The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

Effective parent training addresses parent behavior in concert with the behavior of the child. Done within the frame of social exchanges, skills developed extend beyond the family. Learning to change behavior through social exchanges leads to effective families, communities and policies. The Judevine System provides the foundation for effective parenting and advocacy. This presentation will delineate the keys to sustainable behavior change , outline the processes by which skills extend from the family to the community through social exchanges. Parenting a child with autism often results in few of the natural rewards inherent in parenting. Children may not say their first word or may lack eye contact and cuddling. They often miss or experience delays in developmental milestones of same age peers. When they do develop language and social interaction, it may take far longer for the parent to experience a spontaneous “I love you” or the hug initiated or reciprocated from their child. Parents often report remorse for the stages of life that may never occur- a first kiss, a first date, being part of a team sport. In answer to these issues, parent training is a front line of intervention.Many training models, which espouse the use of behavior principles, do so with a focus on behavior management.

In attempting to control or “manage” behavior, approaches to training often miss the focus on the dynamic nature of social interaction. True behavioural change requires effort, accounts for variables such as motivation, context, conditions under which behavior is learned and maintained. Managing behavior often fails in its monolithic approach to learning in terms of control versus learning to learn. Training which is sustainable throughout a lifetime requires examination of behavior and behavior change within the framework of social interaction, or exchanges. Learning is dynamic rather than static. In human behavior, it occurs within the context of patterns of interaction through which people shape each other's behavior rather than control or manage others. With this foundation, learning to learn, grow and change in relation to others becomes the primary focus of parent training. The Judevine System with its core in parent and professional training is unique in its focus edifying the family's inherent expertise regarding the needs of its individual members and the family as a whole. To do so, the foundation of parent training is on behaviour development within the context of social exchanges. Focus on behaviour development, rather than behavior management is integral to the sustainability of the training as a framework for individual, family and system change as the child with autism, his family and community grow and change over time. Effective training begins with acknowledging that change, or learning is difficult and requires effort.

Motivation for change must be powerful and worth the effort in terms of payoff or reward for all those involved in the process. A history of success comes from the recognition that the payoff or reward is found in the increase in skill, the reduction in effort of communication and the positive relationships that develop as a result of the process. The Judevine model of service delivery, with its core in parent training begins with these premises and serves as a lifelong foundation for individual, family and community change.Resulting from a university affiliation in the early 1970s, research in applied behavior analysis within the context of social exchanges was initiated at the Washington University Social Exchange Lab with children with autism and their parents. Families reported for the first time, experiencing the natural reinforces inherent in parenting such as reciprocal eye contact, cooperative play and spontaneous verbal interaction. While funding for the research moved to another university, families took the skills they had begun to acquire in interaction with their children and expanded the program from the bounds of a university to start a non-profit organization to continue the research with the help of Lois J. Blackwell, lead researcher.

The tenets of the Judevine System are multifold. First, training reviews behavior principles or laws with govern social exchanges. The understanding that people shape each other's behavior and that learning is a dynamic, lifelong process best maintained within the context of social exchanges in the central tenet to training and service design. Second, the training examines motivating variables in terms of what makes it worth the effort to learn, grow and change in relation to others, the conditions under which one is to learn and the payoff relative to the effort one exerts in the learning process. The utilization of applied behavior analysis within the context of social exchanges and the consideration of response effort and relative pay off-components of behavioural economics make the Judevine Training Model unique in its approach to lifelong growth and intervention for the child with autism.

These core components are coupled with other key elements that set the model apart from other means of intervention. First, participants in training set goals for behavior change. Next, parents and professionals work side by side in guided observation, coaching and workshops. Parents are regarded as the expert on the family member with autism. It is the family that will sustain the change and growth that occur as a result o the training-in the short and long term. Unlike other models for intervention, the family and the person with autism are the key players in intervention. People outside the family will come and go as “professionals” but no one lives 24 hours a day, 7 days a week within the framework of the family and community from which the child with autism is born. In preparation of skills, which rely on methods and people who will come and go throughout one's lifetime, the behavior principles which acknowledge that like physical laws, laws govern behavior? Behaivoral principles operate to establish, maintain and change behavior over time as people grow. This provides the framework for growth and change within and in support of the family, the community and in the larger service delivery system. Parents take data, along side the Judevine staff. They work on objectivity and learn o collect data within the context of the family as a means by which to “baseline” behavioural change. Use of technology from the inception of the program is another difference in the Jude vine model. Use of videotape serves many purposes in the analysis of social exchanges. First, it gives rise to over 30 years of data from which longitudinal analysis of change is possible. Self monitoring and self correction are also possible through the use of technology to replay exchanges within the context of training. The use of modelling and demonstration, too, is possible through videotape, even to remote locations for training.With the Judevine Model of service delivery as a foundation, interventions, then, may be added to the array of treatment methodologies and tailored to each individual's needs. Interventions can also be evaluated for efficacy and maintained or discarded as newer; more refined or more appropriate interventions become available.

Although training takes many forms, the use of baseline data collection, analysis of social exchanges and motivating variables is applicable not only in the context of parent/child intervention. It also serves as a foundation for group seminars and in services for professionals. It provides a basis for group problem solving in sibling support and family connections groups. Natural Support Workshops provide information at a more basic level to the neighbour, bus driver or friend from church who wants to help, but needs to learn just a little more. The language of training is the common language spoken by those who participate in the Judevine model of service delivery. Issue specific consultation allows for more in depth problem solving. Advocacy at many levels are provided to communities, government systems and groups of parents and professionals nationally and internationally. As families began to identify service gaps from the organization's inception, new services have developed. Respite services provided a structured teaching opportunity from which children and their families get a break from their daily routine, but continue to develop language, social and self help skills.

Clinical services such as occupational, speech and behaviour therapy provide more traditional interventions. A classroom provides for alternative instruction of a more intense level to thoroughly address academic, social and communication needs for adolescents with autism. Residential , recreation, Supported Employment and community based services complete the array of lifelong services developed for and by people with autism and their families as needs are identified.Learning to be a keen observer and as objective as possible, analyzing what establishes, maintains and changes behavior are the critical skills developed in parent training. Setting social exchanges up to be “win win” is the next key skill developed. In this, learning that one has to give a little to get a little is a foundation for successful life long interaction. An examination of the relative variables which govern interaction in terms of setting, pay off, player in the interaction also transcends the context of the family and generalizes to analysis of groups, communities, cultures and systems.There are several outcomes enjoyed by those who participate in training and access services through the Judevine model. People with autism become successful, taxpaying, contributing members of their families, communities and professions. They have friends. They go on to begin support groups and to advocate for systems change for themselves. Families are able to articulate and advocate for the needs of their children and their family as a whole. Professionals understand their role in edifying the family, but recognize the expertise the family has inherent as they parent the child with autism. They develop skills that are critical to work with the child with autism but which are good, solid principles of effective teaching and learning.

Families advocate changing systems in their classroom, school, church, medical community, and within the context of the community as a whole. They learn that behaviour principles apply to all interaction, even those involving government systems. By shaping interaction into win/win social exchanges or restructuring interaction through the analysis pf behaviour principles, change is possible within the family for a lifetime The framework for growth is integral to the family and will grow as each individual and the family as a whole changes. The mission of Judevine is “to make a real difference in the lives of people with autism and their families wherever they may live”. The model of training makes it possible to do just that.

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