Behavior analyst offers advice on autistic children

Autistic children can be taught to communicate using basic behavior principles, the expert said.

STAFF REPORT

HERMITAGE, Pa. — The child sitting at the table clutches his head, whines and smacks his teacher on the knee as she encourages him over and over: Touch the dish.

He complies, touching a picture of a dish that’s among other pictures on the table.

Then, he smacks the teacher again and whines some more.

He can find the picture. But he doesn’t know how to ask for a dish should he ever want one. He’s not really communicating, and his obvious frustration is painful to watch in the video before a roomful of professionals and parents who deal with autistic children.

For those children, learning to communicate is difficult. Equally as difficult is teaching them to do it, says Vincent Carbone, a renowned behavior analyst who spoke Wednesday at the 2009 Autism Conference sponsored by Sharon Regional Health System at the Avalon at Buhl.

As he proceeded through his three-hour lecture, it all sounded a lot like common sense.

Don’t reinforce negative behavior by giving the child an item to distract him. That only teaches him that if he wants a diversion, he should engage in that behavior again.

Make yourself as interesting as possible to be around so the child will want to be around you — especially important for an autistic child who’s learned so far that being with adults can be an experience in frustration.

So many times, programs that attempt to teach language skills go astray because they don’t follow basic principles of behavior laid out by none other than iconic behaviorist B.F. Skinner, Carbone added.

And they don’t treat language as a behavior that can be learned according to those principles.

Make sure the child is motivated to communicate. Wait until he wants a toy, then teach what the toy is called and how to ask for it. Reward his request by delivering the toy. The child eventually learns to ask for the toy without being prompted.

Carbone, who has more than 30 years’ experience designing learning environments for people with autism and other developmental disabilities, outlined the methods he and his staff use at his clinic near New York City.

Teach verbal language across four verbal language categories, he said — mand, which means requesting an item or information; tact, which is labeling or identifying objects; echoic, or repeating what’s heard; and intraverbal, which is answering questions or having conversations.

Learning eye contact also is an important skill, he said. Most children develop it naturally, but an autistic child needs to be taught. Using behavior principles helps develop it, he said.