The Misbehaviour of Behaviourists The Misbehaviour of Behaviourists - Discussion 001-257 | 258-300 | 301-400 | 401-500 | 501-600 | 601-700 | 701-725 401-450 | 451-500 | previous | next A M Baggs 500 05-20-2004 08:13 PM "Sometimes you have to consider the "self-defence" argument." Agreed. (Some of the only times I consider my past violence justified -- and I don't consider all of it justified -- was in contexts in which the balance of power was *extremely* skewed, and in which I was in physical danger much of the time.) Michelle Dawson 499 05-20-2004 08:08 PM "Not that I want to glorify violence, but sometimes... <grin>" Sometimes you have to consider the "self-defence" argument. David Andrews AppEdPsych 498 05-20-2004 07:57 PM Edited by author 05-20-2004 08:00 PM /m498 tried it, nothing comes up boring :( A M Baggs 497 05-20-2004 07:26 PM I loved the thing about the kid biting Lovaas on sight. I have a friend who was given a ridiculous series of tests that were given in such a way as to deny her services. As in they came out saying she could do several things that there was ample evidence she was incapable of. She has a friend with an autistic daughter, who was given the same tests, by the same woman. Only the autistic daughter either bit or scratched the woman instead of doing the test. :-) Not that I want to glorify violence, but sometimes... <grin> Ralph Smith 496 05-20-2004 05:46 PM Oh dear: what happens if I type "/m496" in message 496? I think I have to know... [sits on hands] David Andrews AppEdPsych 495 05-20-2004 05:08 PM I did, jypsy, and that should mean I am not a behaviourist.... phew..... ;) David Andrews AppEdPsych 494 05-20-2004 05:06 PM I know, Ralph :)) We pay these buggers 90 smarties an hour here and we still get sod all for it.... gonnae have tae dae it masel' ;) (read the above as if voiced by Billy Connolly!) Ralph Smith 493 05-20-2004 05:03 PM [guffaw] jypsy 492 05-20-2004 04:58 PM you forgot the m&m reinforcer .... and was that broken into *enough* small steps to properly teach that poor autistic woman the task? -jypsy Ralph Smith 491 05-20-2004 04:56 PM Dave, have your people call our people - we really *must* get coordinated. ;) Ralph Smith 490 05-20-2004 04:53 PM For a link, you type exactly the following and QT makes it turn blue (and adds the underscore as a bonus, I guess): /m417 David Andrews AppEdPsych 489 05-20-2004 04:52 PM /m417 you mean this, Michelle? ;) David Andrews AppEdPsych 488 05-20-2004 04:51 PM http://autismconnect.org/core_files/interv...pts/ivar_lovaas.htm this guy is the fruit of the devil's jism! ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Michelle Dawson 487 05-20-2004 04:41 PM See message #417. Sorry I don't know how to make that into a link. David Andrews AppEdPsych 486 05-20-2004 04:32 PM What did the Rincover chap do/say/etc? Was he another Burt-type fuckwit or something? Michelle Dawson 485 05-20-2004 03:18 PM Hi John, Steven Jay Gould's son Jesse is a calendar calculator. I don't know if Dr Rincover is selling cars, but he is (or he was when I put my foot in it) an active member of a provincial college of psychologists. The way people manoeuver aroung the problem of citing him is interesting, including your own manoeuvers (uh, if you agree with him, it's okay? So long as he's chaperoned...). In fairness, it is entirely possible that the "isolated example" theory is true. It was just a very spectacular isolated example. I'm sure that most people who cite Rincover have no knowledge of his history. I was just surprised this case was not notorious in the small field Rincover worked in. Your information tells me that the "case" may be notorious, but it is not attached to an actual researcher. I've witnessed genius and I certainly have worked and continue to work with geniuses. What do behaviourists do with genius? I'm glad the term is functional. Now, tell us what it is in behaviourville. The best way to teach sharing and generosity to autistics is to demonstrate it yourself. This may require you to notice that materials play a different role in the education of autistics. You may find a lot more willingness to share, and actual generosity, when you demonstrate to your kids through your actions that you "get" their different way of learning, and are prepared to adjust yourself somewhat. I don't really mean discovering that a kid likes to be held upside down (a reinforcer Lovaas found for one autistic was the sound of water being poured from one glass to another). I'm not going on about (extrinsic) reinforcement here, but about how autistics learn. We differ here (understating the case...), but autistics who've never crossed the path of a behaviour analyst learn anyway, and that has to be explained. We also learn in ways which seem to be impossible or very difficult for non-autistics to learn. This is observational, sure; but the observations are in the science, and they can be and are quantified. What's the difference between mixing cognition in when necessary to maintain