Wow (Fri. Dec. 13), Wow (Sat. Dec.14) and Wow (Sun.Dec 15)!!!!! Friday me and my carpool of 3 went to Whiteplains for the NYSABA one day work shop series "Applying Behavior Analysis" where we had the opportunity to choose 1 of 4 topics per workshop series (in which their were 4 series throughout the day) presented by top professionals and Board Certified Behavior Analysts. In a nutshell, and unrealistically, THE ENTIRE STAFF FROM MY SONS SCHOOL SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE (and should have wanted to be there), ok maybe that is a little extreme but definitely at the very least the person who supervises our classrooms (from EVERY campus) should have been there. There is something to say about getting information from the source as opposed to being trained by someone who was trained by someone and so on. The further from the source the more watered down information is. And it is imperative that along with learning how the science and applications of ABA are evolving, being consistently refreshed in all the aspects of ABA (following are notes I took from M.A., B.C.A.B.A. Dana Reinecke's presentation)--shaping, chaining, prompt fading, incidental teaching, free operant reinforcement, activity schedules, behavior reduction strategies and generalizing training-oh yeah, and Discrete Trial Teaching--should be a priority. This conference for me was very helpful and has helped to put some anxiety to rest because I am finally beginning to truly understand how to analyze Dustin and even better the teaching procedures implemented on him. I tended to gravitate towards presentations by Bobby Newman, Ph.D., B.C.B.A who can present information in a way that 1. you will never forget and 2. you will understand. I laughed as much as I learned and I am really looking forward to my husband coming with me to "ABA in Plain English" through ELIJA in Feb. The next time a NYSABA workshop series is available, if I have to I will pay for and drive any and all teachers or assistants involved with my son. On Sat and Sun me and different carpool of 4 went to Christina Burk's presentation through ELIJA. Christina was amazing, and I kept saying to myself again "god, they should be here". Her Sat. presentation was reinforcing all I learned the day before plus the an overview of the history and development of ABA as well as the book Verbal Behavior by B.F. Skinner and applying Skinner's analysis of VB into an ABA program. Sun. was about the Verbal Operants as described by Skinner and how to apply them. Without going off, let me just say that after this 24 hours of ABA that I attended, one thing stands clear--- more often then not our children’s degree of disability, or state of being (lazy, silly, hyper, etc.) is blamed for the lack of acquisition of new skills or maintained behavior when in reality, the blame should be on how it was taught. To me this realization is as big as the "refrigerator mother" scenario. Thank you NYSABA for Friday's one day workshop and thank you Christina Burk for your 2 day presentaion on applying VB to an ABA program. Take care, Jennica P.S. Stay current, join and support NYSABA today!! Website for NYSABA: www.nysaba.org Website for Christina Burk: www.christinaburkaba.com

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