Category Archives: Community

“Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis” is redundant. Here’s why I use it anyway.

03 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by in adults, Behavior Analysis, boundaries of competence, children, collaboration, Community, contextual fear conditioning, Education, ethics, extinction, renewal effect, TIBA, trauma, trauma-informed behavior analysis, Uncategorized

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“Trauma-informed behavior analysis”: Redundant term or useful phrase?

This is the 16th article in a series on Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis by Dr. Teresa Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D.

Trauma-informed behavior analysis, abbreviated TIBA, is a phrase I’ve been using for a few years now to describe what I do to people outside behavior analysis. I do this because it helps them to understand how I apply the science, and not to suggest that “regular” behavior analysis should not address trauma. From those behavior analysts who have not been to my trainings, I often hear the question “Isn’t it redundant to describe behavior analysis as trauma-informed?” I would argue that the short answer to this question is “yes”. However, this article describes why the more important and longer answer is “yes—and it’s still useful”.

About this outline: As one of our current projects at Cusp Emergence, Dr. Camille Kolu is aggregating several years of data (including feedback from existing BCBAs, educators, foster parents, and social workers) in writing a set of articles on the topic of applying the science of behavior analysis to behavior change after a person has experienced significant trauma. This topic comes up frequently on behavior analytic forums. Please note that this brief outline does not describe the SAFE-T model (by which we advocate appropriate supervision, functional assessment, risk documentation, and environmental modification and training) or solutions to all the challenges it raises. Check out the other blogs on this topic, email us if you’d like to provide comments and questions, or see cuspemergenceuniversity.com for CEU and training opportunities.

Background: How is “trauma-informed behavior analysis” redundant?

I. The ethical practice of behavior analysis already requires it.

  1. We individualize (see BACB Compliance Code item 4.03)
  2. We should practice within our expertise (1.02)
    1. People whose lives are changed by major traumatic histories are changed in ways that distinguish them and their needs for specific supports, much like people who engage in serious self injury or have eating disorders are distinguished as a sub population who can benefit by specific expertise and training. We accept clients only if we are appropriately trained (2.01)
  3. We are already tasked with taking history into account, including analyzing functional relationships (3.01) and referring to consultation for medical needs as appropriate (3.02)
  4. We should refer and collaborate when needed (2.03a and 2.03b)

II. The application of behavior analysis already covers it (see Baer, Wolf and Risley 1968, 1987)

  1. Appropriate ABA tackles behavior of meaningful social significance, which it (behavior that is related to historical traumatic or aversive events) certainly is
  2. Appropriate ABA is conceptually systematic, and treatment of behavior after trauma may be conducted within the conceptual basis of behavior science
  3. We already have interventions that can be applicable and effective with this population (see our resources page for a partial reference list) including treatments for post traumatic stress disorder, using acceptance and commitment therapy principles from behavior analysis, and schedule related procedures including NCR for challenging behaviors; or see Fahmie, Iwata and Mead 2016; Iwata, Petscher, Rey and Bailey 2009; Richman, Barnard-Brak, Bosch and Abby, 2015)

III. The underlying science of behavior analysis and work on learning and behavior already describes phenomena related to behavior after trauma (see literature on reinstatement, contextual conditioning, respondent behavior, extinction in multiple contexts, etc)

  1. Laboratory work on extinction challenges from a respondent conditioning perspective can help us understand some of the unique challenges people face after experiencing trauma (see Bouton 2004)
  2. In basic research, “renewal” (return of behavior that was previously extinguished, after exposure to a conditioned stimulus- see Bouton and Bolles 1979; Harris 2000) is stronger with respondent behavior than operant behavior (Crombag and Shaham 2002)
  3. But younger behavior analysts may not have been trained to adequately appreciate respondent conditioning’s effects on behavior, and to teach others how to work with behaviors that are not operant. They may over-rely on using consequences to change behaviors, leading to criticism that “this stuff doesn’t work with my client impacted by trauma”. (Respondent conditioning is an item on both the 4th and 5th edition task lists, although respondent-operant interactions (see 4th edition, item FK-16) has been removed).

The current state: How is the phrase “trauma-informed behavior analysis” still useful (even needed) if it’s technically redundant?

I. I believe it’s helpful to both practitioners and client base.

  1. For practitioners: widespread practicing out of expertise incurs huge risks to clients, agencies, individuals and communities.
    1. Many people assume that the application of behavior analytic principles to trauma affected populations requires no nuances, and have harmed others
    2. There are not widely available risk assessments and tools to help those of us in this subarea document and collaborate as effectively as we need to
    3. There is not a collective understanding of how the collaboration can work, and many behavior analysts proceed unethically (although unintentionally)
  1. For clients: People needing the service are thwarted by bad (or just uninformed) press about ABA or and many think that ABA would be ineffective, harmful, or contradictory to their trauma-informed colleagues’ practice. This phrase gives me a way of introducing my services and assuring the recipients that I
    1. will, and do, consider their history of trauma as something that informs everything I will do for them
    2. will still be practicing behavior analysis, but from this specifically informed perspective
    3. honor both their specific background and their individual needs, using my own training and expertise in behavior analysis informed by additional experiences with social workers, those in the foster family community and others

II.  This phrase also gives me a way in, to talk to groups who haven’t had good experiences with behavior analysis

  1. including professional educators, school psychologists and therapists who have attempted collaborations that failed because clients’ trauma was overlooked or the practices were ineffective
  2. and including foster and adoptive families for whom the practice of “everyday ABA” included go-to strategies that were not (or at least not at first) helpful to their clients
  3. or people who haven’t had ANY experiences with behavior analysis (in my practice this includes people from these groups):
    1. Lawyers and courts
    2. Court appointed special advocates
    3. Social workers
    4. Trauma therapists
    5. Foster families and adoption agencies

Dreaming of the future

My goals include that one day in the near future,

  1. Treating behavior after trauma is a specialty in which behavior analysts can readily obtain experience from several field experts, similar to how they gather expertise specifically in treating behaviors such as severe self-harm, pica, or disordered eating, or behaviors in people with autism or genetic differences, or those in pediatric or geriatric populations.
  2. For recipients of behavior analysis, it will be simple and easy to find several options for treatment for behavior after trauma, from people with appropriate understanding, training and supervision, that can help them and collaborate effectively with other members of their team
  3. There are multiple funding streams to readily serve the population (examples: foster care, social workers, etc)
  4. And “everyday behavior analysis” is no longer viewed as contradictory to the support that would benefit people with historical experiences described as traumatic

Takeaway: I agree that saying behavior analysis should be “trauma-informed” can be redundant, since the basic science is rigorous enough to describe why our behavior is changed after and challenged by trauma. But I use it because it helps communicate what I do to people who have a specific history, and to help other behavior analysts understand how to establish an ethical approach to the intense documentation, risk mitigation, collaboration, and assessment that is required while using existing behavior analytic procedures to support those affected.

