This talk was filmed at the 2019 CCBS Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL
About the presentation:
Comprehensive ABA treatment at the Lovaas Institute Midwest is recovery oriented. Complete recovery is a challenging goal that requires all of the core features of Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention to be delivered at their optimum levels. These core features are: Early Intervention; Intensive Intervention; Remediation of all Diagnostic Aspects of Autism; Training Parents to Independence; Individualization; Dynamic Programming; and Accountable Treatment. Two crucial features are Early Intervention and Individualization. What this means is that the organization must be geared to efficiently identify and develop the most significant objectives for each different child in as short a time frame as possible The most efficient objectives will result in mastery of essential behavior that is genuinely generalized to all relevant natural interactions and maintained without the need for artificial interventions. There is also a risk that over-training in restricted contexts will not only fail to generalize or maintain, but will impair the likelihood of future generalization or maintenance. To meet these needs, the organizational management system is designed to ensure that the performance of all team members, parents, and supervisors is optimal and accountable on a daily, weekly, six-month, and overall basis. Key measures focus on generative responding, acceleration toward single-trial mastery, recombinative generalization, and naturalization. A multi-layered matrix training system enables the management of the complex task analysis in the most effective manner. Throughout all of this task analysis and program management, the fundamental concern is contingency management. The behavior must be part of an effective schedule of reinforcement, that is highly managed to ensure that the reinforcement is as natural as possible, as minimal as possible, and as generalized as possible to all of the child’s natural social interactions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Cost-effective staff training and management is also a fundamental concern, and so the system utilizes a data collection system that enables timely decision making, to both increase effectiveness when individual acquisition is challenging, and reduce the artificial training parameters as quickly as possible without impairing generalization or maintenance. This staff training and management system is referred to as dynamic programming.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
1. Identify a barrier to high-quality training in public education systems
2. Identify and understand behavioral skills training for public education systems
3. Identify positive effects when teachers received evidence-based training
About the presenter:
Dr. Larsson is currently the executive director of clinical services at the Lovaas Institute Midwest, where he implements a program of intensive early intervention services for families of children who suffer from severe behavior disorders, including autism. He is a Licensed Psychologist and Board Certified Behavior Analyst-Doctoral.
Dr. Larsson is a member of the clinical faculty in the Psychology Department at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches classes in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and in autism. He is currently a board member of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, the Association for Science in Autism Treatment, the Autism Recovery Foundation, the Minnesota Northland Association for Behavior Analysis, and the Autism Treatment Association of Minnesota. He serves on the Autism Advisory Boards of both the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts. He is the Policy Chair of the Minnesota Chapter of Autism Speaks. He serves on the Medical Advisory Board of Erik’s Ranch and Retreats. He is the honorary president of the Fundaçion Planeta Imaginario in Barcelona, Spain.