behaviourist theory, and acknowledging cognitive science as a field which must equally be studied? Because you're talking about thoughts and maybe beliefs, which is fine, but some time back you wrote about autistics being interested in the perceptual properties of objects--or as you put it, finding these properties reinforcing. Yes. But to work this out, you need to know about perception in autism, and what your autistics see that you can't. Clare's mention of attention, in which you've shown interest, is also in cognition. Isn't there a sort of obligation to study this without breaking it up into behaviourist-digestible pieces? Just wondering. Interesting also that I didn't find the behaviourists' response to my work aversive. Aversive to what? They did require me to respond in some way (necessity) and I did because I could (it was possible). No reinforcement anywhere on my side, though some amount of will came into play to make myself read what they wrote. I didn't drop Dr Malott off the autism/radical behaviourist list because of his remarkable talent for trendiness, but because he has no credible knowledge of autism, regardless of how much noise he's making. Can you explain to me his distaste for data? Or is he just kidding? David Andrews AppEdPsych 484 05-20-2004 02:53 PM oddizm, >The fact that a little girl bit him upon sight just goes to prove my theory that autistics have highly advanced jerk-detectors. One of my favourite titles for a song is Marillion's Built-In Bastard Radar; and I think that wee anecdote of Clare's demonstrates quite nicely the notion of the B-IBR that we autistics have :D oddizm 483 05-20-2004 02:35 PM Clare, The fact that a little girl bit him upon sight just goes to prove my theory that autistics have highly advanced jerk-detectors. Well, some more than others. That little girl had a high JDQ Jerk detector quotient. gotta love them autistics oddizm jypsy 482 05-20-2004 10:50 AM too bad he can't take a hint..... -jypsy Clare 481 05-20-2004 10:42 AM SOMEONE, I have actually heard a story from one parent who was with her classiically autistic daughter at a conference and met Lovaas. The daughter promptly bit him <g>. David Andrews AppEdPsych 480 05-20-2004 10:31 AM John... " Hi Dave, Thanks for the info on Burt and the IQ thing. As usual, I also enjoyed you ability to find the exact right words for the right time (smiling). " You're welcome. And thanks :) Philip 479 05-20-2004 10:10 AM Edited by author 05-20-2004 10:16 AM Clare, I have not read 'Song of the Gorilla Nation' by Dawn Prince-Hughes. I saw a description of it on a website(may have been the Amazon site). I'll see if it's in my local well-stocked public library. I agree with you about autistics being moved by other people's feelings.We are not the cold robots of popular imagination, but very human. Ralph Smith 478 05-20-2004 08:16 AM Damn, that cut/paste link doesn't work. Thanks to Philip for demonstrating the forward slash/m/message number actually works (dauntingly simple), like so: /m456 Seems to me the guy who wrote that article is just an ordinary bigot, Lucas. David Andrews AppEdPsych 477 05-20-2004 07:22 AM >Hey, there's a picture of the asshole, top of page... (sez Ralph) "He's a lumberjack and he's okay, he sleeps all night and he w*nks all day....." Um... er.... did I remember that right, chaps and chapesses (and interchaps)? Ralph Smith 476 05-20-2004 01:52 AM Edited by author 05-20-2004 01:58 AM [Lucas] ASSHOLE!!!! Oh, not you guys; you guys nice. This is the asshole: http://rickgiombetti.blogspot.com/2004_05_02_rickgiombetti_archive.html #108365742153136595 Hey, there's a picture of the asshole, top of page... Ralph [who's saying nothing about plaid] David Andrews AppEdPsych 475 05-20-2004 12:56 AM Edited by author 05-20-2004 12:58 AM Hmmm---- >Description: Autism represents the most severe impairment of all psychiatric diagnostic categories. Um, Ole Ivar Lovaas, du er ingenting bara en forbannade skitstovel! Du vet bara bra att du har hade det fel - jävla skithjernade idiot! (yes, folks, I learned to swear in Norwegian too!!!!!!!!) Ralph Smith 474 05-20-2004 12:46 AM [Philip] "In the final few pages the author compares autistic children with chimpanzees; gazing at a chimpanzee reminded him of his experience he got sometimes when relating to autistic children." [Clare] Interesting - have you read Dawn Prince-Hughes' book "Songs of the Gorilla Nation"? She's autistic and has built an academic career round working with gorillas, who she feels a great affinity with. Oh dear...should have followed first impulse and mentioned seeing Koko in Encarta/Behaviorism: http://www.sentex.net/~nexus23/koko.gif Not exactly "the look", but shouldn't we all aspire to that doo? Or see the 'helper' archetype in Koko asking for a voice? Ralph [who's more familiar with Ozenfant: "constants"] SOMEONE 473 05-20-2004 12:35 AM just found this tacked to a tree: it's off topic, a bit. Once upon a time in a far off country called Wsconsnia, the time being of