Lesson AFF 12
Task: Understand cause and effect for behaviors.
Prerequisites: S&L 4, S&L 7, S&L 15
Concept: The purpose of this lesson is to help the student strengthen his or her understanding of behavioral cause and effect. Having "theory of mind" (see the Concept section of AFF 3) is helpful for the student to be successful in this lesson. The instructor provides verbal prompts (examples) to social stories as needed and reduces prompting until "What do you think will happen next?" is the only prompt needed. The instructor must decide if the student's answer is accurate, but the general concept is that a negative, positive, or neutral answer is given that relates to the social story provided. The final steps involve more conversational discussions that relate to the student's own world as related to red or possible Future events. This program can also be used as a group event.
Behavioral Objective: The student will verbally respond with a perceived accurate answer to the question "What do you think will happen next?" to a 90% accuracy level over 20 trials.
Materials: Social stories that relate to the student's real-world environment. These stories should be no more than 5 minutes in length, and topics should relate to the student's life situation. Topics might include, for example, bullying, temptation to do something wrong, what you might do when no one is looking, cheating on a test, doing something kind for someone, helping someone in need, sharing, hitting someone when frustrated, yelling, and being noncompliant. Pictures that relate to the story can also be used if available.
Task Analysis:
1. Present to the student(s) a social story that relates to his/her/their actual life situations. Show pictures while relating the story if reasonable. After sharing the story, provide a response for the group as to what the consequence and outcome might be in the scenario.
2. Continue the process of Step 1, but pause after the story and ask the student(s) if anyone knows what might happen next and what the consequence might be. Answers that serve any logical relationship to the issue should be reinforced with verbal praise. For inaccurate responses or no response, provide the answer and then prompt the student(s) to generally repeat the answer provided.
3. After 10 sessions using Step 2, modify the requested response by not providing a cue or an answer.
4. While the objective can be met after Step 3, attempt to translate these stories into real-life situations that specifically relate to the student. If the student is willing, ask the student to relate a situation that he/she/they may have experienced that is similar to the social story. Since the student will be opening up about personal situations, do not attempt to place negative value judgments on the actions taken by the student. Do, however, support and acknowledge situations where the student did "the right thing."