verbal behavior milestones assessment & placement … · lrffc/iv. doesn’t have any yet. •...

Carl T. Sundberg

VB-MAPPVERBAL BEHAVIORMILESTONES ASSESSMENT &PLACEMENT PROGRAM

MAC 2018

THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

• The primary focus of an intervention program for children with autism should be on the development of effective language and social skills.

• Our first task is to identify the existing skills of each child.

• Our next task is to identify the language, social, behavioral, and learning barriers that are preventing more rapid learning.

• The failure to conduct an appropriate assessment results in one of the biggest problems in programs that serve children with autism:

The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment

• The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment contains:

• Most of the scales correspond with Skinner’s classification of the verbal operants (i.e., echoic, mand, tact, intraverbal).

• An Inappropriate Curriculum

• 170 verbal behavior milestones• 16 different verbal operants and related

skills• 3 developmental levels (0-18 months, 18-

30 months, 30-48 months

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THE VB-MAPPSKILLS ASSESSMENT

• The VB-MAPP will help identify language strengths and deficits

• Gaps in language development

• General and specific language level comparisons to typically developing same age peers.

• The VB-MAPP will direct the order of skills to teach. For example:


• You don’t want to start teaching function intraverbals if the student only has 20 tacts or LR responses.

• You don’t want to start to teach academic skills until the student has the appropriate level of mand, tact, LR, and intraverbal skills.

• You may be able to teach reading but it is likely to be rote because the student does not have the prerequisite verbal repertoire to support reading with comprehension.

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Mands


• Keep building the number, fade the object, fade the IV

• M6: Mand for missing items• M8: Two or more words (go fast, pour

juice)• M11: Manding for information• M13: Adjectives, adverbs, prepositions

(My crayon is broken)

Emits 4 different mands without prompts (but what do you want and object)


Tacts

Has about 15 tacts, all nouns• M7: Generalization• M8: Actions• M9: Two component (noun/noun-

verb/noun) shoes and socks – bouncing ball

• M13/14: Adjective/pronouns combinations sentences (Look at that spider, its scary)


LR

Can select about 30 items from a messy array of 6

Can perform about 5 motor actions on command

• M9: Follows 50 two-component noun/verb combinations (show me the baby sleeping, the ball bouncing).

• M10: Selects the correct item in a book, picture scene or NE for 250 items

• M14: Follows 3 step directions (Get your coat, hang it up, and sit down)


LRFFC/IVDoesn’t have any yet.• M6: Should start simple song fill-ins and

animal sounds (touch the one that says, “woof, woof”, the Itsy Bitsy Spider)

• M7: Start transferring known Tact/LR to LRFFC then to IV (Touch the one you sit in)

• M8-10: Increase number and complexity and Generalization (Feature and Function, “What has wheels?”)

• Level 3, increase complexity and number. More complex conditional discriminations

• Where do you take a bath (common error-soap)

• What grows on your head (common error- hat)

• What do you eat with (common error-pizza)

• I am often asked why a student is not performing well in the classroom or in a social situation.

• I typically find defective language repertoires, especially in the mand and intraverbal.

• Social interactions consist mainly of asking questions and answering questions.

WHY ARE THESEREPERTOIRES IMPORTANT?

• These repertoires represent the cornerstone of language, learning and compliance.

• Success in the classroom is dependent upon receptive skills, expressive skills, conversational skills, imitation skills, and intraverbal skills (answering questions.)

WHY ARE THESEREPERTOIRES IMPORTANT?

Students who are not proficient in these basic repertoires are:

WHY ARE THESEREPERTOIRESIMPORTANT?

• More likely to have behavior problems

• Less likely to do well in the classroom

• Less likely to develop social skills• Less likely to do well with

functional life skills


If you do an analysis of a student’s weaknesses in the classroom, you will most likely find deficiencies in one or many of the basic language and learning repertoires.How, for example, can you expect a student to engage in peer play or social activities?


Can he follow directions?

Can he understand multiple step directions?

Can he answer questions?

What would the following VB-MAPP profile tell you about this student’s classroom readiness skills?

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THE VB-MAPPTASK ANALYSIS & SKILLS TRACKING

The milestones can be considered floors in a building, and the task analysis contains the steps between each floor.

There are 170 milestones and approximately 1000 total tasks in the VB-MAPP task analysis.

The task analysis form also allows for more detailed skill tracking.

Building a whole repertoire, not just individual skills (e.g., mand, tact, M-T-S repertoires).

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• Important to find out what a child can do (The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment), but also what she can’t, and why.