about 1980 CE, a mystic named Loovaz called the good people of the village of Madizone to meeting in the village square. Now, Loovaz had the power called "credbilty" and used this power to ensure that many villagers came and stayed to listen to him spin his tales of wonder. Loovaz said to the good people of Madizone, "send forward to me 3 of your young ones who are difficult for you, who refuse to gaze into your eyes, who speak with pronouns inverted and they who flap hands in air." Three parents partially spell-bound by Loovaz brought forward their kin of this description. For his magic show Loovaz required the difficult ones to sit opposite him on stools with their knees touching his. A parent of kindly disposition said, "Loovaz, master, my child, Frieda, she is known to grab a villager who will cause her consternation, perhaps it wouldst be best if thee wouldst place a table between thee and she." And Loovaz spake thus, "I shall do as I shall" The first difficult one sat knee to knee with Loovaz and was trained by use of cookies and praise and loud claps of hands accompanying a loud "NO!" from the very mouth of Loovaz, this when the difficult one proved difficult. The second difficult one was not trained so easily, but Loovaz proved his great power over some of the "behavyorz" of the difficult one. The third difficult one, Frieda, then was brought and placed on the stool, knee to knee with Loovaz. Loovaz shouted "NO!" and struck his palms together loudly. Frieda also shouted loudly, in concert, with Loovaz. Loovaz was finding this difficult one a more difficult "sudjekt" . Once more, Loovaz, used his magical powers of authorty over Frieda. He pronounced a "NO!" and the struck his palms together when Frieda obeyed him not. Frieda's mother stood in the crowd and spake thus to a shepherd, "Look, see Frieda's face, see her forehead become furrowed, this is a bad sign of impending disaster." Frieda then fulfilled her mother's great prophecy. She reached forward and grabbed the great Loovaz by the odds bodkins with her hands and twisted mightily. Loovaz excused himself from the village and was seen not there for many years. Frieda received a positive reinforcement for her "behavyor", a grant to study the effect of aversives on mystics. Ralph Smith 472 05-19-2004 11:48 PM Edited by author 05-19-2004 11:49 PM Michelle: I'm busy dividing up my reinforcer so everyone can have some: Ralph (sine qua non) How did you know I'm studying Spanish? Wait...that's not Spanish. Well, it all started when a neighbour's friend was deported to Costa Rica and the neighbour yelled "Mama sita!" for half an hour. Which I gather means 'this really sucks'. How long ago his own visitor's visa expired, he wouldn't say. Ralph [who once transcribed hearings for Immigration Canada - sticking to what he knows, and willing to learn] John 471 05-19-2004 09:30 PM Hi Clare, You said "See, we'll corrupt you yet <g>." (looks around self-consciously and pretends not to hear) You said "But then we're back again to saying that the important thing is the skill and sensitivity of the teacher, not the specific method." No, it seems more a matter of mediocre tutors, good tutors, and exceptional tutors. I have seen even mediocre tutors teach many skills to their children. I can not say the same with the mediocre teachers in some other programs that I have helped in. You said "And in fact, in this case, what you seem to be saying is that the best teachers are the ones who stick least rigidly to the protocol that they're allegedly following." But still within the bounds of good ABA, which as we know is quite diverse. I would amend that statement to say 'the best tutors are those who do not let themselves be limited only the most structured sort of DTT, they can even be quite very flexible and still be doing DTT. You said "Yes, but that's your problem <g>. Saying "I cannot do what would be most helpful to support this child's learning because unfortunately I have this list of tasks to tick off today" is not a good position to be in." Hmmmm...this may still be the child's problem as well. Please see my response to Michelle as well. You said "And if your objectives are requiring you to ignore or suppress "cool" stuff - time to re-assess the objectives, IMHO." I agree You said "But - as with "sharing" - we seem to be returning to an idea of what children "should" do, as opposed to what necessarily helps them learn the most." I have always believed that there are certain things any person should or should not do. I don't mind forfeiting these if shown to be wrong but, teaching sharing still does not strike me as qualifying as a practice we should modify. I would say this is an important part of learning too. You said "Many of us on this board have just described attentional issues which mean that we often can't redirect our attention in response to an external demand, or can do so only with great difficulty. In some instances, redirection may be possible, if it's done in the right way; in