affectionate, or aggressive and violent. Often, the targets of obsession are females. In The Great Gatsby, The Virgin Suicides, Lolita and Fear, there are men who obsess over a female character. These female characters are all shown to be powerless, whether it be at the hands of their obsessor or because of other factors in their lives. In The Great Gatsby and The Virgin Suicides, the theme of obsession is prevalent. It is shown through Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy and the boys obsession withRead MoreMovie Review : The Virgin Suicides846 Words   |  4 PagesSofia Coppola is the daughter of the famous director Francis Ford Coppola who made The Godfather films. She is a producer, director, screenwriter and actress. Coppola directed and wrote the 1999 film The Virgin Suicides. Her directorial work for Lost in Translation won an Oscar. She became the first American woman to win the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2010. Coppola made brief appearances in her father s films throughout her childhood. Acting, however, would not beRead More The Virgin Suicides and the Writing Self Essay examples1877 Words   |  8 PagesThe Virgin Suicides and the Writing Self    Usually our voice for telling a story is our own writing self.   A person that understands the situation at hand and speaks in a manner relevant to the situation.   We dont normally create a separate narrator to make our writing more interesting.   We simply write our thoughts and opinions to convey our ideas.   But Jeffery Eugenides writing the Virgin Suicides brought out a separate part of himself to narrate for him.   An entirely fabricatedRead More`` The Virgin Suicides `` By Jeffrey Eugenide1814 Words   |  8 Pagesisolation. In fact, recent studies released by Lifeline—a crisis support and suicide prevention center—conclude that long periods of oppression, loneliness, or social isolation can have a negative impact on physical, mental, and social health. In particular, such may result in bodily aches and pains, low energy, an increased risk of depression and paranoia, feelings of worthlessness/hopelessness, or thoughts about suicide, and increase d substance abuse. Human interaction and freedom of identity areRead MoreAnalysis Of The Virgin Suicides 799 Words   |  4 PagesThe Virgin Suicides narrates the story of the Lisbon family and the multiple crises they face, particularly acute suicidal risk of all five daughters. The family consists of the father, Ronald, the mother, and five sisters, Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese. The family experiences both major and minor crisis event throughout the film, ultimately ending with all five daughters completing suicide. While there were numerous individuals experiencing crisis, the neighborhood boys, the entire LisbonRead MoreThe Journey Of The Virgin Suicides1978 Words   |  8 Pages The Virgin Suicides takes place in 1974 in Grosse Point, Michigan. Here lives your typical family of seven consisting of two parents and five beautiful daughters. There is 17-year-old Therese, 16-year-old Mary, 15-year-old Bonnie, 14-year-old Lux, and the youngest at 13, Cecilia Lisbon. Th e film begins with the first attempt at suicide by the youngest, Cecilia. She was taken to see a professional one time after her attempt. It was deemed important to help socialize. The girls threw a party in theRead MoreMythology in The Virgin Suicides561 Words   |  3 Pagesup universal feedback. In the case of â€Å"The Virgin Suicides† by Jeffrey Eugenides one of the archetypes that we see play out throughout the novel is the one of The Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary in â€Å"The Virgin Suicides† represents a sense of foreshadowing at the beginning and towards the end of the book, provide an allegory between the Libson girls and The Virgin Mary, and help deeper define the Libson girls. The Virgin Mary symbol in â€Å"The Virgin Suicides† foreshadows events that will play out laterRead More American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes and The Virgin Suicides, directed by Sofia Coppola2680 Words   |  11 Pagesappears to be normal equal reality? By looking at two different films it seems that the old cliche stands correct. Things aren’t as they appear. American Beauty and The Virgin Suicides give classic examples of how â€Å"normal† and â€Å"happy† suburban life is anything but. American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes (1999) and The Virgin Suicides, directed by Sofia Coppola (2000), share many of the same themes even though the plots are contrasted. Underneath the layers of white picket fences, beautiful houses,Read MoreEssay on Critical Analysis of the Virgin Suicides812 Words   |  4 Pagesthey would do anything to get to that point of bliss. In the book The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, we are introduced to the men whose lives have been changed forever by their awkward obsession with five fated sisters: Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia Lisbon. These mysterious girls dont seem to really be known in the town, but when the youngest, Cecilia, kills herself, it establishes the year of the suicides and all eyes are on them. The neighborhood boys narrate the story

Benefits of Electronic Medical Records Free Essays

Benefits of Electronic Medical Records Stephanie Fine HCS/490 December 5, 2011 Cindy Perkins Benefits of Electronic Medical Records * â€Å"In 1972, the Regenstreif Institute developed the first medical records system† (Unknown, History of Electronic Medical Records, 2011, Para. 3). Since then, health care facilities across the nation are beginning to see the benefits that electronic medical records have on both health care providers and patients as well. We will write a custom essay sample on Benefits of Electronic Medical Records or any similar topic only for you Order Now This paper will discuss the benefits of electronic medical records for patients as well as one aspect relating to the values and importance of maintaining confidentiality when using this mode of communication. This paper will provide at least one reason this mode is an effective means of communication between consumers and providers and explain how this mode of communication differs from others. Finally, this paper will show how media and social networking change communication in health care as well as how electronic medical records can be used to market health care products or services. Although there are