Applied Behavioral Analysis and Early Childhood: Sunny Hills Daycare Center, Mary and Tony
Primary Prevention (All Children Are Involved)
Sunny Hills Childcare Center serves children ages six weeks through four years old. The school has eight classrooms divided by age. There are two licensed teachers per classroom. One of the primary goals of the childcare center is to build and foster relationships between parents and teachers and teachers and children. In order to build and foster relationships between parents and teachers, the school holds monthly coffee hours where teachers and parents can socialize and talk outside of the normally hectic drop off and pick up times. Teachers also send home daily written updates for parents about their child’s day and hold formal conferences twice a year. During the conferences the teachers summarize data for the parents.
To foster relationships between teachers and children, the teachers make sure to find out about each child’s favorite things (i.e., toys, food, and activities) before the child enters a classroom. Usually, teachers will make a home visit to talk to the parents and child in an environment that is familiar to the child the week before the child starts in a classroom. Once the teachers learn about personal preferences they make an effort to use provide each child’s favorite items whenever possible (as a reinforcer) and make a point of trying to connect with each child by bringing up things unique to them.
In the above example, the following principles of ABA are represented:
- Positive Reinforcement. Teachers learning each students personal preferences related to toys, food, activities and using those items/activities as reinforcers when possible.
Secondary Prevention (Some Children Are Involved)
At Sunny Hills Day Care Center, there are two toddlers, Mary (age 16 months) and Tony (age 18 months) who don’t appear to be connecting well with teachers and are exhibiting challenging behaviors. Mary cries uncontrollably at drop-off and continues crying for approximately 30-45 minutes after her parents leave every day. Tony throws between six to eight tantrums per day. During a tantrum, Tony throws himself on the ground and hits his hands, feet and head against the floor for up to 10 minutes unless teachers intervene and pick him up and move him to a bean bag chair where he can’t injure himself. Tony throws tantrums during transition periods (i.e., drop-off, pick-up, moving from outside play to inside for lunch) when his teachers remove a preferred item or cease a preferred activity.
To teach Mary and Tony alternative and more socially appropriate ways to communicate their wants, one teacher (they alternate days) sits with Mary and Tony during lunch in their own small group. During lunch the teacher engages the children in activities meant to help them in school. For example, practicing transitioning, reading age-appropriate stories about going to school, teaching the children alternative ways to ask for something (i.e., signing please). The activities take place in the context of the classroom, but are executed with fewer distractions than typically occur in a classroom and with more explicit structure. Initially, during each of the activities, the teacher will model what they would like the student to do. Then, the teacher will use physical prompting to make sure the child engages in the task. Finally, when the child shows that they are successful, the teacher will slowly fade the use of physical prompts and move to gestures and/or verbal prompts to get the child to engage in the task. Initially, during each of the activities, Mary and Tony are reinforced for correctly engaging in the activity with verbal praise and a sticker. After each child successfully completes and activity eight times for three consecutive days, the teacher begins to fade the use of stickers by giving one after four consecutive trials where the child executes the task. The teacher continues to verbally praise the child after every successful task completion
 In the above example the following ABA principles are represented:
- Positive Reinforcement. Verbal praise and use of stickers.
- Differential Schedule of Reinforcement. Continuous schedule of reinforcement and a fixed ratio when the teachers fade verbal and tangible reinforcement from every time the child displays appropriate behavior to every fourth time.
- Prompt Fading. Fade the use of physical prompts and rely on verbal and gestural prompts to remind the child to engage in the task.
Tertiary Prevention (A Few Children Are Involved)
Despite the teacher’s efforts, Tony continues to struggle with being successful in his classroom and continues to engage in tantrum behavior. His teacher performs an ABC analysis which shows that Tony throws between 6-8 tantrums per day. A tantrum is defined as occurring when Tony throws himself on the ground and hits his hands, feet and head against the floor for up to ten minutes unless teachers intervene and pick him up and move him over to a bean bag chair where he can’t injure himself. Tony throws tantrums during transition periods (i.e., drop-off, pick-up, moving from outside play to inside for lunch) and when his teachers remove a preferred item or cease a preferred activity.
In order to ascertain why Tony is engaging in this behavior and to design interventions that will work, the daycare Director meets with the parent. During the meeting the Director asks the parent to share any relevant information that may help the daycare design supports for Tony. The Director meets separately with both parents and finds out that Tony was born prematurely and was recently diagnosed with a speech delay. The Director also conducts several observations of Tony in the classroom confirms that Tony does engage in challenging behavior when he is denied access to a preferred item or activity. Observation using ABC analysis indicates that a consequence for Tony’s behavior is teacher attention. Together, with the parents the daycare Director and teachers develop a support plan for Tony that involves clear and daily communication between the parents and the daycare. In addition, the teachers introduce daily picture schedules so Tony knows what to expect throughout the day. The teachers also start using a sand timer so Tony can see how much time is left in a given activity before he has to transition. When it is time to transition, the teachers give Tony a classroom helper job such as line leader. Tony knows that being a line leader is an important classroom job, and one he likes very much. If Tony does begin to tantrum his job of line leader will be taken away. The teachers also start providing noncontingent reinforcement so that Tony receives attention not just when he engages in tantrums but at many other times as well. Finally, Tony’s teachers begin to ignore his tantrum behavior (unless he is at risk of injuring himself).
In the above example, the following principles of ABA are represented:
- Functional Assessment. The process described above where multiple forms of data are collected and analyzed to determine the function of the challenging behavior.
- Noncontingent Reinforcement. Tony receives attention not just when he tantrums but at many other times of day.
- Extinction. Ignoring tantrum behavior.
- Antecedent Intervention. Daily picture schedule, sand timer, classroom helper job.
For more information on Applied Behavior Analysis visit the Minnesota Northland Association for Behavior Analysis: