steps


  • Shopping at the Grocery Store

    There are numerous hidden tasks that we undertake while at the grocery store. We process them so quickly or subconsciously that we are not aware of these steps. As a result, we may overlook these steps while educating students on life skills such as grocery shopping. Subsequently, these steps may not be part of the…


  • So Easy?!

    So Easy?!

    Problems like the addition problem below are often viewed by adults as straight forward. This perception can make it difficult for adults, including teachers and even special education teachers to help students who struggle with it. I find that the math teacher candidates and special education teacher candidates struggle with breaking down math topics, especially…


  • Shaping Behavior

    Shaping is a term in special ed which basically means to train a student to incrementally follow through on a sequence of substeps to accomplish a task. B.F. Skinner coined a different name for this which he called operant conditioning. The top photo below shows “Skinner’s box.” The pigeon was placed in the box and…


  • Task Analysis

    A teacher friend of mine in the ASD community shared an anecdote for me to share. Her son had trouble figuring out perimeter. He was counting the squares and didn’t want to count the corner squares twice. The solution? The squares were pieces of sod to fill in the inside while the outer sides of…