“At Whole Child Consulting, we’ve been receiving many requests for webinars (live and recorded) and we will be providing these over the next several months. CE’s will be available. We will be offering the following webinars: Calming; Teaching Executive Function; Reinforcer-seeking Games; Expanding Interests. What are some additional topics that would interest you?”
WHOLE CHILD CONSULTING, LLC
Whole Child Consulting is not only for children, but for adults as well. We provide unique solutions targeting your individual needs. Take a look around and discover what Whole Child Consulting can do for you! We Believe:
- A “deep understanding” is developed by taking time to understand the relationship between a learners abilities and interests and the environments in which they live. Assessment should be ongoing and personalized.
- It is preferable to create multi-dimensional programs that address objectives across a variety of learning channels while accounting for motivation.
- The teachers (e.g. school personnel, therapists, family members) best serve their learners needs by understanding how and why interventions work. This helps teachers maintain broad perspective and develop into problem-solvers.
- Instruction should foster intrinsic motivation and develop foundational repertoires that facilitate the acquisition of future objectives.
- Procedures used to address one behavior are likely to affect other repertoires. We are rarely actually treating a single behavior, but are always treating the “whole child”.
Upcoming Workshops
Links to Recorded Webinars
Teaching Calming to Kids with ASD – Webinar
About this event – Anxiety is a common problem, especially among learners diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. While there is a wide variety of treatment options, none of these options should be seen as “one size fits all” and any treatment plan needs to consider the “whole child”. This webinar will cover multicomponent programming for learners with issues related to anxiety, with a particular focus on a procedure colloquially known as “calm counts”.
Participants will be able to:
1. Distinguish when “calm counts” may be an appropriate intervention.
2. List “do’s” and “don’ts” regarding the implementation of “calm counts”.
Date Recorded: January 27th, 12:00EST
Teaching Scanning Skills to Kids with ASD – Webinar
About this event In this one hour webinar, we will review: a variety of exercises and games that can earn functional scanning repertoires. A lot of skills, from locating a friend in the mall to matching identical objects, require scanning. Attempts to teach these skills without an emerging scanning repertoire can be fruitless and can contribute to learners becoming more difficult to teach over time. Teachers have long struggled to earn consistent scanning from their learners. Some teachers have run out of ideas and have attempted to physically prompt learners to scan. Most of us can see the flaws in that approach. Using a bottom-up approach, some teachers have explicitly prompted and reinforced scanning, in isolation of other skills. While this is a fair and logical approach, I will make the case in this webinar that more effective, more meaningful interventions exist. In this webinar, we will review: a variety of exercises and games that can earn functional scanning repertoires; provide examples of bottom-up instructional sequences; describe (in)effective instructional processes.*Note, “Scanning” pairs with “Reinforcer-seeking Games”, which will only be reviewed very briefly during the “Scanning” webinar. Date Recorded: December 9, 2021, 5:30PM EST
Reinforcer-Seeking Games – Webinar
About this event Establishment of social stimuli as reinforcers is perhaps the highest priority in programs for learners diagnosed with ASD. Ideally, we’re able to establish this value during natural, free-flow interactions, such as by joining a learner who is playing with trains and making this play better with us than it is without us. This can be easier said than done as some learners have very limited interests and some can be defensive of play materials. It can also be difficult to train teachers and parents to flexibly join learners in play. In these cases, we may begin by teaching a variety of ways of accessing currently effective reinforcers (e.g., trains, treats, markers, letters, etc). We can begin with easy examples of hiding reinforcers, such as “hide-the-prize” and we can build towards more advanced examples, such as “Scavenger Hunt” and “Hotter/colder”. Each of these activities brings multiple potential benefits to the teacher-student relationship and it is relatively easy to train teachers and parents in their implementation. Date Recorded: December 6, 2021, 5:00PM CST
Building Rapport and Expanding Interests in Learners with ASD
About this event This workshop will provided strategies to improve rapport with your learner while expanding upon their interests within play. Steve Ward, MA, BCBA, author of 5 books on play and learner repertoires, presented a workshop geared toward the expansion of learner interests, with particular focus on social interest. As always, his primary focus was on the meaningful development of foundational learner repertoires, such as the establishment of social attention as a form of reinforcement. This workshop provided practical play strategies in a cohesive and conceptually systematic manner. Guidelines for free-flow and intrinsically motivated play was provided, as were suggestions for the use of extrinsic motivation. Date Recorded Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 12:00 PM EDT
