The VB-MAPP and similar developmental language assessments have become the primary organizing frameworks for early intensive behavioral intervention with children with autism. These tools divide language and learning skills into developmental levels, with Level 2 (corresponding roughly to 18-30 month developmental equivalence) representing a pivotal stage: it is where children develop more sophisticated manding and tacting, begin engaging in listener responding at higher levels of complexity, and start building the social and play skills that enable peer interaction and learning in group settings.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Essential For Living
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Join Free →Many children with autism or language delays receive early intensive intervention with applied behavior analysis. Instruction and behavior management for most of these children is guided by a developmental assessment and curriculum like the VB-MAPP, the ABLLS-R, or the Early Start Denver Model. Some children make rapid progress on one of these instruments and can be transferred to a pre-academic curriculum. Progress at the pre-academic level then suggests movement to an academic curriculum and placement in a kindergarten or first grade classroom. Most of the children whose instruction is guided by a developmental curriculum will experience extraordinary difficulty acquiring skills that are part of Level 2 of the VB-MAPP. These skills include: expressive and receptive language, matching and imitation, generalization across people, situations, and settings, the emergence of novel responses, complex (conditional) discriminations, answers to questions (intraverbals), conversation, and abstract concepts. If changes in instructional and management procedures are not effective, most of these children should be transferred to a functional skills curriculum. Issues related to this transfer are discussed. https://www.essentialforliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/EFL-CM2-DecidingWhatSkills.pdf
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
| COA | 1 | — |
Dr. Patrick McGreevy received B.S. and M.A. degrees in Psychology and Special Education, respectively, from the University of Iowa. He was a special education teacher for eight years, working with children and young adults with moderate-to-severe developmental disabilities. He received the Ph.D. degree in Education from Kansas University under the guidance of Ogden R. Lind sley. He has served on the faculties of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Louisiana State University, the University of Central Florida, and the Florida Institute of Technology. He is the author of Teaching and Learning in Plain English, an introduction to Precision Teaching, and the founder and first editor of the Journal of Precision Teaching and Standard Celeration Charting. He is the author of ten journal articles and a book chapter on teaching verbal behavior. He is the first author of Essential for Living, a functional skills curriculum, assessment, and professional practitioner’s handbook based on B. F. Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior for children and adults with moderate-to-severe disabilities. For the past 30 years, he has provided consultations for children and adults with developmental disabilities in school districts, residential programs, and hospitals, specializing in the simultaneous management of aggressive and self-injurious behavior and the teaching of communication and language skills to individuals with limited repertoires. He is board certified behavior analyst, has given hundreds of presentations and workshops around the world, and is the recipient of the Ogden R. Lindsley Lifetime Achievement Award of the Standard Celeration Society. He is the President and Director of Consultation and Training Services for Patrick McGreevy, Ph.D., P.A. and Associates.
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.