What’s your take? Send me a note or share a resource any time.

See or add to our growing reference list related to behavioral treatment of trauma.

Beauty and the Bug: Trauma and individuals who are differently abled

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in adults, Autism, BACB CEU, Behavior Analysis, boundaries of competence, CEU, collaboration, Community, continuing education, mental health, Rett's, trauma, Uncategorized

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Beauty and the Bug (in which we briefly explore trauma and non-neurotypical people, ask how to raise tender-hearted children, and see a bug portrait in pointillism)

This is the 15th article in a series on Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis by Dr. Teresa Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D.

How do we teach others to tend the needs of those who cannot express them (or for that matter, appreciate the lesson of loss, the tenderness of pain, the beauty in brokenness)? And how common is trauma in individuals with serious developmental disabilities? Many of us have not considered the relevance, let alone the prevalence. Is this because we can’t see it, don’t hear about it, or think that it is out of our scope to address? These questions occurred to me this week as I thought about a participant from a recent training I provided, who asked if the model of trauma-informed behavior analysis (about which I’ve been writing here) applied to individuals with intellectual differences (it does!). Even to us professionals in the field of behavior analysis, the complexity of and subtlety of trauma and behavior remains elusive.

This week my family lost a wonderful man. He and his wife tended to the needs of others (often before their own). Also this week, my reason for taking a work break turned three months old, and Imagine! (a nonprofit agency in my area) had its annual celebration. As I mulled over these questions about trauma and differences and on raising good people, a therapist friend posted Imagine’s video of one of their clients. I realized I had not blogged before specifically about treating challenging behavior in someone who is differently abled. I need to do that, lest one more reader think that this approach (trauma informed behavior analysis) is mainly useful for “vocal” clients, or those who can easily articulate their pain and past. Today, Shelly and her zany personality inspired me to do this.

Individuals with developmental and intellectual differences express or show their history and needs in different ways, and sometimes caregivers overlook the contributions and signs of trauma, neglect or even ongoing abuse. When we (especially behavior analysts) overlook these, we are not addressing the real reasons for challenging behavior, and we might miss the importance of connecting the person with critical mental health resources, or of offering a chance to heal past wounds. We know about functional communication training. But do we fully address subtle needs to communicate pain—both emotional and physical? And when someone lives in an environment or is exposed repeatedly to a situation or person that is aversive (even abusive!) do we teach them to effectively advocate for removal and communicate their discomfort, or do we merely try to reduce the “challenging behavior” that often accompanies the terrible situation? Do we recognize the signs of abuse in individuals who have few skills to communicate?

Too many times, I took a case where team members requested decreases in “challenging behaviors” in someone with diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer, or Spina Bifida, before the team had recognized that the main thing challenging about the behavior was that it was going on because the individual had NO dignified way out. A conversation with a peer last week revealed that without training in these issues, a behavior therapist or even the entire team might treat “suicidal ideation” as a “behavior to be decreased” rather than a serious problem to be solved. (Even when this “behavior” is partly a habit the person has learned to use as a tool to produce needed attention from others, a whole behavior analysis of the situation would consider the risks and possible outcomes of addressing it in different ways, and document and address the related needs to understand and address why this was happening.)

As Shelly and her team alluded to in the video, the very state of not being able to communicate one’s needs and preferences can be traumatic in itself, and can lead one to develop desperate behaviors that just get called “behaviors for reduction” in the individualized behavior plans of thousands of clients. Today there are no more excuses for not helping someone access and master a communication system that works for them. To be sure, not everyone has access to a Smart Home residence decked out with all the tools we saw on the video- but have you seen the article on an accessible app developed by the brother of a man with autism in Turkey (so that he could communicate needs  and gain leisure skills using only his smartphone)?

Tragically, many of my clients went through abuse and neglect and need someone to write careful and informed behavior plans that teach them skills they did not have at the time, like articulating emotional and physical pain, advocating for their needs, and requesting to be removed from a serious adverse situation. Just as important, these clients need an informed analyst who designs ways that these skills will persist when the client moves environments, as I found when a former client kept being exposed to new team after new team that didn’t read the plan and failed to recognize the communicative intent of the behaviors, and the medical component to the “challenges” the team demanded to be decreased. This calls for TIBA or trauma informed behavior analysis (if the team is not already using it).

So it’s not enough for our clients to learn these skills one time. The people who make up the audience, the environment, must respond enough to maintain them. If I ask for help and you respond no, why would I ask again? Remember the lessons of the family whose school team actually discouraged them from using “saying no” as a goal for their adolescent girl with autism, arguing that they didn’t have the resources to deal with her protesting all day long. Actually, the opposite is more likely to be true—that when our “no” is respected (listened to the first time), its use will be more limited to situations in which the person really “needs” it.

So back to my original questions. How do we raise little ones who are likely to grow up to appreciate and shape the voice of the voiceless, who honor the needs of people in ugly situations, who see the beauty in what others view as broken or beyond repair? How do we insure people will have the internal resources to value what isn’t immediately perceived as “valuable” by the culture? Maybe it starts when they are little, in modeling ways we can accord dignity to the frail, the elderly, the dirty. We cultivate tenderness as we show them we appreciate the spiderweb (AND the spider), the weed and its flower, the worm (thanks, mom and dad, Nicolette Sowder of wilderchild, and my very first client who taught me that not being able to talk is not the same as not having anything to say- click here to learn about Rett Syndrome).

Thanks to mom and dad, I still notice bugs and their beauty. I thought this one was wonderful when I looked closely, so I spent even more time to study and draw him. I thought he became even more beautiful as I continued to look. Maybe you can see his beauty too.

edh

Colorado Potato Beetle by Camille Kolu (c) 2018

P.S. There is so much trauma in our schools today, whether you work with students who are “typically developing/ neurotypical” or those with intellectual, developmental and physical differences. Don’t miss the next course from Cusp Emergence University on trauma informed behavior analysis in the educational setting (complete with CEU’s including one for ethics).

