Teaching Functional Communication Skills to Children with Autism in Early Intervention

This workshop will illustrate through extensive use of video how the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and the application of B.F. Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior can be used in Early Intervention settings to establish and maintain instructional control with children with autism or other developmental disabilities.

Specifically, participants will learn how to:

• Utilize a variety of strategies to identify a student’s reinforcers

• Effectively pair staff, peers, environments, and items/activities with reinforcement

• Teach functional communication skills (requesting/demanding)

• Identify potential candidates for augmentative communication and how to select initial targets

• Contrive motivation to increase teaching/learning opportunities

• Collect data to measure student progress