Once a barrier is identified, a more detailed descriptive and/or functional analysis is required.

THE VB-MAPPBARRIERS ASSESSMENT

• VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment designed to identify and score 24 different learning and language acquisition barriers.


• There are many ways for a verbal repertoire or related skill to become defective.

• Individualized analysis is needed to determine what the nature of the problem is for a specific child, and what intervention program might be appropriate.


• Often, absence of skills and presence of barriers are related.• Milestones assessment reveals that child

needs to learn more mands.• Barriers assessment reveals that the

child scrolls and is prompt bound.• These two barriers must be removed in

order for the mand repertoire to grow and become functional for the child.


• Intervention program should focus on freeing the existing mands from prompts and other unwanted sources of control and eliminate scrolling when manding.

• These problems must be fixed before new mands are added.

• If not, new mands will be of little functional use.

COMMONLEARNING & LANGUAGE BARRIERS

• Instructional control (Escape/avoidance)

• Behavior problems

• Defective mand

• Defective tact

• Defective motor imitation

• Defective echoic (e.g., echolalia)

• Defective matching-to-sample


• Defective listener repertoires (e.g., LD, LRFFC)

• Defective intraverbal

• Defective play and social skills

• Prompt dependent, long latencies

• Scrolling responses

• Defective scanning skills

• Failure to make conditional discrimination


• Failure to generalize

• Weak or atypical MOs

• Response requirements weaken the MO

• Self-stimulation

• Articulation problems

• Obsessive-compulsive behavior

• Reinforcement dependent

• Does not attend to people/materials

• Defective social behavior

• For some, immediate focus of intervention is on removing a particular barrier, rather than language instruction.


• Most common immediate barriers to remove involve instructional control problems, or other behavior problems.

SCORING

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DEFECTIVE INTRAVERBAL REPERTOIRE

An Analysis of a

• Intraverbal behavior is most prone to becoming rote.

• Task of directly teaching intraverbal behavior is complicated and endless.

• Early intraverbal training pretty straight forward, but by 3-4 years of age, a typical child acquires 1000s of different intraverbal relations.

• Most adults have hundreds of thousands of different intraverbal relations as a part of their verbal repertoires.


An Analysis of a

• Verbal SDs usually are much more complicated than the nonverbal SDs; have multiple components, in brief time frame.

• Multiple words as SDs almost always involves verbal conditional discriminations (examples)


An Analysis of a

• Multiple words as SDs almost always involves verbal conditional discriminations (examples)• Tell me some THINGS you find the

BEDROOM• Three variables to attend to• Some things vs. A thing• Things vs actions• Bedroom vs. other rooms

• Common errors related to conditional discriminations may include:

• Bed (a thing vs. some things)• Sleep (do vs. find)• Potty, sink, shower (bedroom)


An Analysis of a

• Vocal verbal stimuli are transitory, nonverbal stimuli more static

• Attending to verbal SDs often more laborious than to nonverbal SDs

• Child has not received formal intraverbal training• Child is given training, but it’s too early to focus on

intraverbals• Nonverbal stimuli control response form (tact prompt bound)


An Analysis of a

• Intraverbal curriculum is out of developmental and behavioral sequence

• Rote intraverbal responses have been firmly established due to conditioning history

• Single verbal stimuli and single verbal responses have been over conditioned

• Specific target responses are not in child’s repertoire as tacts, LDs, or LRFFCs


Potential Causes of a

• Child doesn’t attend to multiple verbal stimuli (S-deltas)

• Child does not have sufficient training on verbal conditional discriminations

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Group 1 (Animal sounds & song fill ins) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

A kitty says… + Meow

Twinkle, twinkle, little… + Star

Ready, set… + Set, go

The wheels on the bus go… + Round and round

Rock-a-bye… + Baby

A dog says… + Ruff ruff

Peek-a-… + Peek-a-boo

The itsy bitsy… + Spider

Head, shoulders, knees, and… - Cough

Happy birthday to … + you

Other:

Other:

Total points (10 points maximum): 9

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Group 2 (Name, fill-ins, associations) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

What is your name? + Noah

You brush your… + Teeth

Shoes and … + Feet

You ride a… - Pictures

You flush the… + Toilet

You sleep in a… - Pillow

You eat… + Spaghetti

One, two… + 3

You wash your… + Hands

You sit on a … - down

Other:

Other:


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Group 3 (Simple What Questions) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