Some references and resources

CuspEmergenceUniversity

Articles on prevalence of assault and ACES in individuals with developmental differences:

https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/14/2/87.short

http://www.cfp.ca/content/52/11/1410.short

https://www.acesconnection.com/fileSendAction/fcType/0/fcOid/399727599841302176/filePointer/399727599841302363/fodoid/399727599841302361/ACESandDevelopmentalDisabilitiesSteveMarcal.pdf

Read about Imagine! Smart Homes: https://imaginecolorado.org/services/imagine-smarthomes

Watch Shelly’s story: https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t42.9040-2/51213666_2064787060269873_328394071330521088_n.mp4?_nc_cat=110&efg=eyJybHIiOjMxMSwicmxhIjoxMjA3LCJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InN2ZV9zZCJ9&_nc_ht=video.fads1-1.fna&oh=79aed874369dc8f2ab3a3cc89efdd34c&oe=5C4F807E

Read about the man who developed an app for his brother: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-47001068/how-brotherly-love-led-to-an-app-to-help-thousands-of-autistic-children

https://imaginecolorado.org/

Get the full TIBA (trauma informed behavior analysis series): https://cuspemergence.com/tiba-series/

 

Dr. Kolu of Cusp Emergence interviewed by Awake Labs

19 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in adults, Behavior Analysis, children, Community, data, Education, job aids, resources, trauma, trauma-informed behavior analysis, Uncategorized

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This post is part of the series on Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis by Dr. Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D.

TIBA quote

Sometimes you meet someone who does work that you can really get behind. Over the past month, I have enjoyed learning about Awake Labs, a Canadian company providing easy and elegant solutions to self-advocates, families and teams who need to track information, data, and progress in the context of clients’ stories and strengths. Their Reveal Stories are an interesting way to do this. Awake Labs partners with community educators, providers, and medical professionals, offering ways to collect data and graph progress. During our conversations this month, Paul Fijal of Awake Labs also interviewed me about my work with trauma and behavior analysis, posting our interview on their blog. Check it out!  

https://awakelabs.com/

 

Spotlight on team role: CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates)

07 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by in Behavior Analysis, CASA, children, collaboration, Community, Court Appointed Special Advocate, Education, ethics, resources, Uncategorized

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This post is part of the series on Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis by Dr. Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D.

Why is this in the trauma-informed series? Behavior analysts have ethical responsibilities to disseminate information about our field (Compliance Code item 6.02), cooperate with others (2.03), individualize treatment based on the contextual variables involved in our clients’ cases (4.03), and identify, eliminate and communicate about the environmental constraints on the effectiveness of our treatment plans (4.07). All four of these ethical imperatives can be positively impacted by involving CASA! And these ethical areas are even more important when treating behavior of a person who has been through trauma, abuse or neglect.

Spotlight on team role: CASA, or Court Appointed Special Advocates

Cusp Emergence has had a busy summer! We’ve been continuing public speaking and training, spreading the word about trauma-informed behavior analysis to community partners. There are few things more rewarding than working on a case with a partner who asks us to come back and train their agency, providing continuing education for their team members. This is even more exciting when the provider is newer to behavior analysis. We love disseminating information about the field and hearing from the community!

This post is a shout-out spotlighting CASA. Never heard of them? These people form a compassionate army of people from all walks of life providing long-term relationships and supportive advocacy to local children whose lives involve the family court and foster care system. Some organizational positions are paid to keep the group running, but many are volunteers. The program is nationwide, and depending on the location and jurisdiction, a CASA may be a guardian ad litem or volunteer their time. Some are young professionals, others are retirees; they have in common a passion for children who have experienced inconsistency in caregiving, often including abuse and neglect. Court Appointed Special Advocates receive extensive training and may donate their time to attend visits with the child in the child’s group home, foster home, adoptive family home, residential facility, or hospital. I see them advocating at meetings, attending court dates to speak in the child’s best interest after gathering information; visiting at school; and attending trainings where I provide reviews of behavior assessments and plans. For some children removed due to abuse and neglect, a CASA may be the ONE familiar face present at family court, several foster homes, many schools, and holiday parties held in the hospital where the child was placed after using aggression and receiving a medication change. Caseworkers are familiar too, but may change more than the court appointed special advocates—many of whom follow a child for life.

Maybe you’re a BCBA reading this, thinking “How does this relate to my role?”

First, if you’ve got a client in foster care, you can ask the client’s caseworker if the person has a CASA. If so, you can offer to meet with them and learn more about their role and their history with the person. (I have never had a CASA refuse to meet with me, although this is on their own time—more commonly they are excited to learn about behavior supports, and often advocating to get me on their other cases after they learn more about behavior analysis).

I also train all my client’s CASAs in the functional behavior assessment results and behavior plan. Why?

  • On their visits they may see challenging behavior and want to know the best, and most supportive, way to respond or prevent challenges.
  • They may conduct unannounced visits in the child’s home or school, and these may be followed by increases in challenging behavior that the team finds confusing. It is helpful to educate the entire team, CASA included, on the changes in behavior that may occur after the child is visited by an unannounced person associated with previous family visits, even if the child typically enjoys visits with the CASA.
  • Since the CASA is by definition an advocate, they can be very helpful in sharing information with the court or team that help them to put behavior services in place. In some areas, services can be more difficult to fund if a child has severe behavior needs but not a diagnosis like autism that makes it easy to get insurance on board. In these cases, the county or court may step in and require or help fund some behavioral treatment that is instrumental in helping the foster family understand and manage the child’s behaviors.

Thank you so much, to Becca and Mara at CASA of Adams and Broomfield Counties! It was fantastic to see so many of your team last month.

Want to learn more?

Check out the national CASA movement:

http://www.casaforchildren.org/site/c.mtJSJ7MPIsE/b.5301295/k.BE9A/Home.htm

Are you local to the Cusp Emergence community around Adams County, Colorado? Check out the Adams County CASA page (and be sure to attend their free informational event on October 18!)

https://casa17th.org/

Read about CASA in the news, with stories about topics like how to become a CASA…

https://www.caller.com/videos/news/2018/07/12/how-become-court-appointed-special-advocate/35522163/

or read from the perspective of a judge whose decisions are informed by their work:

http://www.sj-r.com/x1374045505/Court-Appointed-Special-Advocate-program-history

Find the Behavior Analysis Certification Board Compliance Code here:

https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/170706-compliance-code-english.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

Too risky to document risks?

17 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in adults, Behavior Analysis, behavior cusp, Behavioral Cusp, boundaries of competence, collaboration, Community, Education, ethics, resources, risk analysis, risk assessment, risk versus benefit analysis, supervision, teaching behavior analysis, teaching ethics, trauma, trauma-informed behavior analysis, Uncategorized

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This post is part of a series on trauma-informed behavior analysis by Dr. Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D.

