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I am very excited to speak about our gift idea, Find It. It’s one of my favorites to use in ABA sessions and it can be a fun toy for any child! Find It is basically a portable treasure hunt for your kid. Hidden within the pellets are about 40 different objects, and the goal is to try and find each object by shaking the Find It capsule. Watch as objects appear and disappear with each shake! This can keep a child entertained for awhile as they try and find all 40 objects!

I also like this game as you will find it comes in many different themes, for example there’s one specific for Elmo, Dinosaurs, and even Where’s Waldo? This is great if your little one has specific interests that you want to build upon, or if you would just like to have a variety of different Find It’s around to expand on!

Find It can encourage many great skills for our learners. One being turn taking, you can take turns handing off and shaking the Find It tube. You can turn it into a game and see who can find the most items.

In the past I have used this game while working on increasing length of utterance with some of my learners. What I mean, is if one of my kids typically speaks in 1-2 word sentences I can use this game to expand on that average. For instance I may encourage them to say things such as “I see a car” instead of just saying “Car”. I do this typically by modeling my language first, meaning every time I shake the Find It game, I will say “I see a hat”. I typically keep with the same sentence frame, and wont change it up until I feel confidant that my learner is using it consistently (e.g., starting with “I see a” and then moving to “There’s a..” or “I found a..”).

This game can also be used to talk about different features or categories of objects too. For instance, I may shake the Find It game and say something like “Oh – I see something you find in the sky at night”. This allows my learner a chance to think about all the things that may appear in the sky at night. This play idea also helps to keep my learner engaged in the toy when it’s not their turn, as they are responding to my questions. When it is their turn, I may even tell my learner, “Okay, tell me something about the item you see and let me try and guess what it is!” to encourage speech using features and categories as well!

Another great reason why I enjoy this game is because it travels easily. It’s portable and you can bring it with you anywhere. For instance, if your learner struggles waiting at doctor offices, or if they don’t enjoy long car rides, you can take this along for easy entertainment.

Are curious about where to find this game? In Colorado I have found it select Targets and small toy shops around the Boulder and Denver areas. If you can’t find it in stores near you, you may also try looking on Amazon.

Pop the pig is game that is great for our young learners! The concept of the game is simple, and therefore easy to learn. You roll the die to select which colored burger you’re going to feed the pig. After you choose one burger in that color, you look at the bottom to find a number. That number tells you how many times you push down on the pig’s head.

For example, if I roll the die and a red circle is displayed on top, I will pick up a red burger from the pile in front of me. Once I pick my burger, I will turn it over and see, for example, the number 3. Next I’ll feed the pig, and then place my hands on his head and push down 3x. As I do this we will all see his tummy getting bigger. The more burgers he eats, the bigger his tummy gets. The object of the game is to not be the person who pops the pig!

I love this game for many reasons! Not only is it a fun way to promote turn taking and waiting for young learners, but it can also be a fun vehicle to work on different play, social, academic, and fine motor skills.

One way to focus on social skills is to evoke questions from your learner. Some ASD children need to learn how to ask questions. For example, some learners may have learned to say one word, instead of an entire sentence to get their needs met. In these cases a learner may say “Milk” and their parents understand that that means “Can I have some milk?” However this can lead to some confusion, and possibly frustration, later on when a new listener doesn’t understand that “milk” is the speakers way of asking for that item.

Some suggestions for practicing questions with Pop the Pig include bringing in other animals into play. You may say “Oh, someone else is hungry!” to evoke the response “Who’s hungry?”. You can even hide the die or burgers in fun places so that your learn may ask “Where are the burgers?”. Something else you can do is find other small toys and instead of feeding the burgers to the pig you may say “Pig is tired of burgers, he wants to eat something different” in order to get “What does he want?”

By being creative with how you play the game, you will find many different skills to work on with your young learner. For example, matching, colors, counting, and adjectives, just to name a few!

Almost every behavior analyst has heard the following, “Aren’t you just bribing my child?” And it’s understandable that this question gets asked often, because reinforcement is frequently mistaken for bribery. But what if I told you there was an important, yet subtle, difference between the two?

Let me start off by going over what reinforcement is. Reinforcement is something that happens after a behavior has occurred that increases the chances of that behavior occurring again.

For example: A child who eats all of her vegetables at dinner and is given desert afterwards. Or a child who has cleaned their room and then gets to play a game with his mom.

*Remember reinforcement only works if the behavior increases in the future. Otherwise it’s just a neutral stimulus.

Now, let’s look at bribery. According to the Merriam-Webster definition, it says that a bribe is “something that serves to induce or influence”. Bribes can be used to sway another person’s behavior.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking, that both reinforcement and bribery still sound similar. So, here’s that subtle difference I was speaking about, bribery happens before the behavior occurs.

It’s kinda like standing in Target and saying, “Okay Jimmy, I’ll buy you this video now, but you better clean your room when we get home!”

So, now that we’re clear on the definition, let’s compare the two side-by-side.

Reinforcement: “Great job cleaning your room Jimmy! Would you like to go play your new video game?” vs. Bribe “Here’s your new game, now go clean your room”.

After looking at these two closely, hopefully their differences become more obvious. Another difference is that a consequence of reinforcement is learning. When a person realizes, “Hey, if I do X then good things may follow” then they have learned a new behavior. For example, if we want Jimmy to learn to clean his room the first time we ask, and he knows that he will be able to play a game afterwards, than the chances are more likely that he will continue to follow through with instructions to clean his room. However if he is given a chance to play video games, before cleaning, then the chances are that he will continue to play games and ignore his room. Because, really, what’s his motivation to comply?

We are excited to announce that we will begin offering applied behavior analysis (ABA) services in the Denver / Boulder Metro Area in November 2018. We look forward to helping you with your needs!

If you’re interested in employment or would like more information about the services we provide, please contact us through the Contacts Page.