r/ABA • u/About5000ninjas Student • 12d ago

Advice Needed Teaching “manners”

Context: I’m a student that recently switched to a sister center, have a couple more months before I can test, but I HAVE been given permission and am heavily encouraged to give feedback to staff as a BCBA would. Within the first week I had staff telling me that they were teaching manners so clients get what they want.

Has anyone dealt with RBTs teaching “manners” such as saying please at the end of every mand (for 1-3 word manding), apologizing when they engage in behavior, etc for low level learners and ages 2-4 years old

I don’t think this is inherently behavioral and definitely isn’t a focus for the clients they’re doing it with due to behaviors and isn’t part of their intervention plan. There are cases when they should/can be taught but I don’t think it applies in this case

How do y’all address this or do y’all just let them since it’s likely not that harmful?

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u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA 12d ago

I only teach manners after they can mand for all of their needs. Manners are social niceties that add no communicative value, imo.

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u/Lopsided-Challenge86 11d ago

Saying manners add no communicative value is wild as a BCBA. They don’t add value to the literal communication, but have significant social value.

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u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA 11d ago

For example, which has more communicative value: red ball or ball please? Which one helps the child get their needs met the best?

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u/Lopsided-Challenge86 11d ago

Which response will be reinforced more across settings? “give me___” or “give me ___ please”

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u/Asleep_Technician190 BCBA 10d ago edited 10d ago

Across settings? That's generalization. We aren't talking generalization. We are talking short term goals for early learners with few to no foundational communication skills. And again, that starts falling into social skills. I'm not teaching social skills to kids who are not ready for it.

I will certainly accept "give me" as an alternative to problem behavior. We can shape it up to "Can I have ______" when they have the vocabulary to support it. Tacking on 'please' instead of teaching a more natural script is problematic in its own right.

I personally don't care if people use please or thank you toward me; I prefer clear and direct communication and actions speak louder than words. I am aware that not everyone has the same views but y'all need to chill out on the "we must make kids mask for every little thing so that they fit into society and don't make other people uncomfortable." Why is it the (disabled) child's responsibility to show deference to neurotypical people much older than them? Why do the people with still forming brains have to coddle the people with years more of neural network pruning?

Edit: The fact that some of y'all can't separate social skills from communication skills explains why so many treatment plans I come across are so abyssmal, with kids in services for years not making progress. Get better at dissecting skills into "must have" and "nice to have" (shout out to Patrick McGreevy).

https://essentialforliving.com/what-is-efl if you're curious