When treating behavior concerns after trauma, we may find that clients exhibit risks to themselves, risks to their community, and risks to caregivers that should be documented. Why have behavior analysts sometimes turned a blind eye to documenting these risks? Read on to discover some common reasons I found in the field, and ways we can address them. 

When it’s too risky to even consider the risks

Our field has adopted a Compliance Code which mentions the need to document risks. As an instructor for courses in a BACB-approved course behavior analysis course sequence, I use a textbook that provides sample templates for documenting and analyzing risks. And as a practitioner, I have found that my analysis or assessment of risk is almost always helpful to a case (as in some situations I’ll describe below), not to mention that it’s quick and simple it is to do.

Despite these facts, most behavior analysts I encounter do not analyze risks in any sort of written format. The behavior analysts around me range from BCBA-Ds to RBTs, and many have expertise and long careers. Why are we averse to documenting risks?

I have been researching the answer to this question for several years, and often the answer is “because I don’t have a good risk assessment”. So I made some and piloted them with different agencies, working through the problems of how to identify, define, document and mitigate the risks related to the populations with whom I work most closely. But at a recent training opportunity I received a different kind of answer, and I think it’s too important to keep to myself.

Some of the BCBA’s I talked to at that event were not documenting risks, they acknowledged, because it was just too risky.

At first it seemed counterintuitive. If I was providing a new document that made it easy to document several options, and the potential risks and benefits of each, wasn’t that inherently reducing the risk? No, it turns out. To many of us, highlighting a risk necessarily imposes some degree of liability.

We’ve faced this challenge before. In pointing out a problem we may become partially responsible for solving it, as some educators have learned the hard way when their schools are upset with them for discussing the observations of a student’s difficulties outside of the official process. This responsibility may carry a financial burden or create an unsolvable problem in a resource-poor area. And some pediatricians I know have mentioned the frustrating dilemma of being given a new depression screen for teens or moms, only to have nowhere to go with the results.

A new ethical responsibility is only as useful as your agency’s process to fulfill that responsibility, and procedures to support the people implementing the new responsibilities.

And in the discussion with the BCBA’s that day about risk documentation, I learned something really interesting. The specific language I used made a huge difference in their willingness of adopting a new procedure.

When I called it a “risk assessment”, BCBA’s were unwilling to adopt my new “assessment”, even if it was backed up by the compliance code and plenty of evidence and anecdotes how it has supported my work.

But when I called it a “risk versus benefit analysis”, they were willing to try.

The difference?

“Risk assessment” is a loaded term that carries legal weight in many contexts.

On the contrary, the other term (“risk versus benefit analysis”) is something that I use daily, and that is simply a process of documenting and analyzing the several different options available, together with their respective potential risks and benefits. It’s called for by the Compliance Code (and discussed by Bailey and Burch in their Ethics text).

According to the Compliance Code, “a risk-benefit analysis is a deliberate evaluation of the potential risks (e.g., limitations, side effects, costs) and benefits (e.g., treatment outcomes, efficiency, savings) associated with a given intervention. A risk-benefit analysis should conclude with a course of action associated with greater benefits than risks.”

The Compliance Code mentions risks in several places. In 2.04b, we are to consider risks of performing conflicting roles (e.g., when we are clarifying third party involvement in services). In 2.09c we are asked to use a risk-benefit analysis as part of our process in deciding between different treatments. And in 4.05, we are asked to work with stakeholders to present the potential risks versus benefits of which procedures we plan to use to implement program objectives. 7.02 asks us to consider risks involved, when there may have been an ethical or legal violation by a peer. And of course, we consider the potential risks and benefits when doing research (9.02).

The Task List does not mention “risk” by name, but alludes to the process when requiring that we are required to be able to state and plan for the possible unwanted effects of reinforcement (C-01), punishment (C-02), or extinction (C-03), as well as behavioral contrast (E-07). Similarly, the Code makes it clear that we are to identify potential for harm with using reinforcement (4.10) and identify obstacles to implementing recommended treatment (4.07).

In my practice, the most efficient way to meet all these objectives and more, is to complete a risk-benefit analysis. I love to include sections on mitigating the risks I do identify, so that the team can make an informed decision about what resources, training, information or support they will need to implement the least risky option.

And a final benefit I’ve heard many stakeholders mention during this process (and typically I do the analysis as an open discussion in which they are involved and brainstorming), is usually stated like this: “I didn’t think we had any other options, but when we approached this with a goal to identify alternatives and the risks and benefits of each, we uncovered several more”.

The risk versus benefit analysis is something I document, add to a treatment plan or employee or client file or IEP, or simply something I share with the team in writing and in person to solidify systems support for my next move. Recently, the following situations were ameliorated by using a transparent risk versus benefit analysis. Outcomes included increasing appropriate funding; securing appropriate medications; identifying appropriate caregivers; funding appropriate training; and improving client satisfaction.

-what kind of residential facility would be most appropriate to move a client to

-whether to discharge a client now or later

-whether to use a cheaper program with fewer resources or a costly one with many

-whether to put a client in a foster home in a potentially risky but supportive situation

-whether to delay an assessment to have an operation

-under what conditions should we discontinue a client who violates our informal no-show policy

-what caregiver to select from several available

-how to appropriately include police contact in a plan in a way that reduced long term risks

-what medication to decrease and when

-whether to put a student in a restrictive school with more behavior support, or a less restrictive placement with more social interaction options

As you can see by the last two, sometimes these decisions are not cut and dry. They depend on the team and family input, and one family may weigh a given outcome more heavily than another.  Everyone has a history. To do these analyses in a compassionate and open way is important, and sometimes we don’t agree. To involve high level stakeholders and funders is critical as well.

What are the risks of doing a risk-benefit analysis? Perhaps you’ll highlight more risks than you thought were there; perhaps you’ll have to take some responsibility for the outcome of your recommendations. But what are the risks of avoiding this important process? If you are certified, your responsibility as a behavior analyst “is to all parties affected by behavior-analytic services” (e.g., 2.02). So are there risks of not documenting risks? Sure. You could cause harm or be negligent if there is a known risk you didn’t plan for or discuss with the team. Just like there are risks, there are benefits too. Doing a good risk versus benefit analysis is certainly a helpful cusp for supervisors and behavior analysis leaders to acquire! Many times we have uncovered risks that can be totally avoided next time if we were to act now to change or solidify policies, or use preventative measures in the future. A risk-benefit analysis can be a wonderful contribution to discussing lessons learned.

There are more options to be uncovered. Go out there and find and document them!

