News & Events
The 4th Annual BC fundraising event "Walk Now for Autism Speaks" was held on Sunday, September 25th at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver. Autism Speaks Canada is a not-for-profit organization that promotes research, education and advocacy for individuals with autism and their families. This year students in the ABA-A program held a raffle as a fundraising event and did an amazing job by raising over $1,000 for Autism Speaks Canada (final donation count still not in!) and had a team walking at the event. Below are some pictures from the day.
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We would also like to extend a special thank you to our raffle sponsors: The merchants and shops of Lonsdale Quay for their donation of two $50.00 gift baskets and also to Pemberton Station Pub for the donation of two $25.00 gift certificates. |
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The ABA-A program has funded two students (airfare, conference registration and accommodations) to attend the Association for Behaviour Analysis International Annual Convention in Denver, Colorado that takes place on May 27 – 31, 2011. The two students are Darcie Domes (4th year) and Jackie Taylor (3rd year). Darcie and Jackie will be presenting a poster about the ABA-A Degree Program at Capilano at the convention Expo. Check back in June for pictures and comments from both students about the experience!
At the 3rd Annual BC – ABA Conference at the University of British Columbia, which took place on March 11 – 12, 2011, two students, Darcie Domes and Megan Edmundson, presented case study posters of intervention strategies developed for a child with autism. This work was part of their intensive practicum and was supervised by Dr. Sara White. The abstract of the interventions are below.Teaching Appropriate Eating to a Child with Autism
Presenters: Megan Edmondson & Sara White
Abstract: A 10-year-old boy with autism was found to have a deficit in the skill of polite eating, as he struggles with taking small bites of food and does not wait an appropriate amount of time between each bite. Baseline data indicated he was able to take small bites when verbally prompted, however he was unable to independently count 5 seconds between each bite. In order to teach these skills, a visual prompt indicating to “take small bites” and “wait 5 seconds” was introduced. As well, the instructor simultaneously provided a model and verbal prompt to count to 5 before taking a new bite. Each prompt was systematically faded to the independent level.
Teaching First Person Pronouns Using Discrete Trial Instruction to a Child with Autism
Presenters: Darcie Domes & Sara White
Abstract: A 10 year old client was having difficulty with the acquisition of first person pronouns. Baseline data for the pronouns “mine” and “yours” revealed that he could not expressively or receptively identify these pronouns even in a structured teaching format. However, it was found that with a visual template and point prompt was able to respond correctly 50% of the time. With the addition of partial verbal prompts for the responses of “it’s my (object)” and “it’s your (object)” he scored 100%. A discrete trial program was implemented using visual, partial verbal and point prompts which were systematically faded to teach him to correctly identify to whom an object belongs by saying “it’s mine” or “it’s my (object)” and “it’s your” or “it’s your (object)".