Hi Serina - yep this is a super tricky situation we find ourselves in, and it can be trickier depending on the skills of the client and the RBT. This is why we offered this course for free as we felt that,in order to be able to be successful at delivering consultation through telepractice, training would be needed.

I'm sure you've thought of all of these things, but here are a few ideas....if the student can sit at the table with the RBT maybe you could share your screen and work with the student (with the RBT prompting and delivering reinforcement) or maybe you can deliver the reinforcement by way of playing a youtube video or movie? I know I have a friend who is consulting with a student who is working on answering WH questions and she is playing a movie he likes and pausing it to ask questions etc.

If the student is more active (not ready to sit) if the parents/RBT had access to a GoPro that would be amazing and one earpiece so you could provide immediate feedback.

If none of this is appropriate - maybe it comes down to spending your time training the RBT/Parent and them providing videos of their sessions which you then review and provide feedback. Of course, this is providing insurance will cover this time, etc. And also with the understanding that if there is no RBT and just parents involved they have a lot going on as it is so may not have time to get too many sessions in.

Such a hard situation - hope some of this either reassures you that you are doing what you can or gives you some ideas - any other thoughts out there?

So I like quite a few BCBAs I know I was first introduced to the science of ABA when our daughter, Sarah, was first diagnosed with autism. It was 1998 and there wasn't too much out there in terms of treatment for autism. Although Lovaas had published his study showing the positive effects of early intensive teaching using ABA principles on young children with autism, ABA services were not readily available, and using Skinner's Analysis of Verbal Behavior in treatment was also not mainstream. We started having Sarah receive speech and OT services but soon it became apparent that she needed more. The SLP suggested we use some ABA principles and strategies as part of her speech services. Adding those procedures of shaping, prompting, and reinforcement made all the difference - Sarah started to make progress! Seeing the results I wanted to learn more and went back to school to become a behavior analyst....and the rest is history :)

Noura,

In my opinion the VB-MAPP is probably one of the most useful tools to use in the classroom especially if you haven't been using an assessment that uses Skinner's Analysis of Verbal Behavior to look at your learner's language. Using the VB-MAPP takes you from saying things like "My learner has two expressive words" to "My learner can ask for 2 things (mand) as long as I provide an echoic prompt and the item is present, but my learner is yet to label items in their environment (tact)" Why is it important to know this info? Well just because an early language user can echo what is said to them they may not be able to ask for items or label items and may instead have problem behavior. Research has shown that this is often the case. Using the VB-MAPP allows you to assess strengths and deficits in terms of language and other important skill areas and create a program that will help teach them to hopefully be a proficient language user (of course this depends on lots of variables). We do have a course on the VB-MAPP which includes assessing and teaching after the assessment, however, there is a lot of info on Dr Sundberg's websites: avbpress.com and marksundberg.com as well as our new website: www.datamtd.com. Hope this helps - thanks for your interest in this amazing assessment.