Want a resource? Check out the 3rd edition of the Bailey and Burch text Ethics for Behavior Analysts (2016), read more on Cusp Emergence , or check out a risk versus benefit tool (I like to do this on a whiteboard with my teams).

Convinced? Have a question? Drop us an email. And thanks for reading about this important topic. We’d love to see how YOU document and discuss risks!

Part 14 in Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis: Intersections with Mental Health

21 Monday May 2018

Posted by in adults, Behavior Analysis, boundaries of competence, collaboration, Community, enriched environment, mental health, supervision, teaching behavior analysis, teaching ethics, trauma, trauma-informed behavior analysis, Uncategorized

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(Part 14 of a series of posts about Trauma-informed behavior analysis by Dr. Teresa Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D)

Connections between mental health and behavior analysis cof

This topic is always close to my heart as I work regularly in mental institutions, and as my business supports wellness practices that affect everyone—including those of us who need help prioritizing our own mental health. But it’s an especially important topic right now: May is Mental Health Month!

Sometimes my work involves conducting an assessment to see whether a client needs behavior analysis, or mental health support, including ways to thrive with a history that includes mental illness. In other words, sometimes (many times!) directly providing mental health support goes beyond my scope, and my job in those cases involves referring to other providers or more typically, collaborating with them. But instead of those cases, today we discuss some intersections between behavior analysis and mental health. If you’re board certified or licensed you’ll want to keep a copy of your field’s ethics code handy (here’s mine, as a BCBA-D). If you’re a family or team member wondering about these connections, read on.

No matter your certification, it’s never ethical to work completely out of one’s boundaries of competence. However, it’s also true that applied behavior analysis has supported individuals with mental illness concerns (including those with symptoms of challenges such as schizophrenia) since the field’s very beginnings. Young BCBAs without historical education in the full range of our field’s applications might have been surprised to see the transformation on some 1950’s psych wards of a population with various psychiatric disorders as patients changed from non-social and despondent individuals to interacting with their peers and their behavior analysts. They met goals they set for starting to take care of themselves again as they got dressed, talked more with peers, worked, visited families, and traded in tokens they earned for individual items they wanted to earn, such as a radio to keep in their room. In the earliest days of applied behavior analysis, Ogden Lindsley and colleagues used reinforcement schedules and behavioral apparatus to analyze psychotic behavior and to reveal that it was subject to operant mechanisms just like other behavior. Behavioral treatment of schizophrenia, in that area, became robust, effective, and almost commonplace. For example, Kurt Salzinger analyzed the verbal behavior of persons with schizophrenia and showed that it was related to discriminative stimuli and consequences of people around the patients (Salzinger and Pisoni, 1958, 1961). A later literature review of articles between 1959 and 1972 (Stahl and Leitenberg, 1976) showed that across 23 articles describing programs for psychotic and chronic mental patients, the individualized behavior programs were widely and substantially effective, producing large improvements in the behaviors that were targeted. History students might enjoy Stephen Wong’s “Behavior Analysis of Psychotic Disorders: Scientific dead end or casualty of the mental health political economy?” (Wong, 2006).

But don’t forget the important caution I mentioned while beginning this section: Without training and expertise and supervision in a given population, any work, no matter your field’s history, is still out of one’s scope. Even so, for those behavior analysts with a more limited history, there are still the vast literatures on the empowering use of self-management to change addictive behavior, manage anxiety, self-monitor triggering situations and select and strengthen one’s own coping skills. These are widely used and well researched. In fact, before there was ACT (or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), there was self-management. (For a good introductory text on behavioral self management see Alexandra Logue’s Self Control: Waiting Until Tomorrow for What You Want Today). Wherever social contingencies matter, behavior analysis can generally help.

Although using behavior analysis in mental institutions generally fell out of favor decades ago, it has been markedly effective in my last few years of work helping others with mental illness learn skills needed to transition to meaningful lives outside the institution, sometimes after decades in those facilities (or years in group homes, foster homes, and inpatient units). Here, the behavior analytic skills of systems support and functional assessment have been useful for teaching teams how to support individuals who had nearly given up on finding a more permanent home.

Collaboration with providers

What someone needs most and first is sometimes collaboration and support, not an intensive 1:1 ABA session. For my clients with mental illness or mental health needs, it has been extremely helpful to:

-get the entire team on the same page

-look at what has been going wrong (e.g., review incident reports and challenges that have repeatedly plagued the attempts to help the person)

-discover what the team wants

-find out what has been a recurring problem? What is keeping the client from the life they want? Who cares about the client and what skills are missing?

-establish communication protocols for the team

-find out what behavioral and other strategies were already in place and whether or how they are working (Often, a team has been using a token system, or behavior plans, or consequences, or attempts to change behavior using antecedents or instructions and modifying motivation, before a behavior analyst ever entered the picture. Our job is to document what has been done and how this has worked; along the way we can often help an entire agency understand how to make their routine interventions more ethical and effective.)

When I have gathered all of that information plus interviewed team members and my client, documented my review of reports, other supports, and the contributions of medical, historical and childhood factors and the client’s and team goals, I have the makings of a behavior assessment and am able to begin sharing recommendations with the team. These recommendations may include more appropriate and consistent strategies, additional documentation of risks to the client and their community, and training on treatments and ways of interacting that may be more effective and helpful to the team and client than what has been attempted in the past.

Stop for a minute: does all of this suggest that a client is necessarily out of a behavior analyst’s scope of service because they struggle with mental illness? No; furthermore, nothing suggested here discounts the important roles of mental health counselors, psychiatric nurses, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists, and the other members of the treatment team. If anything, my past several years of work has taught me that a good collaboration has usually resulted in making their roles work even better.

Another way behavior analysis is involved in mental health is the important need to protect our own mental health.

In our line of work, we must be able to respond compassionately and calmly to burned-out staff or clients whose behavior “targets” us, perhaps physically, emotionally, or all of the ways a staff person can be targeted or hurt in the line of work. A recent and excellent training on ACT for intellectual disability shared studies in which it helped reduce staff burnout and increase engagement with clients. These two are related, for when I am healthy and calm I can respond more appropriately and consistently to my clients. Since my clients are often staff, it also helps when I train them in techniques that will help them maintain consistency and calm when they are confronted with the daily grind of their own jobs.

One of the simplest yet most effective interventions is arranging an enriched environment—it grows neurons, increases social behavior, and supports virtually every population. Although it can take less time than waiting and intervening in crises, it is not something an inpatient staff can or wants to do when burned out.