some, it just isn't." I am taking note. On the reinforcer thing. Yep, your right, I was sort of hoping you would not notice. For a lack of more creativity that's all I can give at the moment. John 470 05-19-2004 09:25 PM Hi Michelle, I choked down "The Bell Curve", for a philosophy of Biology course a few years ago. I compared it to Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man". I do not feel particularly intrinsically motivated at the moment to read Rushton's work. Hernstein and Murray were sufficiently aversive to ensure my dislike of related works. Hey, for a side note Gould (who was one of my heroes) fathered an autistic son. On the Rincover thing. I admit it would have been nice if my professors had explained before citing Rincover's work to me, that he was now selling cars (or whatever) in Canada, due to a little research dishonesty. I don't get why my professors (Rincover's peers) are not more forward about this. I can only guess that he was a friend to some of them and that they still don't know how to react to this. There is no excuse for this (for my professors). They are brutal on undergrads who are caught cheating. I don't get this at all. Maybe my one guess is that the Iwata's of this world think that it was an isolated example of foul play. I do not know whether I should still consider citing Rincover. I am more inclined to the work where he was second author (probably means he just advised and didn't deal with data). I feel a little better on his work where the results seem fairly intuitive and uncontentious (especially when multiple authors are involved). One such work might be the comparison between the effectiveness of the different reinforcers. This would seem fairly agreeable to most folks and seems almost intuitive. But maybe I may repent on this after I have thought about it. At the risk of running away on a tangent. The most effective reinforcers I have found are not sensory per se, but multi-element reinforcers. Things like tag, finger games, and roughhousing. I have never found a pre-school aged child (although I am sure there is) that doesn't smile/laugh/request some version of a multi-element reinforcer. The child I had the hardest time finding a good reinforcer of this kind with, was a five year old aspie in a non ABA pre-school program. I had decided that he might just be an exception to the general rule but I found out that he did like to be held upside down. I was roughhousing with some other kids in the same program and I think I was holding one of them upside down. Then he came running over and said "my turn". Turns out he requested this quite a bit and did smile and laugh when upside down. This reinforcer was a bit different from what I expected at the time. My professors failed to mention in class that some kids are reinforced by being held upside down for a few seconds and that we are supposed to figure this out. Oh well... I would say on genius, that some thing are just nearly elusive to being pinned down by precise prose. But I do believe in the functionality of the term genius. I said a while ago that DTT is a start not a finish. There is room for many techniques and strategies in a child's life. And while I think that we may agree that certain skills take priority, it is possible to work on many skills at once. This is not just important; it is critical and often forgotten. Behavior does not truly develop one skill at a time (or at least should not) even in DTT. And momentum is considerable in early childhood. I want to impart the most skills I can, through an environment that is eventually social and fair for other (autistic or non autistic) as well. You said "I'm not quite sure why you don't understand. Would you cut back on teaching time (by half, say) of non-autistics when they were still very young children, just to ensure they know they can't always get what they want, and to teach them to share scarce resources (in this case their miserly education) with each other?" No, but I would be sure to begin to teach things like sharing if the occasion arose. Maybe even plan a lesson or two on it. You said "In this quote the involvement of cognition meant that reinforcement is demoted to analogs of reinforcement. Your response means I blew it. Please correct my faulty conclusion." Actually, looking at this again, I blew it not you. Analogs, as you probably know but as the rest of the crew may not are: A description of a type of rule-governance (thoughts) where the person states (knows) the outcome of an action and acts to receive the outcome. This is an imperfect definition but I didn't want to write a page on this topic. We might loosely and imperfectly (but functionally) translate analogs into what is elsewhere called "sense of efficacy", or maybe even "beliefs" or "expectations." But although my example selection was poor, there is still some reinforcement and cognition that is compatible/causal. The natural contingencies that are responsible for much behavior in autistics and