Many who have spent time building, studying, or implementing autism interventions, recognize the behavioral roots of Precision Songs and Tuneville. Others are surprised to learn the majority of our lyrics come straight from ABA (applied behavior analysis) drill books. While we honor and greatly appreciate the principles and amazing outcomes of ABA, we have found ABA to have a few major practical drawbacks: ABA programs require immense dedication for new skill acquisition through drills and almost equal dedication to retain a skill through relentless review. Motivation is a recurrent problem, not to mention the financial burden and lack of trustworthy practitioners. Even more disheartening, we have personally seen consistent, successful behavioral programs degenerate into out of balance control games. Practitioners find out what is reinforcing and then dole it out in exchange for compliance. An intelligent student then learns to withhold his heart, not showing what truly motivates and excites him. This withholding blocks the path to discovering the joy of learning for its own sake, the optimal reinforcing experience. Precision Songs is a powerful path back to rediscovering this joy by imbedding critical lessons in catchy tunes. Tuneville goes one step further by combining the joy of music with the fun of the ipad. Initial phases of learning are purely self-directed causing the user to forget, if he realizes in the first place, that underneath all the fun are the hard core principles of the most researched based learning intervention - ABA.
No comments:
Post a Comment