A 25 Year Look Across the Spectrum with Kelly Bermingham & Jen Lucero

Kelly and Jen are joined by Meghan Herron, Director of Research and Development from Easterseals, Southern California to discuss her research looking at measuring Quality of Life as an outcome for ABA services and discuss how this can be considered by any ABA practitioner, working alongside families.

There is research that suggests that individuals on the autism spectrum experience a much lower quality of life than nonautistic individuals across the lifespan. Quality of Life can be measured by happiness, which is considered a private event by behavior analysts. Indices of happiness are those observable behaviors that likely signal happiness, including smiling, laughing, and the absence of challenging behaviors. Both leisure skills and recreational skills are all ways to be happy yet are not often taught or included in programming or households living with autism.

Kely & Jen dive into the research and talk about the ways that Kelly has programmed for leisure and recreational skills and Jen has taught her own severely impacted son to have a very happy life.

Kelly talks about her new book, including programming social skills intentionally to include group learning for children, and the difference between curriculum-based and activity and individualized learning.

Kelly and Jen speak to Jennifer, BCBA, and mom to her 13-year-old son with ADHD. She shared his struggles with ADHD and anxiety coming out of the pandemic, trying to organize his homework and keep us with social pressures that ultimately led to hospitalization. Research tells us there is a stronger link between homework difficulties and ADHD than the general population. The National Institute of Mental Health suggests medication and behavioral therapy as the two main treatments. But how do you know when to do what? Hear Jennifer's story and her advice to caregivers and BCBAs.

Up to 75% of autistic children and adults will be bullied over the internet or taken advantage of in some way. Predators look for those who may not understand the nuances of social cues making autistic children and adults targets. In this podcast, Kelly speaks with Dennis Debbaudt, long-time safety trainer and author on how to create a cyber safety plan. Links for filters and protections can be found here:

Kelly & Jen talk with long-time Registered Behavior Therapist Salvador Cadenas about why he works with children and adults on the autism spectrum with severe behavior and shares his perspective on what BCBAs and families get right to keep behavior interventionists (RBTs) in their jobs, and what they don't get right, which may contribute to turnover and burnout. In this session, we also discuss the importance of not using jargon when working with families and reference the following research article:

Extinction can best be defined as the discontinuing of reinforcement of a previously reinforced behavior (i.e., response no longer produces reinforcement). The goal of extinction is for the behavior to cease without having used a punishment procedure. Over the years the concept of extinction has become controversial. Kelly & Jen break down the different functions of behavior and discuss why extinction may or may not be warranted, from a BCBA and a caregiver perspective.

Kelly and Jen speak with frequent guest Susan Senator about her recent article, "The Secret to Connecting with My Autistic Son." Is it something learned, or do you have to be taught? Why will some people work with the more severely impacted children and adults on the autism spectrum and why won't others? What's the secret to connecting with this group of people? 

Kelly & Jen talk about the role of ABA, strength-based assessments, and the ethical considerations when assessing and treating people with autism across the varying levels of severity of autism, with considerations of consent and assent. 

Parenting a child on the spectrum, being a BCBA supporting that parent, is all hard work! Even after over 20 years, we don't always know what to do and feel lost!  We talk through how we both had a week feeling like frauds, and how we brought ourselves out of it (again) to continue marching on! 

Kelly is joined again with Kelly Haysley, mom to 3 children, 2 on opposite ends of the spectrum to talk about the REAL tips for getting through the holidays, beyond the fluffy memes you see out there posted this time of year. They talk about individualizing the holidays for each child and family, including how to find joy in the season, the unschool time, and the non-therapy therapy. (Jen was out sick! She will be back next week!)

Most BCBA training programs don't discuss caregiver perspectives, yet caregivers are the ones raising their children with autism. Caregivers often meet up to 10 different BCBA's in their journey. Listen to Kelly & Jen talk about the good and the not-so-good things a BCBA can do when meeting and working with families with children with autism. Kelly references her favorite article on this compassionate care model, written by Dr. Taylor, Dr. LeBlanc, and Dr. Nosic.  

Season 3 of our podcast is starting! In this episode, Kelly, BCBA, and Jen, mom to Dylan & Ethan discuss a previous from season 2 titled, "Transition into Adulthood or Falling Off a Cliff. Dylan graduated from his transition program in December 2022, during the pandemic. Covid and staffing shortages have been a crisis for those seeking services for their children and adults on the autism spectrum. Day programs have not admitted new clients, and some programs are closing due to a lack of adequate staffing. Kelly and Jen discuss the current options and how Dylan is doing now.  

Kelly speaks with Kristine Rodriguez, Chief Clinical Officer at Autism Learning Partners, and Co-lead of the CASP Client Outcomes SIG, breaking down the concepts of evidenced-based treatment and the importance of individual analysis before applying strategies in intervention.

Kelly & Jen talk to Heather O'Shea, CASP Caregiver Collaboration SIG Co-leader (Kelly leads with her) and Bianca Ancona, mom, and leader of "Team Jake" about what is in a name. Why the term Caregiver Collaboration or Team Member is much more meaningful to them as caregivers, and the notion of BCBA's giving caregivers pop-quizzes about ABA terms or expecting caregivers to learn all of the technical language is not helpful or useful. Instead, they share that their child's individual goals are their caregiver goals, and they love the idea of support and collaboration this way.  We do too. We do too.