non autistics demonstrates this. An example of a natural contingency (John has a given level of thoughts of physical fitness....John runs for one hour....John has greater amount of thoughts of physical fitness.) Now that was positive reinforcement lets do negative reinforcement. (Lets say in the presence of a certain internet article a specific behaviorist has a very high level of aversive thoughts....The behaviorist begins to write a rebuttal....The behaviorists has slightly lower level of aversive thoughts.) Hope this helps a little. We should not drop Dr. Malott off the radical behaviorist list because he knows a bandwagon when he sees one. He has always been like that. I think he is actually responsible for riling up the other radical behaviorists. Anyway, besides him, we can comfortably put in Dr. Jack Michael (inventor of the EO & MO concept) and the advising professor to Theodoro Allyon who did the first real scientific behaviorist (and one of the first in the psychological field) research in 1959. He's pretty much a fossil, but he is still alive and even teaching a few classes. I like listening to him, he just seems like a nice quite old man, but he's still very funny, and very sharp if you talk to him one on one. Along the same lines is Fred Keller who is now gone too. Sundberg, Partington, and Vargas (I assume because they are fairly classic AVB folks, but they might call themselves neo-Skinnerian which is related.) I can think of maybe half a dozen other examples off the top of my head but who are currently relative unknowns. You said "Re OBM, I'm aware of many tedious branches of behaviourism. What's the acronym for those who work on traffic safety" Good question, I don't know, there probably isn't one. The remarkable thing (to me) is that I have friends who are so enthusiastic about things like this. I don't claim to get it. But as I said earlier they give us (autism and DD interested undergrads) a hard time right back. And your point about the personnel departments is well taken by me. On the Lovaas workshop thing, yah, point more or less taken. I saw that too a week ago. John 469 05-19-2004 09:24 PM Hi Dave, Thanks for the info on Burt and the IQ thing. As usual, I also enjoyed you ability to find the exact right words for the right time (smiling). On the left handed thing, so he was the guy he was advocating the right handedness for all approach. I remember this from somewhere, I can't place it exactly though. Oh well... Michelle Dawson 468 05-19-2004 08:28 PM Here's from the ABA Conference program (and thanks jypsy): "Workshop #73 "5/30/2004 "7:00 PM - 9:00 PM "Back Bay A "Early and Intensive Behavioral Interventions for Autism O. IVAR LOVAAS (University of California, Los Angeles) "Description: Autism represents the most severe impairment of all psychiatric diagnostic categories. It is almost always chronic: 95% of children diagnosed with autism remain autistic as adults and in need of institutional and/or protective care. To optimize treatment outcome behavioral intervention should start before the age of 5 years, address all the child's behavioral excesses and delays, be administered 40 hours or more per week, and be conducted in the child's home and community with the parents' participation. Follow-up data assessment of the UCLA 1987 study conducted by independent blind examiners at the children's mean age of 12 years shows that 47% of the children passed regular, age-appropriate classes in the public school system, scored within the normal range on IQ tests and standardized tests of adaptive behavior and personality, as well as ratings by clinical psychologists. Replication of the 1987 study across sites is being conducted by persons who have completed coursework in Learning & Behavior and Applied Behavior Analysis as well as passed a full-time 9-month internship at UCLA. Replication data will be published in 2004. "Level: Introductory" Two observations. One, that's *some* introduction. Two, Clare seems to be totally right about Dr Lovaas' sticking to his guns. All of his guns. Forty hours "or more" per week? I don't think it's autism that's "chronic". Michelle Dawson 467 05-19-2004 07:20 PM Edited by author 05-19-2004 07:22 PM Interesting that Dr Lovaas (the behaviourist), Dr Pinker (the nativist), and Dr Hobson (the psychoanalyst) have all in their respective writings displayed their own inability to see humanity in autistics. I don't expect that Dr Hobson's views about chimpanzees are in any way equivalent to Dawn Prince-Hughes' views re gorillas. oddizm 466 05-19-2004 06:29 PM Edited by author 05-19-2004 06:31 PM Hi, I prefer it when autistics are compared to amoebas, don't you? I mean you stick them under a glass slip...if you leave them under the microscope too long and the water dries out and they die, well you just get another drop of pond water. We were compared to rats whose mothers were exposed to thalidomide or valproic acid when they were pregnant with us at the IMFAR conference. We ran around the