many benefits for patients and Electronic medical records this paper will focus on the top three. The first benefit would be that â€Å"Electronic medical records (EMR’s) help improve the care of patients and reduce medical errors in doctors’ offices† (Huckestein, 2011, Para. 1). This is because all of a patients medical records are kept in one place and access ed through a secured web portal by any provider that the patient must see. This leave less room for errors due to unspoken information that can be critical to the patient but forgotten to say to the provider such as allergies, medications, and previous diagnoses. The second benefit would be the ease of access. Most health care facilities that use electronic medical records also use e-prescriptions as well. â€Å"Prescriptions are electronically sent directly to pharmacies and are ready to be picked up after the office visit† (Huckestein, 2011, Para. 5). This helps to cut down on time and eroors made in patient medications. Along with quick prescription services the patient does not always have to wait for the doctor’s office to open to request information from their providers. â€Å"Patients may also be able to request referrals, prescriptions refills, and appointments through the Internet from their physicians’ offices† (Huckestein, 2011, Para. 5). The third benefit of electronic medical records for patients is the comfort of knowing that their medical records are kept safe , secure , and will never be lost. Keeping these records electronically, especially in the cases where patients can also gain access to them, means the patient won’t be left without the records she may need† (Torrey, 2011, Para. 7). This is especially comforting to have if the health facility were happen to close or go out of buisness. The patient knows that he or she will still have all necessary records to continue with the health care that he or she needs. * While ease of access is very importan t, security of electronic medical records is just as important. Health providers are required to abide by all HIPAA laws within the office as well as electronically. It is very important that not only health care staff but patients as well keep all passwords and user information to themselves and never reveal security information with others. This helps to ensure that all medical information is kept safe and free from identity theft and other crimes involving sharing or reveling medical information to anyone who is not authorized to view it. One reason this mode is an effective means of communication between consumers and providers the ease of access to all medical records in the event of an emergency situation. When a patient is well or seeing a provider for non emergency situations they are able to provide accurate information needed to help keep electronic medical records up to date. This data is kept in the same file and used to help the patient in the event of an emergency that perhaps the patient is unable to speak or inform the health prov iders of their medical history, medications, and or disease or illnesses they may have. At most, quick access to our records can be lifesaving if an emergency occurs and answers to those questions are needed during the emergency decision-making process† (Torrey, 2011). This can be very useful if the patient happened to be on vacation or out of town. It can â€Å"Provide a single, shareable, up to date, accurate, rapidly retrievable source of information, potentially available anywhere at any time† (Unknown, Electronic Medical Records, Electronic Health Records †¦ , 2011, Para. 12). * It is clear that electronic medical records are beneficial and different from any other mode f communication. This is because it is a direct link between both the provider and the patients. It is also set up to still be available regardless of a tragic event such as 911. Paper files, fax, and phone messages can be destroyed in a flood or fire but electronic medical records are here to stay. â€Å"Large scale EMR systems replicate their stored records in several places across the country so that one tragic event won’t destroy them† (Torrey, 2011, Para. 4). * Another area that can be benefited by electronic medical records is health care product and service providers. Just like the ads one may find on social networks like face book and MySpace, ads for health care products and services can be place on the web portals that patients and providers use to obtain their electronic medical records. On the patient side, the patients can see new and upcoming health care products that they can discuss with their providers to help with medical issues. They can also see service ads for sites such as Web MD and the Mayo Clinic that help answer other questions they may have regarding healthier lifestyles and other information. On the provider side, there could be ads on new medications and drug reps that can help them decide what medications they would like to prescribe in their facility. * In conclusion, electronic medical records are a huge step forward in the health care world for both providers and patients. This paper has discussed the benefits of electronic medical records for patients as well as one aspect relating to the values and importance of maintaining confidentiality when using this mode of communication. This paper has provided three reasons this mode is an effective means of communication between consumers and providers and explained how this mode of communication differs from others. Finally, this paper has shown how media and social networking change communication in health care as well as how electronic medical records can be used to market health care products or services. * References Huckestein, D. (2011). Patients Benefit from Electronic Medical Records. Retrieved from IHA: http://www. ihacares. com/index. cfm/news-room/patients-benefit-from-electronic-medical-records/ Torrey, T. 2011, April 11). The Benefits of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). Retrieved from About. com: http://patients. about. com/od/electronicpatientrecords/a/EMRbenefits. htm Unknown. (2011, September 14). Electronic Medical Records, Electronic Health Records †¦ . Retrieved from Open Clinical: http://www. openclinical. org/emr. html Unknown. (2011). History of Electronic Medical Records. Retrieved fr om http://www. nasbhc. org/atf/cf/%7BCD9949F2-2761-42FB-BC7A-CEE165C701D9%7D/TA_HIT_history%20of%20EMR. pdf * * * * * How to cite Benefits of Electronic Medical Records, Papers