How to Keep Children Germ-free: An ABA Approach
Teaching children about germs and how to stay clean and germ-free is difficult. However, children can learn quickly through an imitation program. Most of the skills that we learn, as children or adults, are through imitation. We are very quick learners when we are able to see others doing something.
I have created an imitation program for children to help them stay germ-free. These skills are very important for any child to learn, whether a child is typically developing or has a disability.
In applied behaviour analysis (ABA), there is a mastery criteria, a revision criteria, and lots and lots of target lists. A mastery criteria is typically 100% over 3 days, which means that a child will be able to do a skill 100% of the time over 3 days. For example, when teaching a child to wash hands, the child will be able to wash hands appropriately for 3 days with no assistance.
A revision criteria is implemented when a child is unable to do a skill after a certain number of days, for example in the program plan below, the revision criteria is 7 days. This means that if a child is having a difficult time mastering a skill and it has been 7 days since they have been practicing, we can put that specific target on hold and investigate as to why the child is unable to do the specific skill. A revision criteria can be changed depending on the difficulty of the skill being taught.
Target lists are very helpful as they tell you exactly what a child needs to learn in order to master the program. For example, if teaching a child how to wash their hands, some of the skills that need to be taught before mastering a hand washing program would be, if a child is able to put their hands under the tap with water running, if a child can put soap on their hands, if a child can rub the soap on their hands, etc.
ABA capitalizes on the concept of reinforcement. Reinforcement is why we do anything that we do. For example, you go to work to earn money (tangible reinforcement). You take a bath with lavender bath salts to relax (sensory reinforcement). You complete a report for work and your boss tells you that you did a great job(attention-based reinforcement). You make pizza and eat it (edible reinforcement). Let’s focus on two types of reinforcement in this post, edible reinforcement and attention-based reinforcement.
Edible reinforcement relies on delivering something that a person can consume. It is highly motivating and it is quick. A person delivering reinforcement should only give a small piece of reinforcement, so the person receiving reinforcement doesn’t satiate (become bored of) of what they are being given.
Attention-based reinforcement is the best type of reinforcement, as you can share some words and the person will be reinforced. For example, if you are reinforcing when a child imitates clapping hands, all you have to say is, “great job clapping your hands!”
We do not reinforce people, we reinforce behaviours. What this means is, we reinforce specific things a person does, rather than reinforcing a person in general. For example if a child is working on brushing their teeth, after they have completed the task, you deliver one skittle to them and say, “good job brushing your teeth! High-five!!” You are reinforcing brushing teeth. You always want to deliver reinforcement within 10–20 seconds after the completion of a behaviour.
In this program, children will learn, through imitating, how to sneeze/cough into their elbow, how to wipe/blow their nose, with alternatives, how to check their temperature with different types of thermometers, and to wash their hands. You can use any type of reinforcement mentioned above.
Please feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have any questions or want to see more programs!