arms of the asterisk shaped maze thing and didn't learn a thing from going down the wrong arm, we just did it again, never learned, just like good autistic rat models. Someone pointed out that we looked more like good ADHD rat models, but the researcher said, they would investigate that further. One would think that they would test for autistic rat models by offering us a chance to do train spotting or watch ceiling fans or give us some books on celestial phenomena. They didn't even give us a chance to rock on a rocking chair, or anything. AND they made us share one blue m&m reinforcer. I mean, talk about causing a ruckus. jypsy wanted the whole thing, ralph wanted to split it with Clay and while they were arguing, I just took it and ran, Hah! oddizm - known for smelling a rat now and then :-) Clare 465 05-19-2004 03:37 PM Philip, I've read some of Peter Hobson's earlier work, but not this book (yet). "In the final few pages the author compares autistic children with chimpanzees; gazing at a chimpanzee reminded him of his experience he got sometimes when relating to autistic children." Interesting - have you read Dawn Prince-Hughes' book "Songs of the Gorilla Nation"? She's autistic and has built an academic career round working with gorillas, who she feels a great affinity with. But it seems misleading to say that autistic people aren't moved by other people's feelings (we may not always be able to "read" them, but we can certainly care). And we are very human - just not "typically" human .... Michelle Dawson 464 05-19-2004 03:36 PM Having learned from John, I'm busy dividing up my reinforcer so everyone can have some: Ralph (sine qua non), jypsy, John, Clare, Camille (once she settles down), Amanda, Philip, David, Lucas; I'll send a piece to Jim... oddizm 463 05-19-2004 03:07 PM Anybody notice what happened to Michelle after I gave her the Blue m&m and she chased me out of the room? It destroyed her motivation to keep posting here.... She was yelling something like "I am not a dog!" the last time I saw her. (this is a joke...I'm sure Michelle will be back after she calms down. I have to get the blue m&m taken out of my ear, autistics are sooooo sensitive...any dangerous, too.) oddizm Philip 462 05-19-2004 01:52 PM I have just read a hardback book which I borrowed from my local public library, ( the pyschology section). It is The Cradle of Thought by Peter Hobson, published 2002 by MacMillan, ISBN 0 333 76633 4. There is a brief description on http://www.panmacmillan.com on the popular science page. Although basically it is about the development of thinking in human infants and not specifically about autism,there is a substantial amount about autism in it. There are reports of various pyschological tests,social situations set by the author and 'theory of mind' tests; all these tests and situations involved autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents. The author states that autistic children "are not MOVED by people's feelings."(His emphasis). In the final few pages the author compares autistic children with chimpanzees; gazing at a chimpanzee reminded him of his experience he got sometimes when relating to autistic children. He compares the social and intellectual abilities of the two groups,who have in common "the difficulty in apprehending and responding to the attitudes of others in typically human ways." The sources cited in the End Notes are fairly comprehensive. Philip 461 19 May 2004 17:52:49 -0000 I have just read a hardback book which I borrowed from my local public library, ( the pyschology section). It is The Cradle of Thought by Peter Hobson, published 2002 by MacMillan, ISBN 0 333 76633 4. There is a brief description on http://www.panmacmillan.com on the popular science page. Although basically it is about the development of thinking in human infants and not specifically about autism,there is a substantial amount about autism in it. There are reports of various pyschological tests,social situations set by the author and 'theory of mind' tests; all these tests and situations involved autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents. The author states that autistic children "are not MOVED by people's feelings."(His emphasis). In the final few pages the author compares autistic children with chimpanzees; gazing at a chimpanzee reminded him of his experience he got sometimes when relating to autistic children. He compares the social and intellectual abilities of the two groups,who have in common "the difficulty in apprehending and responding to the attitudes of others in typically human ways." The sources cited in the End Notes are fairly comprehensive. David Andrews AppEdPsych 460 19 May 2004 11:43:15 -0000 Philip, >Thank you, David, for your advice to which I will give serious consideration. You're very welcome. I should add that counselling is, in its best form, about learning coping strategies and not about changing who you are to fit everyone else's idea of what you should be ;) DO keep