When I teach staff how to stay calm and respond calmly and with preventative input (e.g., my preventative schedule or NCR approach), this is often a burnout-protective approach. It IS behavior analytic, but it’s not complicated.

Connections no one planned

Mental health and ABA are also connected accidentally, when a mental health therapist learns their client is receiving ABA, or a behavior analyst learns their client has also been diagnosed (e.g., anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, or others). In these moments we are forced to look at the connection: what do we do to support the client? Ethically, perhaps we should reach out to learn how the family feels about collaboration; maybe the psychiatric team would love to hear how we are supporting behavior change at home or school and how the data change when medications are changed; or maybe there are important risks to document, or helpful suggestions to make that would help the team stay on the same page. Yet often one or more parties says “not my role!” and makes no efforts to implement connected support. Notice again this is still not suggesting to go outside your role, but to work more collaboratively with others as much as it is appropriate (e.g., Ethics Code 2.03a-b).

Taking care of myself

Finally, here are some other simple behavior analytic strategies that help me manage and protect my own mental health so I stay focused and available to bring my best self to client interaction.

Manage my schedules of reinforcement

I carve out time for myself daily- I make time for tea, breakfast and stretching- all important preventative appetitive things I need to approach regularly.

Set up and honor stimulus control strategies to decrease my exposure to stressors

-Take off email notifications on my phone: Sure, you don’t have to answer them, but how many times has one subject line told you about an upcoming stressor, increased your heart rate, or interrupted your use of coping skills or important family time?

-Limit checking email to when you are prepared to respond (not necessarily by hitting reply, but read it and respond by writing a note you’ll save and send later, perhaps). (If scrolling through my account before bed I notice an inflammatory email, I can pause and return tomorrow. I recently practiced this—stopped reading past the subject line until the morning, and first meditated and had breakfast. It was still upsetting but I found that I was able to answer it and move along).

How do you think behavior analysis and mental health are connected? We love to hear your input, stories or questions.

Selected references and resources

Anthony Biglan, Georgia L. Layton, Laura Backen Jones, Martin Hankins and Julie C. Rusby, The Value of Workshops on Psychological Flexibility for Early Childhood Special Education Staff, Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 32, 4, (196), (2013).

Lindsley, O. R. (1960). Characteristics of the behavior of chronic psychotics as revealed by free operant conditioning methods. Diseases of the Nervous System (Monograph Supplement), 21, 66-78.

Lindsley, O. R., & Skinner, B. F. (1954). A method for the experimental analysis of the behavior of psychotic patients. American Psychologist, 9, 419-420.

Salzinger, K., & Pisoni, S. (1961). Some parameters of verbal affect responses in schizophrenic subjects. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3), 511-516.

Salzinger, K., & Pisoni, S. (1958). Reinforcement of affect responses of schizophrenics during the clinical interview. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 57(1), 84-90.

Stahl, J. R., & Leitenberg, H. (1976). Behavioral treatment of the chronic mental hospital patient. In H. Leitenberg (Ed.), Handbook of behavior modification and therapy (pp. 211-241). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Stephen Wong (2006). Behavior analysis of psychotic disorders: Scientific dead end or casualty of the mental health political economy? Behavior and Social Issues, 15, 152-177.

 

Part 13 in Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis: A Pipeline from Special Education to Prison?

16 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by in adults, Behavior Analysis, Community, Education, ethics, functional alternative behavior, RAD, reactive attachment disorder, risk assessment, schedules of punishment, self injurious behavior, stimulus schedules, supervision, teaching behavior analysis, teaching ethics, trauma, trauma-informed behavior analysis, Uncategorized

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(Part 13 of a series of posts about Trauma-informed behavior analysis by Dr. Teresa Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D)

Preventing and addressing connections between educational problems, trauma and mental health needs, and the legal system

Perhaps you are familiar with laws making it a crime to assault a medical worker in their line of work. Even the most caring mental health nurse may need to report injuries that occurred helping restrain a confused, drugged, juvenile patient who was suffering from mental health problems, preventing the client from self-harm. Of course, this difficulty isn’t the only way for a special education student to end up with traumatic effects of past interactions that are compounded by legal charges. Why do so many children go from getting kicked out of preschool, through a series of failed educational and residential placements as a teen, to facing jail time before they are fully adults? After hearing Matthew Bennett and friends’ podcast on trauma and criminal thinking, I was inspired to write a behavioral response to share some thoughts for our community.

While behavior analysts and collaborators may be well versed in “schedules of reinforcement”, another type of schedule matters too. This other kind of schedule is in place all around us, is often acting to viciously increase the likelihood of future problems, and may be invisible to most of the educators, foster parents, and even behavior therapists “trying to do the right thing.

We’re talking about schedules of “stimulus delivery” or schedules of interaction. In short, this kind of schedule makes a great deal of difference, whether it is “programmed” (planned in advance) or simply happens— and whether the stimulus is a member of the police, a school or hospital security guard, or the school principal. Even if we are talking about events that are recommended by a response team or safety plan, such as a foster parent coming to pick up a student after behavior is too severe for the school, or physical holds and restraints that take place to keep others safe, all these events can have powerful effects (or side effects) in the behavior stream.

Why do we talk about these events in terms of the “schedule”? In behavior analysis, a “schedule” can refer to the timing of stimulus delivery. For example, suppose a student’s safety plan states that after a certain behavior occurs, a parent will be called. The next few times it happens, the principal will be called in to talk with the student. After that, a safety officer will be called to escort the student off grounds and he will be asked to stay home for 2 days. Suppose this proceeds over the course of about a year, and by the spring semester his challenging behavior has escalated and the last few times, a security guard is not sufficient and the police are called. The “schedule” of delivery might specify that at least one of these things happens every time the behavior occurs… that would be a fixed or continuous schedule. But more commonly, some behaviors are missed, or there is an unfamiliar substitute teacher who doesn’t act immediately and implement the plan, or some similar behaviors occur at home or in someone else’s class but are not treated the same way as the same behavior would at school in the classroom for which the plan was designed.

In fact, research shows that escalating “punishment”, or in other words, using more and more severe consequences over time, can actually increase behavior! This fact, well known to behavior analysts, surprises many educators who thought their prescribed plan would decrease behavior, not escalate it. Specifically, the research shows that if a stimulus is used because the team wants to decrease a behavior (and “decreasing a behavior” is called “punishment” in the literature, even if the team members don’t consider it that way), it is critical that the stimulus is intensive enough for it to be effective (Lerman and Vorndran, 2002), used every time the behavior occurs (Acker and O’Leary 1988), and used consistently and across environments. If used inconsistently, it will likely INCREASE the behavior (Tarbox, Wallace and Tarbox, 2002).