What can you drink? - Cup

What can fly? + Bird

What are some numbers? + 1,2,3

What can you sing? - A dance

What’s your favorite movie - Disney movie

What are some colors? - Crayons

What do you read? + Books

What is outside? + Grass

What’s in the kitchen? - Eat

What are some animals? - Cow


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Group 4 (Simple who, where, & age) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

Who is your teacher? + Emma

Where do you wash your hands? _ Soup

Who builds a web? -

Where is the refrigerator? - Cold

Who drives the car? - Wheels

Where do you take a bath? - Water

How old are you? - 1

Where are the trees? - Leaves

Who do you see on TV? - Movies

Why do you use a band-aid? - On your arm


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Group 5 (Categories, function, features) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

What shape are wheels? - Car

What grows outside? - Playground

What can sting you? - Song

What do you do with a sock? - On your feet

What can you push? + Chair

What do you do with a straw? - Juice

What do you write on? - Pencil

Can you name some body parts? - Nose

What’s something that’s sharp? - No response

What do you wear on your head? - hair


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Group 6 (adjectives, prepositions, adverbs) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

What color is my shirt? + White

What do you eat with? - Pizza

What’s up in the ski? + Clouds

What’s above a house? - Window

What do you smell with? - Flowers

What are some hot things? - Chicken

What grows on your head? - Shoulders

What is under a boat? - Sail

What animal has stripes? + Zebra

What color is your shirt? - white


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Group 7 (Multiple part questions) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

What makes you sad? -

Name some clothing. -

Tell me something that is not a food. - Pizza

What helps a flower grow? - Smell

When do we set the table? - On the fork

What do you do with money? - Play it

Why do people wear glasses? - Emma is wearing glasses

Where do you put your dirty clothes? - A shirt

What is something you can’t wear - A shirt

What’s something that is sticky? + candy


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Group 8 (Multiple part questions) Score Write the exact response

given by the child

What’s in a balloon - Pop

What do you take to a birthday party? + Cake

Where do you go if you’re sick? - Dad

Why do you wear a coat? - Zipper

What do you do before bed? - Sleep

What’s your last name? - Noah

What do you put in a sandwich? - Eat

What musical instrument has strings? - Egg shakers

What do you do with an umbrella? - Do the rain

Why do adults need to get gas? - car


• A common goal for many educators and parents of children with special needs is to integrate the child into a mainstream setting.

THE VB-MAPPTRANSITION ASSESSMENT

• There are many different levels of integration and the Transition Assessment was designed to identify the skills that increase the probability that a child will be successful in a less restrictive setting.

• NO single skill will be a good determiner of success, but a collective body of skills can help educators and parents make decisions.

• The VB-MAPP Transition Assessment provides a tool to help determine if a child has the necessary prerequisite skills to learn in a less restrictive classroom environment.


• There are 18 skill areas on the Transition Assessment.

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If a child’s scores on the Transition Assessment are primarily in the range of 0-2, then it is likely that the child will benefit most from a classroom that provides…


• High teacher-to-student ratio• Individualized and intense teaching

session• Careful use of behavioral methodology• Strict performance measures (data)• Regular supervision and monitoring by a

qualified professional• Formal training for the child’s parent or

caretaker

If the child’s scores fall mostly in the 4-5 range, then it is likely that the child would benefit from a classroom that provides:


• Lower teacher-to-student ratio

• Uses a teaching format closer to that used for typically developing children

• But still uses behavioral methodology and performance measurement

• Provides parent and caretaker training

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This sample shows a common profile for many young children with autism.

CURRICULUM PLACEMENT& WRITING IEP GOALS

• Charlie is a 3-year-old child who is showing elevated echoic skills, but does not have any mands, tacts, or listener discriminations, and play and social skills are weak.


• For this child, an intervention program should begin immediately.

• The initial focus should be on using the echoic repertoire to establish mands by using the transfer of control procedures.

• It could be predicted that this child will quickly acquire manding because of the strength of his echoic repertoire.

• Once a couple of mands are established, tact and listener training should begin.


• In general, if a child scores primarily in the Level 1 area, the focus of the intervention should be on establishing the following six basic skills:

• Mands• Tacts• Listener skills• Visual perceptual and matching skills• Imitation• Echoic skills


• Play and social skills are also important and should be a part of the intervention, as well as spontaneous vocalizations.

• High number of teaching trials

• Meticulous data collection

• The teaching style may be more of an intensive format that involves:

• Very carefully arranged contingencies (i.e., prompting, fading, shaping, transfer of stimulus control, use of the MO, differential reinforcement, etc.)

verbal behavior milestones assessment & placement … · lrffc/iv. doesn’t have any yet. •...

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