Sasha and ABA expert Kamisha teach fine-motor fluency for lower-functioning learners using timed drills. Start with open-container tasks (10-15 seconds) where kids place items, then progress to harder tasks like inserting coins through a slit. Track how many items they place per interval, reinforce immediately, and build toward functional skills like writing and shoe-tying.
This is Sasha from theautismhelper.com, and today we're going to show you a fine motor fluency, which is a great place to start with some of your lower functioning learners. So Kamisha, one of our ABA experts, is going to share with us how to run this type of fluency.
All right, so we usually use this, that you move to fluency once you know your kiddo is able to grasp and release or squeeze something in a hole or anything like that. And once you know that they can do that independently then now you want to take that skill to fluency so that they can do it even faster. You can start with a very simple program where they're putting items in an open container like this, and they're counting how many they can put in within, say, 10 seconds, and then move it up to make it a little bit harder by using a container with a slit at the top and a little bit— something a little bit smaller for them to grasp and literally push in within the 10 seconds, or you could move up to something even more harder, which is like coins into a piggy bank. So today we're going to show you how to do the easier task, which is within the open container, and then we'll show you how to do the harder one with the piggy bank. Okay, so I'm gonna be the student, and I am the instructor, and Simply because the container is open, you don't want to give the student all the pieces all at once because they just grab them up and put them in. And what you want to count is how many pieces of it they can put in within the 10 seconds, one at a time. So we have our timer, we have our data sheet, we have our apparatus— apparatus? Our items, and our student is ready to go. Of course, you also need a reinforcer, because we've done this so many times, you don't necessarily need edibles, but we can use praise, like a high five or a good job, at the end of the time interval. So let's begin. Good job! And then once the timer is up, you quickly put them aside, do the next one. This way you can keep your student actively responding, and at the end of your entire trial, then you can count up how many they did for each. Let's go one more time. Nice, excellent work, Sasha. And you deliver your reinforcer right after. Like, excellent, very good. The time of— and of course you count them up, you see how many they did. She did 9 on the first trial. You had your data sheet, you simply write this in, then you do the next, uh, whatever task you're working on next.
Doing a few different timings is a great idea for something like this, especially for your lower functioning learners. You might do a really short time interval like 10-15 seconds, so doing 2 or 3 timings isn't going to take that long, but it's going to give them a break. Some of our kids aren't ready to give sustained attention for 20-30 seconds, so since they're not quite ready for that, we can just do multiple timings of those shorter ones and and then just use the best score from that day.
So now we're going to show you how to do it with the piggy bank. Now this is more challenging than the open container, and because the bank literally has a slit, they can't put 2 in at once. So you can actually give the student more than 1 at a time, but just be mindful that you're watching so that coins aren't falling off the table and they have to be picking it up because that will interfere with their their fluency. You want it to be smooth, they're taking one at a time, they're only using one hand as opposed to one and then two, because of course you want to work on the strong hand first, and then maybe you could even run a program where you're working on both the strong and the weak arm. But for this, we're starting with the strong arm, same 10 seconds, and you deliver your reinforcer at the end. Good job! So while she's doing that, I could literally be counting how many she's putting in, so you don't have to actually count them again at the end of the interval. Yes, take out, take out the ones. All right. Right there, yeah. And you can go again. So these are pretty quick. You can do 10-second times, you can do 15-second timings, depending on the level of functioning of your student and how much, uh, you want to work on their attending. So as Sasha said, smaller intervals can work on that attending, and you can also provide a reinforcer and count up while they're eating if it's an edible, so you can work within those little gaps that may emerge. So one more time, we're gonna do 10 seconds. Nice, excellent work!
I like getting a crazy Terry person. The cool thing with this is that we're seeing our kids engaged for a solid time period, and this is sometimes for kids that have trouble engaging in any type of task or showing that sustained attention. So I think that's why this is really great. Um, this task, the ones that we've showed today, are for grasp release. So we're grabbing something and releasing it into an item. You can do the same type of program for pointing, reaching, touching, any really fine motor skill that you can think of, you can incorporate into a fluency timing, and then you're really getting that kid ready for writing, using pencil grip appropriately, or zipping up their zipper. All of those skills we need in order to do all these different functional academic tasks.
And if they can do it fluently just using discrete items like these, then when it comes to teaching them how to tie their shoes, then of course it's easier for you to teach them because they already have the skill of grasping and releasing.
Yep. So this was a video tutorial of fine motor fluency instruction from theautismhelper.com.
