Module 3

Supporting Tamariki to Learn New Skills

All behaviour has a purpose and is a form of communication. Identifying the factors that occur before behaviour and the consequences that immediately follow it helps us to understand why behaviour occurs. This module discusses the ‘ABC’ model of how children learn behaviour, and how to apply this model to support your child to learn new skills and behaviours.

This module covers:
  • The ABC model of learning
  • Using the ABC model to support skill development
  • Specific strategies to support learning, including prompting, step-by-step teaching, and the use of visual supports
  • When it is optimal to teach

This module describes the ‘ABC’ model of learning, including how factors that occur before and after a behaviour can make that behaviour more or less likely to occur again in the future. This module then discusses how you can use the ABC model to support your child to learn new skills and adaptive behaviours. Specific strategies to support your child’s learning including prompting, step-by-step teaching, the use of visual supports, and positive consequences (often referred to as ‘rewards’) for behaviour, are also discussed. Finally, this module considers the optimal timing for teaching opportunities.

Resources that informed Play to Learn

Frost, K. M., Brian, J., Gengoux, G. W., Hardan, A., Rieth, S. R., Stahmer, A., & Ingersoll, B. (2020). Identifying and measuring the common elements of naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions for autism spectrum disorder: Development of the NDBI-Fi. Autism, 24(8), 2285-2297. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320944011

Gray, C. A., & Garand, J. D. (1993). Social stories: Improving responses of students with autism with accurate social information. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 8(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/108835769300800101.

Help is in your Hands: https://helpisinyourhands.org

Kasari, C., Gulsrud, A. C., Shire, S. Y., & Strawbridge, C. (2021). The JASPER model for children with autism: Promoting joint attention, symbolic play, engagement, and regulation. Guilford Publications.

Rogers, S. J., & Dawson, G. (2010). Early start Denver model for young children with autism. The Guilford Press, NY

Sussman, F. (2012). More than words guidebook, second edition. The Hanen Centre

Vibert, B. A., Dufek, S., Klein, C. B. Choi, Y. B., Winter, J., Lord, C., & Kim, S. H. (2020). Quantifying caregiver change across early autism interventions using the measure of NDBI strategy implementation: caregiver change (MONSI-CC). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 1364-1379. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04342-0