Impulsive - what does that really mean?

This is the second of three reports from the 2011 annual meeting of the Maryland Association for Behavior Analysis (MABA). 


As higher functioning children with ASD progress and succeed, their diagnosis may be questioned.   In my son’s case, he was diagnosed in Infants and Toddlers days as having Asperger’s Syndrome.   By elementary school, he had responded so well to early intervention that school staff couldn’t see it and believed he had ADHD all along.  ASD, as you may know, is the only disorder where if you improve you never had it in the first place.  

Once we had more thorough-going assessments done in the process of transferring him to a private special needs school, we learned they were both partly right.    He would be most succinctly described by an Asperger’s diagnosis, based on how he presents today.   But he doesn’t meet criteria because he had speech delays before age 3.  So back then, he should have been diagnosed with autism.   He has progressed so far, he now doesn’t meet criteria for autism.  He does meet criteria for ADHD, but it doesn’t begin to explain all his needs.   It takes several pages of specific learning disabilities to paint the rest of the picture.

Since we have experienced how blurry the boundary between Asperger’s/high-functioning autism and ADHD can be, I was very interested when Dr. Leonard Green presented at MABA this year about one factor which may be blurring the line.   Green, a professor of behavioral psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, discussed one of the diagnostic criteria of ADHD – impulsivity. 

What's the Law About Restraint & Seclusion?

This is the first of three reports from the 2011 annual meeting of the Maryland Association for Behavior Analysis (MABA). 

This year’s MABA conference began with a hot topic – the use of restraint and seclusion in schools.    Maureen van Stone, Esq., an attorney who directs Project HEAL at Kennedy Krieger Institute, gave us an update on the state of current law.  The facts presented below come from her.   The opinions are mine.   A fundamental problem, she said, for policies about ‘R/S’ (a new acronym for me) is the lack of definitions in Federal law.   In fact, this is a problem for implementing procedures to reduce problem behavior generally.

The IDEA, which has many great provisions to benefit our kids, fails to define key terms.  Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) are required in certain circumstances, but the law is silent about what either of these things means.   It also fails to specify the kinds of professionals that must be involved.  Only the participation of the classroom teacher is required.  So not only is it not required for a behavior analyst to do the FBA, it’s not even required that a school psychologist be involved.   In this ambiguous space, it’s not surprising that interventions are poorly planned and, in the case of R/S, may become dangerous.