Lesson S&L 5
Task: Appropriately respond to the word no.
Prerequisites: ADT 2, S&L 4
Concept: This ability is not one that should be taught from a classroom perspective because the creation or encouragement of negative situations resulting in the reprimanding of a student would not be an ethical teaching approach. This is an important early receptive language skill, however, and can even relate to student safety. The appropriate moment to teach this understanding is when the student is coincidentally engaging in a negative behavior. All people involved in the student's life should be aware of this effort and help in taking similar action, even outside of a classroom setting. Even if it is perceived that the student does not understand language, each of the circumstances where the statement "No" will be made should be explained to the student.
Behavioral Objective: When performing an action that has previously been explained to be undesirable and the student is told "No," the behavior will stop within 3 seconds to a 90% accuracy level for 20 trials.
Materials: None
Task Analysis:
1. Through conversation with the parents, primary caregiver, and/or the person who filled out the original assessment citing this problem, attempt to objectively identify the situations where using the word no to stop a behavior is desirable. No more than five situations should be identified because more examples might cause confusion.
2. Meet with as many people who regularly interact with the student as possible and explain that when any of the behaviors identified in Step 1 occur, that person should firmly state "No," gently but physically remove the student from the situation, and attempt to redirect the student toward some other appropriate activity. Under no circumstances should physical or verbal aggression be used toward the student.
3. Gradually reduce the physical intervention described in Step 2 until only the statement "No" results in the cessation of the behavior.
4. To address the possibility that the negative behaviors are attention seeking, establish a time frame such as every 3 or 5 minutes and provide positive verbal interaction with the student (not necessarily
praise) for each time period that occurs without any of the identified negative behaviors being observed.
5. Gradually increase the time period for giving positive verbal interaction to 15 minutes.
6. After success in Step 5, provide the positive verbal interaction on a random basis, but also attempt to provide at least four positive interactions for each negative interaction.