Question from parent about responding to obsessions
This is a question from a parent on a yahoo group that I participate in. I have the parent's question with my answer below.
Question:
My son is autistic, 11 years old, and is in a classroom with a variety of children with special needs. He spends lots of time talking about odd things like fire alarms, elevators, people being absent because they are sick.
The teacher wants to acknowledge his verbalizations, but yet wants him not to obsess on them too much in the day. He said he will talk with him about them, but not too much, and said he may write them on the black board, so he knows that he's been heard.
I've also heard however to completely ignore these unusual comments that he makes so that he eventially will focus on something hopefully more appropriate.
I want my son to be more focused on things that are more socially appropriate, but behaviorialy speaking, I'm not sure how to go about it.
At home him just mentioning fire alarms etc will prompt a whole discussion on his part about fire safety etc.
any suggestions?
The teacher wants to acknowledge his verbalizations, but yet wants him not to obsess on them too much in the day. He said he will talk with him about them, but not too much, and said he may write them on the black board, so he knows that he's been heard.
I've also heard however to completely ignore these unusual comments that he makes so that he eventially will focus on something hopefully more appropriate.
I want my son to be more focused on things that are more socially appropriate, but behaviorialy speaking, I'm not sure how to go about it.
At home him just mentioning fire alarms etc will prompt a whole discussion on his part about fire safety etc.
any suggestions?
My response:
Here are a few procedures I typically use:
1. Do not acknowledge when he talks about the obsession unless it is in context. If you are talking about the beach and he says something about fire trucks, ignore and redirect to the topic. Do not even say "we are not talking about that right now." When redirecting to conversation, you might need to ask questions or tell him appropriate phrases he could say.
2. If talking about the obsession is within context of the conversation, allow him to say it but make it more appropriate. If he says the same thing over and over, prompt him through making other statements and/or listening to what others are saying during the conversation. You might need to test that he was listening: "what did Sarah say about the firetruck?" If he is just talking about the topic for too long, you can help him monitor by giving a time limit or number of statements he can make. "We are going to talk about this for two minutes then talk about something else." Or you can combine the two. You can also teach him to self monitor by following a self monitoring protocol.
3. If he is constantly obsessing over items and it is interferring with ability to teach appropriate conversation, you might need to do either reinforce absence of obsessive talk or absence of obsessive talk and presence of appropriate talk:
-reinforcing absence you would need to determine in a five or ten minute interval several times throughout the day how long he is NOT talking about the obsession. In several five minute intervals if he averaged 3 of the minutes were obsession and 2 were not, you would start with criteria that he needs to have at least 2 min in a five min interval of no obsession talk. At the end of the interval provide access to reinf if he meets criteria. Then increase duration of no obsession talk by 30 s intervals after a few intervals in a row of meeting criteria.
-reinforcing presence of appropriate conversation is exactly the same except you would take data on duration of obsessive talk vs appropriate talk and increase amount of time of appropriate talk.
4. Another option is to teach him places/times when it is ok to talk about his obsession. "You can talk about firetrucks in your room."
5. Another option is to have him earn time for talking about his obsession. This time could either be earned by talking about something appropriately or when working on other difficult tasks.
Lastly, make sure you all are teaching him the skills he needs to monitor himself, to initiate and participate in appropriate conversation. He might talk about his obsessions because he likes them but also because it is comfortable and he doesn't know what else to say. Teach Me Language is an excellent book for helping with this depending on his skill level.
Thank you - Megan
1. Do not acknowledge when he talks about the obsession unless it is in context. If you are talking about the beach and he says something about fire trucks, ignore and redirect to the topic. Do not even say "we are not talking about that right now." When redirecting to conversation, you might need to ask questions or tell him appropriate phrases he could say.
2. If talking about the obsession is within context of the conversation, allow him to say it but make it more appropriate. If he says the same thing over and over, prompt him through making other statements and/or listening to what others are saying during the conversation. You might need to test that he was listening: "what did Sarah say about the firetruck?" If he is just talking about the topic for too long, you can help him monitor by giving a time limit or number of statements he can make. "We are going to talk about this for two minutes then talk about something else." Or you can combine the two. You can also teach him to self monitor by following a self monitoring protocol.
3. If he is constantly obsessing over items and it is interferring with ability to teach appropriate conversation, you might need to do either reinforce absence of obsessive talk or absence of obsessive talk and presence of appropriate talk:
-reinforcing absence you would need to determine in a five or ten minute interval several times throughout the day how long he is NOT talking about the obsession. In several five minute intervals if he averaged 3 of the minutes were obsession and 2 were not, you would start with criteria that he needs to have at least 2 min in a five min interval of no obsession talk. At the end of the interval provide access to reinf if he meets criteria. Then increase duration of no obsession talk by 30 s intervals after a few intervals in a row of meeting criteria.
-reinforcing presence of appropriate conversation is exactly the same except you would take data on duration of obsessive talk vs appropriate talk and increase amount of time of appropriate talk.
4. Another option is to teach him places/times when it is ok to talk about his obsession. "You can talk about firetrucks in your room."
5. Another option is to have him earn time for talking about his obsession. This time could either be earned by talking about something appropriately or when working on other difficult tasks.
Lastly, make sure you all are teaching him the skills he needs to monitor himself, to initiate and participate in appropriate conversation. He might talk about his obsessions because he likes them but also because it is comfortable and he doesn't know what else to say. Teach Me Language is an excellent book for helping with this depending on his skill level.
Thank you - Megan
Posted by Megan DeLeon BCBA at 11/14/2009 3:41 PM 
Categories: ABA and Autism
Tags: behavior therapy BCBA autism treatment autism autism services behavior analysis obsessions
Categories: ABA and Autism
Tags: behavior therapy BCBA autism treatment autism autism services behavior analysis obsessions
"TEACH ME LANGUAGE" CONTENTS:
Chapter Summaries:
http://www.skfbooks.com/content/tml/chaptersummaries.html
Greetings !!! Jaz
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