Eyes on the Prize: A Training Exercise for Measuring Learner Attention and Motivation
Last week, we talked about how the lack of motivation and attention can drastically impact how a learner performs on a certain program—even if that program is mastered. On a broader level, we talked about the relationship between measuring a learner’s attention and how it impacts what a learner is motivated for.
First, if you want to know what your learner is motivated for, look at what they are attending to.
Second, if you want them to attend to you, become the gatekeeper to what they are motivated for.
Accurately figuring out what a learner is attending to can increase an understanding of what they are motivated for in that moment. Then, in turn, this also increases the likelihood that you can gain their attention and run a program. The other point I made was that the best RBTs can accurately identify what the learner is attending to and what they are motivated for.
The best ABA staff are those that are most sensitive to the attention and motivation of their learner.
For this week, I promised to include an exercise that you can do when training RBTs to help increase their awareness of their learner’s attention and motivation. In doing so, you’ll also increase their awareness in recognizing opportunities to run trials.
To understand a learner is to understand what they are motivated for. Understanding what they are motivated for is understanding what they are attending to. Understanding what they are attending to means one has to recognize behaviors that indicate attention. So, the trick is a getting a staff member to spot all of this.
Here’s how you do it…
First, take the learner through the steps for behaviors associated with attending so that the staff member knows what to look for. You’ll recall that my previous article mentioned the Eyes-Hands-Feet test. This is an excellent way to summarize the behaviors that indicate a learner is attending to something in particular.
Next, you and the staff member should grab a notebook or a clipboard with paper. Pick a learner that has a shorter attention span and tends to move around between reinforcers when they are in play rooms or gross motor areas. Now, have the staff member follow this learner around for 10-15 minutes. They can follow them around during free access play or they can also follow them around while programs are being ran as well.
As the learner shifts their attention, the staff member should list the stimuli that they think the learner is attending to based on the behaviors highlighted in the Eyes-Hands-Feet test. You should be doing the same thing, too.
Once the 10-15 minutes has subsided, sit down and compare both of your findings. You’ll likely notice that your list will be a little bit longer as you might observe more subtle attention changes, especially if this is a new staff member. It’s important to remind the staff member that subtle changes in eye contact or body position can indicate that a learner is attending to a new thing.
For example, while playing with Play Doh, you might have noticed that they briefly stopped and looked across the room in the direction of a door that was just opened (while still holding the Play Doh) and then immediately returned to playing with it. In this example, we would note that the learner’s attention had briefly pivoted away from the Play Doh to the door opening and then back to it. It is common for an experienced staff member (like yourself) to record “door opening” as a shift in attention. Subtleties like this can be hard to pick up on for new staff, however.
As you go through the list, ask the staff member two questions on each stimulus they listed.
Question 1: Was there enough attention and motivation in that scenario to run a program with that learner?
All too often we’ll see our staff run programs with learners when they aren’t attending. Maybe they’re scripting or engaging in other self-stimulatory behavior. Maybe they’re just distracted by an open door or a cell phone that is ringing on the other side of the clinic. Whatever the case, it’s not a wise idea to deliver an instruction for a program when they aren’t attending. As such, this first question becomes all the more important. It forces the staff member to think about the learner’s attention first…and THEN decide on whether an instruction should have been delivered.
For example where our learner shifted their attention from Play Doh to the open door (briefly), the staff member should now be able to identify that this would NOT be a good time to run a program since the learner is attending to something we have no control over. It would be very hard to offer the “open door” as a reinforcer to work for. If we were to run a program at that point, it’s likely that the learner would miss our instruction (discriminative stimulus). If that is the case, it is likely that they will error on the program.
However, in this example, Play Doh is a different story. When the learner is attending and engaged with Play Doh, we can gently use it as a motivator as we can easily provide/remove access to it.
In short, question 1 teaches the staff member how to recognize when they should and should NOT be running a trial.
Question 2: If there was enough attention and motivation, how would they use it to run a program?
So, if the answer to question 1 is a “yes” and it’s a good idea to run a program, then how are they going to do it? Another issue that plagues ABA staff is they struggle in finding ways to use attention and motivation when we have it. Question 2 pushes the staff member to find a way to harness the learner’s attention and motivation so that programs can be ran.
Let’s return to our example with the “Play Doh”. If the learner has pivoted away from looking at the open door and pivoted back to engaging with the Play Doh, then the staff member should know that they can gently remove access to the Play Doh and ask the learner to engage in a program in exchange for its return.
In short, the second question teaches the task member the how-to for thinking on their feet and using learner motivation (based on the way they measure the learner’s attention).
Revisit this process frequently with your staff members. Also, go through it with them in real time as they are with a learner. Aim to get them fluent in identifying what the learner is attending to, whether it’s a good time to run a program, and how they would go about using that particular motivator to do so.
Once the staff member can accurately identify attention and motivation, they begin to see the learner’s experience from this standpoint. They identify the learner’s motivation and how they’ll use it long before the learner becomes distracted and unmotivated!
Get back to me—as always—with your thoughts!
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