Angela Kulcsar shows how to find what actually motivates each kid by watching what they gravitate toward and asking parents about their interests. A student obsessed with Maury Povich or Ice Age movies becomes a reinforcer far more powerful than generic praise.
Hi Instagram and hi Facebook! I just got to Dallas. I have my last PD of 2019. I almost just said 2020. My last PD of 2019 today. I'm talking tomorrow about behavior change, so I wanted to come on. I've kind of been slacking on doing my 10 Quick Wins Lives. I want to do one little quick live for each of the 10 quick wins for behavior change, and I'm on number 6. So if you want to download the whole thing, the link is pinned in Instagram comments or it's on the caption in the live. So Number 6 is utilize non-traditional reinforcers. So remember, what's a reinforcer to me might not be a reinforcer for you, and some of our kids might have what we call non-traditional interests. They might love talking about Ice Age 2 or love stacking blocks or love shredding paper. It's not us for our job to judge what's cool and what's not. You want to utilize and tap into those things that could potentially be really reinforcing. About a month or two— yeah, I think about a month ago I shared the story on Instagram of a student of mine that used to be a obsessed with Maury Povich and used to work for pretending to be on Maury and giving paternity test results. And he was obsessed with this, and honestly, I kind of became obsessed with it too. It was a big reinforcer for him. He would literally work for talking about Maury Povich, printing pictures of Maury Povich, playing Maury Povich, and you know what? Cool. That's what we did. So you want to tap into those things your students are interested in because things like good grades, praise, work completion might not be a reinforcer yet. So you want to go with their interests. So my call to action here is to spend time observing your students. We don't do this enough because we're so stinking busy, but you learn so much by just watching. So maybe not this week because this week is crazy, but put in your lesson plans or your schedule for the first week back after break to spend 5 minutes observing each child. Not multitasking, not laminating, not writing an IP, just watching. What do they play with? What do they go to? What items do they spend the most time with? Ask mom and dad the same questions. Don't say, what are your kids' reinforcers? Say, what's in their room? What do you bring on car trips? What do they do right when they get home from school? You're going to get some great ideas of new potential reinforcers that you can utilize in your classroom that are on your students' interests. We want to go with things our kids are interested in. That's what is going to be directly the more— the most engaging. So follow their lead and they will tell you what things can likely be a reinforcer. If you want to download the rest of my 10 quick wins, go to theautismhelper.com/10wins. I've had teachers sharing these with their whole school. I've had principals send these out. It's so cool to see. This is— there are 10 evidence-based practices that are explained in a super user-friendly way that you can share with teachers and clinicians or parents in your school community. So go ahead and download those if you want to get the rest of the 10 quick wins. And next one, number 7, will be coming in a few days. So hope everyone has a great rest of their week and be calm, break is almost here. Tomorrow I'm gonna be chatting about behavior change for 7 hours, so lots to come from me on behavior change. I'm doing a PD tomorrow and hope everyone has a great rest of their week. Bye!
