#everydayaba

Well, I probably committed blogging faux pas number 1 by going on and on about toileting in my last post. Not only that, but I have come to realize that I use toileting in a lot of my examples of behaviour analysis principles both on this blog as well as in my training and lectures for staff and students.

Motivating operations (MO); where the need to urinate is the MO while the toilet is the discriminative stimulus (or a tree)

Thinning and fading reinforcement, as in, you can get to a point where a tangible reinforcer, like Smarties for urinating in the toilet, are no longer necessary because the more direct consequence (e.g., dry pants) is effective.

Going to the bathroom as escape/avoidance behaviour.

Task analyses.

Stimulus generalization (and the different toilet variations we encounter in our travels).

“Toileting Data Fridays” was a moniker given to my team’s office block where we would update and analyze the data from our active toilet. training cases and update the parents on next steps.

Stimulus fading and shaping when there are fears of toilets (and letting go of pull-ups).

What can I say?  Toileting is a pretty universal behaviour.

Discriminative Stimulus: Light switch

Behaviour: pressing the light switch up (and down)

Consequence: Light goes on (or light goes off).

Watching a baby get this contingency was pretty cool. They have a particular liking to lights and judging by the grin and checking in with us like, "Did you see that?" they were pretty pleased with what they found.

You can read more about the the most recent Amber Alert we had here in Toronto last night in the link above.  Long story short: dad leaves car unattended (briefly) in a parking lot with keys in ignition and his 3-month old in the backseat.  Car gets stolen with baby inside.  An Amber Alert is issued and a city-wide search for car and suspect begins.  Thankfully the baby was found safe and reunited with his parents.

As the article and public discourse suggests, there are calls from some for the father to be charged.  I’m not a parent so maybe I’m missing some visceral reaction to all of this but I do have to ask, for what purpose or outcome?

So that he never does this again!

To teach this dad a lesson!

The consequence of his actions have already been lived.  If the goal is behaviour change lets see what effect the feelings of dread and anxiety while seeing your child being driven away to unknown places by an unknown person has on decreasing the probability of the dad ever doing that again.  

This video was shared on a behaviour analysis listserv I am a member of. 

The take away message for me: addiction (be it drugs, alcohol, sex, social media) is a problem of behaviour and we need to acknowledge the contexts under which that behaviour occurs.  

An environment that is sparse on social connection and things to do for mastery - all sources of reinforcement - is going to make other available vices more valuable.  If those vices become your primary source of reinforcement then you will seek them out more and more. 

Instead of “Just say NO!” drug prevention, we should be looking at ways of buffering a person’s environment through purposeful and meaningful sources of reinforcement.  

[Image description: a coupon showing a red slushy drink and OPP badge with labels such as, “Operation freeze” and “Positive ticketing program” printed on it.]

One of my friends and colleagues shared this with me.  They were stopped by our Provincial Police (the O.P.P.) as part of a ride check for seat-belt use.  As everyone in the car was safely buckled in, the O.P.P. offered the family members these “tickets” for a free Froster (Mac’s Milk’s version of the 7-11 Slurpee). 

[Image description: A white bankers (or file) box with ‘ABA journals & conferenc materials’ and ‘Office’ written on the lid of the box.] 

In a previous post I talked about the verbal operant, tact and how they function in our day to day verbal lives.  We tact our experiences - i.e., we say what we think, feel and sense in order to share that experience with others.  I love analyzing people's tacts; especially children's.  When so much of the world is still new to them and they want to share, we get some interesting labels for things. These are due to tact extensions.  Tact extensions arise when something being talked about shares a quality with previously learned tacts. Because that word or label worked before to describe something that was similar, it is used again. Tact extensions can also occur when you don’t know the word for something so you try to use what words you do know to describe it. These words might describe features or functions of the object. For example, if you’re not familiar with the word, ‘air conditioner’, you might tact it as, “A box you put in your window to cool your place down”.  Tact extension are not really errors as the person is using learned and previously functional words to label and describe.  It just requires more work from the listener to reinforce and show an understanding of what the person is trying to say.     

Some tact extensions I have heard:

When any older person is called “grandma” or “grandpa”

When all four legged creatures are either “cat” or “dog” depending on which word they learned first.

“Pants in the water” was used to indicate swimming

Repeating a phrase from a particular emotional scene in a movie/TV show that seems to match the emotions of the current situations.  Here is an example of how echolalia can function.

Referring to an LP record as a plate.

Tact extensions show the strength of one’s vocabulary and how language is learned from experience with our physical and social environments.  They really are fascinating to hear and be part of.  

Related posts:

Are you asking me or just saying?