Unfortunately, this common situation has several side effects. For example, the following can all result:

  • Decreased response to the same events in the future and reduced effectiveness of the consequences over time
  • Escalating behavior challenges over time that produce the same or a slightly increased level of punishing stimulation
  • More varied and severe challenging behavior over time
  • Decreased ability of parents or caregivers to control behavior using the techniques at their disposal in the home or residential placement
  • Exposure to more restrictive settings including more and more secure residential facilities
  • Increased tolerance to the event, which results in the system using increased severity to try to keep everyone safe
  • Changing the nature of the once-aversive event (like a police altercation) into something “reinforcing”, or something that the child actually wants or tries to produce
  • Increased likelihood of legal system and police involvement
  • Decreased quality of life well into adulthood and deprivation of learning and social opportunities

As shocking as this may be to families and educators using these systems every day, the results do not surprise a behavior scientist familiar with the literature. Young or inexperienced clinical behavior analysts may not have been exposed to these cold facts, doing harm by not pointing out the risks inherent in many well-meaning school behavior plans or facility safety plans. Did you know a BCBA’s training IS required to include exposure to how to properly implement “parameters and schedules of punishment” (see BACB Fourth Edition Task List, item D-17)?. This means that in cases where punishment, or a consequence based strategy to decrease behavior, is needed (e.g., determined via a risk assessment to be necessary), we must determine ways to avoid escalating behavior (see also section 3.01 and 4.08 in Compliance Code, on the requirements for assessment before reduction procedures, and considerations regarding punishment procedures).

Are you a behavior analyst who hasn’t yet received this kind of important training, or an educator with behavior analysts on your team who haven’t mentioned this? Some suggestions are below for finding a starting place in the literature. Behavior analysts should be familiar with all task list and compliance code requirements for appropriately implementing punishment. Educators might check out this Edutopia piece discussing the use of discipline instead of punishment. A behavior analyst will work hard to avoid punishment. Instead, we begin with a functional behavior assessment that truly illuminates what the child needs and is trying to communicate, in order to build a plan fostering functional communication and coping skills.

Here are some topics to bring up or request supervision on:

  • Relationships between prompts and punishment
  • Using prompts and prompt fading appropriately to reduce, not increase, dependence on caregivers (this topic is strikingly similar to the reasons that least to most prompting for behaviors in acquisition can actually slow down learning the new behavior and increase prompt dependence)
  • Using appropriate parameters and schedules of punishment (calculating effective doses, appropriate timing, and communicating across settings to keep schedules consistent)
  • Risk assessment and analysis applied to behavior plans in environments risking escalating behavior due to inappropriate punishment

Practical skills for teams

  • Ensuring the entire team is trained to use appropriate physical management when needed
  • Training on how to do appropriate physical and crisis management and how to debrief after incidents (minimizing and not strengthening future challenging behavior)
  • Using alternative procedures as opposed to consequence based punishment and attempts to control behavior (instead, behavior analysts conduct a thorough functional behavior assessment and assess risks, focusing on teaching the team how to honor and establish communication attempts and teach coping skills)
  • Using solid communication and collaboration that is preventative and established before the client enters a new environment
  • Communicating in advance with emergency rooms, schools, and police departments in the client’s area

Closing thoughts:

When making placement decisions, the cheapest or first option available may not be appropriate if it contributes to long term risks for the client and community. Many times, a placement decision is made based on promises to get training and keep the client safe as long as nothing goes wrong. In fact, things WILL go wrong (e.g., it should be predicted and planned for). So risk assessments are critical in placement decisions. Teams must be transparent about the short and long term risks of environments that expose clients to models of behavior that is aggressive or destructive. And placement decisions to accept or remove a client due to inappropriate behavior should be evaluated with respect to the function of behavior and long term risks. Is this likely to increase similar behavior, producing long term likelihood of using aggressive attempts to escape environments? Does the team and environment have the ability to support the client to return to the setting after temporary removal due to aggression to others?

When we are thoughtful, collaborative and function-based, we can contribute to slowing the rushing pipeline carrying our clients and family members into more restrictive settings, and exposing them to more severe consequences. Let me know if some of these suggestions educated your team to coordinate behavior support and safety plans that are more appropriate, compassionate and preventative—and please share your own ideas that have worked.

References

Behavior Analysis Certification Board BCBA and BCaBA Task List, Fourth Edition:

https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/160101-BCBA-BCaBA-task-list-fourth-edition-english.pdf

Behavior Analysis Certification Board Compliance Code (2016):

https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/170706-compliance-code-english.pdf

Acker, M. M., & O’Leary, S. G. (1988). Effects of consistent and inconsistent feedback on inappropriate child behavior. Behavior Therapy, 19, 619-624.

Lerman, D. C., & Vorndran, C. M. (2002). On the Status of Knowledge for Using Punishment: Implications for Treating Behavior Disorders. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35, 431- 464. http://dx.doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2002.35-431

Tarbox, Wallace, and Tarbox (2002). Successful generalized parent training and failed schedule thinning of response blocking for automatically maintained object mouthing. Behavioral Interventions, 17 (3), 169-178.

Lori Desautels (2018). Aiming for Discipline Instead of Punishment, Edutopia, published online March 1, 2018. https://www.edutopia.org/article/aiming-discipline-instead-punishment

Trauma-informed lens podcast: https://connectingparadigms.org/podcast/episode-25-trauma-criminal-thinking/

 

 

Part 12 in Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis: What’s behavioral about treating reactive attachment disorder?

26 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in adults, Behavior Analysis, behavior cusp, Behavioral Cusp, children, collaboration, Community, Education, ethics, RAD, reactive attachment disorder, risk assessment, supervision, trauma, trauma-informed behavior analysis, Uncategorized

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(Part 12 of a series of posts about Trauma-informed behavior analysis by Dr. Teresa Camille Kolu, Ph.D., BCBA-D)

If you’re a behavior analyst, perhaps you read that title as “Is it behavioral to treat reactive attachment?” or “is it appropriate to use behavior analysis with a person who has been diagnosed with reactive attachment?” Perhaps you are really wondering, “is there anything I can do as a behavior analyst to help someone who has been affected by reactive attachment disorder?”

