Jo'Blog: LUC Academy

So I'm going to finally post about what I do all day in Africa, particularly at the request of my friends in Ottawa with whom I skyped a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to try to make it descriptive enough for my non-behavioral friends but not too boring for my behavioral buddies. Here it goes!

LUC Academy is the name of the center where I work. It is on the residential property of the parents of one of the students. They keep regular weekday hours, so I'm at work from 7:30 to 4:30. There are currently four students who attend the school, between the ages of 4 and 9. These children have been diagnosed with autism. There are four therapists apart from myself who work at the school. We use the principles of applied behavior analysis to teach language and other skills to the students. We do both discrete trial training at the table and natural environment training when the students are playing. For those who don't know, discrete trial training involves presenting a demand (such as "What does a dog say?"), the student's response (either correct or incorrect) and then a consequence (either a reinforcer; our students earn tokens which can later be exchanged for toys or activities, or if they were incorrect, we provide a correction). Also for those who don't know, natural environment training involves following the student to what they find reinforcing, and then creating learning opportunities there (for example, one of our students really likes the sandpit so we ask him questions about the sandpit, have him ask for buckets and shovels, etc.)

I am working with the kids everyday and also supervising the other therapists at the center. Two of the therapists are also starting their coursework to become Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analysts so I'm specifically supervising their work experience for that purpose as well. I'm really enjoying my work here and the people I work with!