Advanced Executive Function Webinar
About this event This webinar follows “An Introduction to Executive Function” and is “advanced” from the perspectives of analyses and of teacher behavior. For example, we will “drill down” from potential targets to the foundations and prerequisites that support them. We will also consider targets through the lens of “Dimensions Grids”. Date Recorded Oct 15, 2021, 12:00 PM EDT
Introduction to Executive Function Repertoires
About this event “Executive function” is a construct used to describe repertoires critical to many aspects of life. It is sometimes described as “the management system of the brain”. Executive function is divided into 3 broad domains: working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. When a student apparently lacks one of these repertoires, it is common to introduce a support, such as visual reminders. While potentially part of the solution, these supports are not magic! In this introductory presentation, we will focus primarily on practical strategies for teaching executive function skills. While these skills usually continue to develop during adolescence, the foundations of these skills can be taught much sooner. Date Recorded Sep 14, 2021, 11:00 PM CST
Links to Podcasts
The Behavioral Observations Podcast – How to Help Individuals with Anxiety: Session 187 with Steve Ward
MAY 5, 2022 W/ Steve Ward – In Session 187, Steve Ward joins me to discuss how to help individuals – in particular, individuals with severely limited communicated repertoires – who demonstrate challenging repertoires that are colloquially referred to as Anxiety.
Given that tortured sentence, you can probably already imagine that in this episode, we discuss how Steve conceptualizes what exactly Anxiety is, especially in populations who cannot verbally report on their private verbal behavior. More importantly, we discuss how he developed what he calls the “calm counts” procedure, and review a case study of this intervention that he recently published.
All content © 2022 The Behavioral Observations Podcast. Date Recorded May 5, 2022
The Behavioral Karma Podcast – The Power of Fun When Learning with Steve Ward
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021 BILLY BROWN & DR. PAUL “PAULIE” GAVONI SEASON 1 EPISODE 62 On this episode we have a lot of fun with veteran Behavior Analyst and author, Steve Ward, about the importance of making learning fun. Steve shares some stories and tips on how to make learning fun. Check out the Behavioral Karma YouTube Channel for tips on using the practical application of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference personally and professionally. All content © 2021 The Behavioral Karma Podcast. Date Recorded Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 12:00 PM EDT
Meet Our Teachers
Together, Steve and Terry form “Whole Child Consulting”, so named because they believe that no single behavior can be isolated from the rest of a person’s repertoires. In other words, they believe in treating the “whole child”. Steve and Terry currently travel the world to provide workshops, and consult to schools and families in all relevant settings. They provide distance consultation via webcam, phone, and email in between on-site visits in order to maintain close contact with each learner’s progress.
Purchase Our Books…
JUST RELEASED!!! – ANOTHER 21 GAMES: THIS TIME, IT’S PERSONAL…
Another 21 Games: This time, it’s personal…is a sequel to the popular “What You Need to Know about Motivation and Teaching Games: An in-depth analysis” (Ward, 2008). Another 21 Games provides great detail regarding the development of competition, sportsmanship, and tolerance of losing. Deficits in these areas too frequently undermine motivation to participate in games. And flexible instructional frameworks are provided for 21 games, 4 of which have been newly developed for the current book. These cover the areas of physical movement, scanning, compliance, cooperation, travel, language, and (educated) guessing. Pick a game to meet your needs or, better yet, read the whole book and learn how to analyze play!
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MOTIVATION AND TEACHING GAMES
What You Need to Know about Motivation and Teaching Games: An in-depth analysis” is essential for anyone working with learners with social delays, including learners with Autism…
INVENTORY OF GOOD LEARNER REPERTOIRES
A “good learner” is someone who readily responds to instruction in a wide variety of situations. “The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires” covers 139 items that assess the ease with which a learner can be taught…
TEACHING GOOD LEARNER REPERTOIRES
Teaching Good Learner Repertoires is a “how to” book that will guide you to make your student easy to teach. Steve Ward, MA, BCBA and Terry Grimes, MS, BCBA bring decades of experience to this follow-up to the Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires.
TEACHING ADVANCED LEARNER REPERTOIRES
An “advanced learner” is someone who is usually cooperative across a variety of contexts, usually tolerates brief delays, denials, and corrections, and is at least beginning to develop independent task completion, and is now ready for the next step.