Joan: Jennifer Shryock says, “This is a really great place to practice this much needed behavior.” 

That’s a good point. These kinds of role-playing things are really useful. It’s very artificial at 

first because everyone is play-acting, but it gives the child an opportunity to learn and practice 

the behavior. If they’ve never done it before they can’t be expected to just go and do it in a social 

situation or a real situation. 

Here’s a question from Kathy. “So in the case of a child with little or no language, we would tag 

in the moment when we think they want that seat, instead of the role or the pretend play? How do 

we do this sort of thing when we can’t do a role play?”

Martha: I’d have to think about that. I can never come up on the fly with come up with these tag 

points; I have to mull it over. I think the thing to do would be to step back a little bit and make 

sure that there is lots of positive reinforcement in place for the productive behaviors that child 

already has. And if the child’s already got a lot of productive behaviors and feels safe and is in a 

good situation , then it’s not too hard to just say, “Johnny is sitting in the red chair. Why don’t 

you sit in the blue chair?” And direct the child and tag the child for sitting in the blue chair. You 

could even make a promise, “Tomorrow you can sit in the red chair.” 

Joan: I think you can set up situations if a nonverbal child is going to be in a certain situation and 

things are going to happen in a certain way. You could still get some volunteers and set up a 

similar situation, and this might be a good place to use some targets. You could put a target on 

the other seat and teach that as a separate activity, so that they understand that it’s a good thing to 

do to sit on this target. You could have 2 targets, and one person sits on one and that leaves the 

other one free for the child to sit on. So any situation that’s going to arise, you could simulate it 

and try to figure out what to do, rather than waiting until it happens and then hoping for the best. 

Martha: Right, right. That’s a great idea.

Joan: Kathy says, “Lear became comfortable with getting what he wanted before moving to 

demands for new behavior. Love it!” Yes. That was a good strategy, to let him win a bunch of 

times and then change it on him. The main thing he needs to learn is what happens when 

someone says No, because that’s when the problem arises. Then he can learn. We say, Yes, yes, 

yes,” to him, then we tell him we’re going to say No, so he understands it, that people can say No 

and he can still win in that situation. 

Joan: Here’s another comment from Shubata: She says, “My son usually wants the sofa to 

himself. His method is to act silly to make people leave. I need to pre-empt this. I need a tag 

point.” She’s asking, should she pre-empt him being silly, which is a nicer approach than Lear 

uses to get what he wants, but it’s still a tactic for controlling a situation.

Martha:  Let’s talk about that some more at the end.

Note that we did not get back to this question in the webinar. A suggested solution is below.

 

A solution to this problem would entail changing the child’s attitude about having someone else on the couch. He will need to find it reinforcing to share the couch. One way to do that might be to use targets. Here is a suggested protocol:

Put a target (piece of tape, or cloth) on the couch: Tag point is sit on target.

Tag for this a few times. You could put the reinforcer on a table nearby so that he has to get up to get it, then he will have the opportunity to sit back down to practice this a few times.

Introduce another target on the other side of the couch, so now there are two. Sit on this one yourself and tag for “sit on target” when the child sits on his target. If this is too hard, you could use a large stuffed animal to sit on the other target. Reinforce and then get up so you can try again and so that he gets control of the couch. The child could remain sitting when you sit and get up and sit again, or he could get up and down as well. Tag when both of you are sitting at the same time.

If the child is able, he could tag when you sit on the target. This can be a fun game if the child likes to be in control of the tagger.

Increase the length of time you sit on your target while he is sitting on his, by 1 second at a time. Go back to a shorter time right away if he shows signs of being unaccepting of your presence. Once you are up to about 5 seconds, you could start varying the time you stay on your target. Sometimes 1 sec, sometimes 4, sometimes 2 etc, gradually adding in longer periods every so often until you are up to about 10 seconds consistently.

Next, try to add in reinforcement that is not food, but involves staying on the couch together. For example, games, songs, books, toys, electronics etc so that he finds the time together on the couch enjoyable. Slowly introduce short periods of inactivity, or just watching TV.

Proceeding slowly in this way you should be able to change his attitude about sharing the couch, by building a positive association with having you on the couch. Repeat the process with other people to generalize this.

If you have Martha’s book, read Chapter 10 on decreasing disruptive behaviors, especially the part about the “love the couch” program and territorial behavior.