February 2017
Cold Probe Data
By
now you have received progress reports from your child’s teacher that indicate
how many items or skills your child has “mastered.” This may leave you
wondering how we decide when something is learned or “mastered.”
Skills targeted for teaching are “probed” or
checked each day, relatively close to the start of your child’s school day,
before those skills are worked on for the day. School staff present the
targeted items and write down whether the student responded correctly or
incorrectly. Students must respond correctly on the first try for the response
to be scored as correct. When the student responds correctly on the set number
of consecutive days (usually 3), the skill is considered mastered and a new
target is chosen for teaching. Teaching occurs using the errorless teaching
procedures described in our January newsletter.
When a student masters a skill, that skill is
tracked on a skill tracking sheet, and the student’s graphs are updated to
include the newly mastered skill. The total number of skills or items mastered
are then reported to parents using progress reports or other means such as
communication sheets and/or graphs.
Operant of the Month
IMITATION
Repeating or copying someone else’s motor
movement. (Doing what you see someone else doing).
Ex. the student
sees someone clap their hands, student claps hands, student is reinforced with
general reinforcement (praise, treat, etc)
Individuals often
look to the behavior of others in order to figure out how to do something or
what they should be doing. Developing the ability to
imitate others allows students to learn indirectly by copying a model. Important dates:
2/8/17: 2 hour data delay
2/16/17: Spartan Dress Down Day with $1 donation
2/17/17: Act 80 Day: Teacher in-service day/No School for students
2/20/17: President's Day: No school for Teachers or Students