posting. What you said made sense (when I finally was able to read the post: I was actually in the UK at the time and not near a computer for a long time). Philip 459 19 May 2004 11:11:17 -0000 Thank you to everyone who replied to my previous message, and commented on my original message, which I do not want deleted. Thank you, David, for your advice to which I will give serious consideration. Thank you for all your kind and encouraging words. They are very much appreciated, and have helped me feel better. I will be posting messages here again. Clare 458 19 May 2004 10:38:44 -0000 John wrote, "In this case you said what I would like to have said." See, we'll corrupt you yet <g>. "But we know that in DTT there is great difference between the different tutors style. The differences can be quite noticeable especially when a tutor has several years worth of experience and really has some well developed skills. The best tutors find ways to build and guide interests in a way that is not apparent from reading the literature." But then we're back again to saying that the important thing is the skill and sensitivity of the teacher, not the specific method. And in fact, in this case, what you seem to be saying is that the best teachers are the ones who stick <i>least</i> rigidly to the protocol that they're allegedly following. "Sure, but I could swear that you did say "praise", which is extrinsic." I actually can't remember. I may have done, which was carelessly-phrased of me. As I've said since then, I've found that some kids do enjoy praise, while others find it positively aversive; I've never yet met an autistic kid who works primarily for praise. So good teaching may involve praise - or it may not. "However this is a bit of a problem because it makes it difficult to meet certain objectives." Yes, but that's <i>your</i> problem <g>. Saying "I cannot do what would be most helpful to support this child's learning because unfortunately I have this list of tasks to tick off today" is not a good position to be in. And if your objectives are requiring you to ignore or suppress "cool" stuff - time to re-assess the objectives, IMHO. "I stand to be corrected, but did JABA ever really empirically assess motivation (non behavior)?" I haven't checked out the original JABA paper (Dunlap and Koegel 1980) but when summarizing the results elsewhere, the authors themselves certainly resort to terms like "motivation" (albeit defined in terms of "declining affect" and detailed analyses of rates of responding) in attempting to explain the results. "I have always thought there is such a thing as guided learning. Sometimes parts of guiding mean keeping learners on the assigned topic. " But - as with "sharing" - we seem to be returning to an idea of what children "should" do, as opposed to what necessarily helps them learn the most. Many of us on this board have just described attentional issues which mean that we often <i>can't</i> redirect our attention in response to an external demand, or can do so only with great difficulty. In some instances, redirection may be possible, if it's done in the right way; in some, it just isn't. David Andrews AppEdPsych 457 19 May 2004 10:35:03 -0000 John, >What do you think is a genius? A 145 IQ? I remain kind of skeptical on the concept of intelligence. Me too. I used intelligence tests, and there is no way that they tell anything about intelligence; they tell about performance on intelligence tests. Simple fault with them: they are based on point scores rather than whether a behaviour is an intelligent one in any given context. Oh, and there is a tosser called Rick Giombetti going around being a stupid inflamatory git: so, a message for him... OI RICK, FUCK OFF BACK DOWN YOUR LITTLE HOLE! (not a very professional thing to say, but today's my day off) Lucas 456 19 May 2004 09:32:52 -0000 ASSHOLE!!!! Oh, not you guys; you guys nice. This is the asshole: http://rickgiombetti.blogspot.com/2004_05_02_rickgiombetti_archive.html #108365742153136595 oddizm 455 19 May 2004 05:01:05 -0000 oddizm walks up and taps Michelle on the shoulder softly and says in a very sweet voice, Michehhhhhhllle, It's time for your m&m, sweetie! It's a BLUE one, your favorite! There's a good girl, smile! Goood girl. (pat pat) I knew you needed me to reinforce you for doing such a nice job here on the board. oddizm :-) (who is now running for cover) Michelle Dawson 454 19 May 2004 03:31:01 -0000 Hi again John, I missed one back there somewhere. #439. Sorry for my casual and totally unscientific use of genius. I meant genius as the ability to do extraordinary things. I know, that's not very precise either. I know it when I see it? Feeble, I agree. But Steven Wiltshire's a genius. I can say that and I don't have a clue about his IQ. The environments you've been describing (complete with rationing) may be good environments for practicing behaviourism on non-autistics. What I've been trying to communicate is that they're inadequate for developing abilities