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Further Key Strategies |
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Gentle Teaching is hard work, partly because each
interaction between two people is unique. As such, no precise strategy can be
applied to all situations. The following are some general strategies to consider
in trying to prevent challenging behaviours from occurring in the first place,
or for reducing their frequency, intensity, or duration.
- Precursor behaviours - e.g. ensure that
nothing throwable is in reach if the person uses throwing as an
inappropriate form of communicating.
- Environmental management -
e.g. sit beside or behind a person who engages in self-injurious behaviour
(SIB) so that their hands can be shadowed and controlled to prevent SIB, or
sitting on the other side of a table (out of reach) from a person who is
likely to hit.
- Stimulus control - set up the tasks before the person so as
to ensure on-task success through the consideration of
factors such as the arrangement of the tasks, control of materials,
concreteness of the task, teaching methods, location, etc.
- Errorless learning - break learning skills into a sequence
which facilitates their acquisition, and provide adequate assistance in
order to avoid errors (so that structured tasks can serve as vehicles to
teach reward throughout the day).
- Teach quietly - initially using minimal verbal instruction
maximises the power of verbal reward, and prevents on-task confusion.
Gradually use more language as the reward - learning cycle takes hold.
- Shaping and Fading - use the caregiver's initial intense
presence, necessary assistance and reward teaching as a way to ensure as
much as possible the person's on-task attention (shaping), and then as
rapidly as possible remove the external assistance and reward so that the
person will remain on-task and be able to receive sufficient reward from the
task itself (fading).
- Assistance - initiate learning with a sufficiently high
degree of assistance to ensure success and systematically and rapidly
decreasing the degree of assistance, but ready at any given point in time to
offer higher degrees of assistance for purposes of redirection or reward-
teaching.
- Using the task as a vehicle, not an end in itself -
each part of the day needs structuring so that there are opportunities to
create rewarding interactions - we cannot wait for these opportunities to
present themselves. But the task of learning is secondary to the
teaching of rewarding interactions.
A list of further possible techniques for use in different situations is
provided in the section Examples
- 'What You Can Try ..'
Further Points On Fading
It is impossible to expect learning to be maintained if it is suddenly
stopped. Also, this will have an adverse affect on the client's developing of
trust in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to fade the pattern of Ignoring,
Redirection & Reward, and finally the presence of the care giver.
Ultimately, the aim is for the client to have developed sufficient ability and
confidence to obtain naturally occurring rewards with anyone.
Fading cannot be done according to a formula. There may need to be an ebb and
flow to fading, depending on the person's needs. A typical pattern should follow
the need to reduce the intensity of the Gentle Teaching relationship. This may
be:
- Introduce another person (or people) as the source of rewards - someone
who will maintain the pattern of learning on occassions.
- Encourage the client to initiate rewarding interactions with other people.
- Decrease the amount of time you spend with the client. Observe carefully
for any adverse reactions, and re-commence full support if necessary.
- Reward, after redirection, only intermittently rather than consistently.
- Ensure that natural opportunities for obtaining reward exist.
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