These are all good questions. First, to pose the problem another way, and to see the depth of the controversy, let’s go over some other observations I’ve heard, from mental health therapists to educators to families to BCBA’s: “Behavior analysts shouldn’t mess with reactive attachment.” “Kids with reactive attachment disorder don’t respond to behavior analysis.” “Families (or educators) whose children (or students) are suffering after reactive attachment related diagnoses can be harmed by or mistreated if people use reactive attachment.” “Reactive attachment is not a behavioral term and shouldn’t be treated with ABA.”

Now if you’re a longtime blog reader, you’ll find other ways of addressing these questions elsewhere on this blog. (I especially like talking to educators, family members and staff about what to do when praise doesn’t work, reminding us all that behavior is INDIVIDUAL, trauma-informed behavior analysis might look VERY different than that old discrete trial program you saw in college, and behavior analysis is not one cookie-cutter bag of tricks.) But I continue to hear questions about it, especially from educators, family members, and hospital and day program professionals faced with supporting the “toughest” cases. Continue reading →

Part 10 in Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis: A behavior analysts walks into a hospital

29 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by in adults, Behavior Analysis, behavior cusp, Behavioral Cusp, collaboration, Community, data, hospital, trauma, Uncategorized

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This article is Part 10 in an ongoing series about ways that behavior analysts can practice in a “trauma-informed” way. Considering that behavior analysts need to be ready to participate with medical and other providers, this article shares some lessons learned about becoming involved with the medical team. Whether your client is going through trauma or not, it should be helpful. But it’s particularly important for my clients who are being treated in intensive settings for their mental and medical health (often resulting from years of trauma). Be well, Dr. Camille Kolu Ph.D., BCBA-D

One of the ways I like to learn from others is hearing their “lessons learned”. By listening to them share what they have learned and what did or didn’t work, I can hone my own role and be more prepared the next time I enter a similar setting. For many of us, the mental or medical hospital is a new frontier. What can we behavior analysts can do to help in this type of setting?

I think about my role this way: As a behavior analyst, I am not the person’s medical doctor. But we often need to collaborate- and yet most medical professionals are not extremely familiar with collaborating with us. What can I do to support our mutual clients, making their healers’ work more effective?

Here are some ideas that have helped me to integrate into these settings more effectively. In some cases they are lessons I learned when I failed to do something up front that could have made a marked difference later on. In all cases, Continue reading →

Part 8 in Trauma-Informed Behavior Analysis: When a label masks needs

12 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Behavior Analysis, behavior cusp, Behavioral Cusp, children, Community, Education, trauma, Uncategorized

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Buzzing underneath: Wisteria, the bees, and the fly

When you look at this picture, what do you see? wisteria.jpg

When I look into this painting I see pieces of my family’s home.

I see my mother and how she loves wisteria; how she tends it so carefully; how she protects it every year from the freeze. In Texas the freezes may come far between and at strange times. If we can we protect what we love.

When I see this painting I also see through my father’s eye, for he took the photograph on which my painting is based. I look through his eyes and notice how he sees a story in everything.

Some people see other things.

To some it looks beautiful and calm on the surface. Soon, this tree will be getting ready for its annual sleep, when it will look – for months—like a dead thing. But at a certain time of spring, its glory may return (if my mother saves it). And it will become alive with something you don’t see:

At a certain time of year, if you wandered nearby and stared closely, then underneath and within and all around the blossoms that seem like you could just touch them, this tree would again be swarming with bees.

So there are those of us who wouldn’t be able to lean in, to breathe deeply of its fragrance.

There are those of us with life threatening allergies to bees!

And some of us derive our fear not from specific allergies – and to us the stimulus is not exactly the same as poisoning us – but is still just as scary. Perhaps this can be overcome. Perhaps I can use my behavioral skills to get you closer and closer to a bee. Perhaps you’ll hold one in your hand, someday.

But for a moment I just appreciate the reasons some people are scared to approach what others find beautiful, and can love without abandon.

Some troubles are only seen underneath layers of other showy blossoms.

Some are not seen at all.

I think “showy” is such a descriptive word. During certain childhood years of mine, mom studied botany and carefully “keyed out” plants on the dining table, painstakingly identifying each tiny part, comparing each to a photo in her book, making her own drawings and descriptions. And this was just fascinating to childhood me.

Truly, it did not reduce my wonder at their beauty—to discover all the names and parts and the inner workings.

If anything, it heightened it.

Today sometimes I think about that when I appreciate the wonderful complexity that is a person.

Sometimes “behavior analysts” are thought to be incapable of appreciating the emergent wonder that is behavior! But naming all the functions, carefully looking at how the environment exquisitely shapes the behavior of a little child growing up, this only increases my fascination with people and the beauty in each person.

Each child’s history includes millions of moments, genetics, their surroundings, and more… all the things that made up their world.

Buzzing underneath: But why?

Something erratic and buzzing intruded on my thoughts this morning, startling me out of my contemplation while driving to see my client.

No longer focused on the road (and the flowers I’m painting this week), I looked around frantically to isolate the buzzing sound.

It was just a fly.

But for a few moments I was pretty distracted!

I was undaunted to get him out, whatever I did. It took a little while. I noticed a slight elevation in my heart rate, a lapse in my concentration.

And it was just a fly.

What if it was a bee and I was allergic? I imagined myself allergic to something, in that closed space with me, and me, driving, unable to get myself away.

Recently I watched a boy in a 2nd grade class who had been labeled with “ADHD”.

He moves a lot.

He can’t sit still.

He’s pretty “oppositional” and “defiant” too.

He gets distracted. He argues. He picks fights. And he never ever brings completed homework to school.

But I know a secret.

He moves a lot… between family members.

Some of them yell and hit each other.

Sometimes they sleep in their car.

Sometimes it gets impounded. I don’t know where they sleep then.

Sometimes they don’t eat much at night.

And like the flowers I love, which is my luxury to do because of my happy childhood, many of his “behaviors” are showy.

And you know what? They mask what’s underneath.

This series of trauma-informed behavior support continues with a few more “masks” in upcoming articles – such as when physical aggression masks a medical challenge, or verbal aggression masks brain injury. We’ll talk more about what we can do, and discuss the important ideas behind “differential diagnosis” and differentiating local function from historical function.

The past few years have seen an increase in child psychiatrists and pediatricians who discuss the possibility of mistaking the symptoms of serious childhood adversity for ADHD. Do we teach to sit still and medicate? Do we provide more recess? Or do we look deeper and see how we can help families, educators and teams?

A related “cusp” for educators and behavior analysts might be conducting an appropriately rigorous or well rounded functional behavior assessment before jumping into treatment. Even if we must be brief, we can ask important questions and include important people. This could make possible many next steps that would not have otherwise occurred.

See you soon, friends.