in autistics, and they eliminate the possibilities for autistics learning the way autistics learn. I'm not quite sure why you don't understand. Would you cut back on teaching time (by half, say) of non-autistics when they were still very young children, just to ensure they know they can't always get what they want, and to teach them to share scarce resources (in this case their miserly education) with each other? Here's your quote re incompatibility of cognition and reinforcement: "Also, one more note. Most of these intrinsic reinforcers will be a bit delayed between the time the behavior starts and the time of completion (reinforcement). It would probably be more accurate to refer to these as analogs to reinforcement rather than actual reinforcement. In other words they involve some sort of cognition. But even full blown professionals blow this all the time. I was told the reinforcement for doing your job was getting a pay check. This is not quite true because of the delay." In this quote the involvement of cognition meant that reinforcement is demoted to analogs of reinforcement. Your response means I blew it. Please correct my faulty conclusion. And thanks for the very convincing try at separating intrinsic and sensory reinforcement. I'm not sure either, but I'm seriously considering your definitions. You're also helping me understand why thinking inside the parameters (the prison?) of reinforcement gives me cramps. I've also noticed that my suggested alternate reference point (free will) has dropped right off the comment board. <sigh> Your thoughts about behaviourists and intrinsic reinforcement are also interesting. Now I want to know who among the autism behaviourists you would consider to be (or consider themselves to be) radical behaviourists. Dr Malott doesn't count, regardless of his ability to spot a bandwagon (see his paean to Dr Maurice). Re OBM, I'm aware of many tedious branches of behaviourism. What's the acronym for those who work on traffic safety? But I wasn't too far off the mark. The nightmares of many autistics often involve, peripherally or otherwise, personnel departments. Michelle Dawson 453 19 May 2004 02:36:52 -0000 Hi John, I don't know enough about Sir Cyril's case. All I know is the controversy, the for and against arguments. The evidence is fragmented and some of it reads like a soap opera. And the guy's dead and can't testify. He got away with it, so to speak. Took it with him. Dr Herrnstein is yet more proof that scientists should, with few exceptions (trying to think of one...uh...) either stay in their field or stay silent. I haven't properly read The Bell Curve because it just isn't science. I don't mind reading fiction, but I like the demarcation to be honest. Oh, and it gives me the creeps. I did do my duty and I stood in a library and read parts of Philippe Rushton's book. He is after all Canadian. Sometimes I'm very, very glad I'm not a nativist by inclination or profession. Not that kind of nativist. But you haven't told us what you think of Dr Rincover. I found out about him very early in my research. This resulted in some interesting conversations with the behaviour analysts. I'm not sure the cautionary tale about the scientist exiled to the hinterlands (Canada--I'm appalled) that you've heard is about Dr Rincover. But I assumed his case would be notorious among behaviourists in autism--small field--and I was totally wrong. Either that or these people were having me on. Dr Rincover continues to be cited everywhere. I really want to know where you stand once you've investigated (investigating was not easy). Surely the behaviourist whose standards you and your peers seem to be aspiring to, Iwata, has no trouble having Rincover cited in his journal. Dr Rincover is cited in the MADSEC report, and in turn by ASAT. I did ask ASAT, given their harsh condemnations of quackery, etc, what the rules were about citing someone who had falsified data. They predictably did not answer. The APA was cautious to the point of vanishing altogether. I won't quote Dr Mulick on this one, since while this exchange was quite amusing, I now have no way of knowing if he was honest. So, I'm counting on you to give the behaviourist moral/ethical view here of what to do with this guy and his frequently cited work. I'm no Skinner expert (far from) but I know lots of stories have been told about him. The baby in the box bit, eg. Dr Mulick made sure that I knew Skinner never called it a box; it was a very nice crib. Mulick's right this time. Skinner was betrayed by irresponsible journalists. A M Baggs 452 19 May 2004 02:30:09 -0000 Read Philip's original message and liked it, remember thinking about it, do not remember knowing how to respond so didn't, but found it quite useful. Michelle Dawson 451 19 May 2004 02:01:29 -0000 I didn't know about Sir Cyril's position about handedness and I should have; will look into this. Thanks David. 401-450 | 451-500 | previous | next |
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