Heart to Chart
with Jared Van
Do you wish you knew more about precision teaching and standard celeration?
Do you have the heart to chart?
During today’s meal— I speak with a phenomenal BCBA who is making precision teaching and the SCC exciting, digestible, and ultimately more accessible.
-
Amuse-Bouche
What have been your favorite successes as a Black man in both ABA and academia?
What barriers have you noticed?
Appetizers
How did you get into Behavior Analysis?
When was a time you failed and what did you learn from that experience?
Palate Cleanser
Do you ever use our science with your dog?
Entrees
What were your core values and goals prior to entering your PhD program, and have those shifted as you’ve progressed?
What’s something you wish you could have told yourself when you were getting started?
Dessert
What was your biggest breakthrough or happiest moment with a client?
What hopes do you have for the future of ABA?
Excerpts from the Episode
(*Paraphrased highlights)-
I’ve experienced so many different cultures and used our science to help so many different people in so many different ways. Everybody comes with their own culture, and when we put it all together we can make a nice gumbo, which is my favorite food.
Also, I love seeing these kids that I've worked with grow and their behavior change, and then being able to interact with their environment so much better. They’re so much happier and their parents are happier and it's just a better situation. That is what I do this for.
As for academia, I noticed the higher you go, the fewer people that look like me. Being in these spaces I'm noticing because of my culture, different holes in academia, in the science that other people haven't noticed. I enjoy being able to fill them with my knowledge, my information, and being able to find gaps and help us grow as a science.
-
All the time. We learn from failure. Either we're right, or we learn.
One teacher said, “Thank you for being here this year, (the child) would not be able to come to school if YOU were not his behavior therapist.” I used to be so excited about that, but as I learned about behavior science, I realized I'm not generalizing their behavior across other individuals, across different environments. I have all the stimulus control and the environment doesn't have any of it. That is a big failure on my part, because I'm not servicing my clients well enough to make them successful when I'm not around. I wasn't facilitating independence. I was just making the days easier for people when I was around, especially when I had high incident, highly aggressive clients.
When I learned more about behavior science, I learned that what I thought was something to brag about was actually one of my biggest failures.
-
I feel like if I said anything to myself, I wouldn't be where I am today. So I needed to make the mistakes I made.
However, I would have told myself to read more and read widely. I didn't love reading until I got to my master's program, and even then, it still was a struggle. I believe that reading is a privilege. Not everybody has the time and ability to read, but if you do, you will be a better version of you.
I would not be able to read as much as I have, if not for audiobooks. Audiobooks are another way to help individuals read more, read faster, and enjoy it with a lower response effort.
-
I hope Applied Behavior Analysis returns to its roots in its science: by measuring data with frequency instead of percent, measuring on a standard graph, such as the standard celeration chart, and actually using the chart so we can better identify changes in our learners.
Also, people need to understand that the science of behavior works with everybody and with everything that falls under the umbrella of behavior— not one thing, ALL behavior of organisms.
ABOUT Jared
Jared Van, M.S., BCBA
Jared is currently a PhD Student at The Pennsylvania State University, under the supervision of Dr. Richard M. Kubina Jr. in the Special Education Department. He received his M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Jared worked as a behavior interventionist in the California Bay Area and greater Los Angeles Area for over half a decade working with a diverse population of clients with autism and other developmental disabilities.
Jared's research interests are in the areas of Precision Teaching, Behavior Analysis, Instructional Design, and Education Policy.
CONNECT with Jared
* Instagram— @jaredvan_* TikTok— @jaredv_
Visit my Podcast page to learn more about Behavior Bites!
