Ep. 45: Must-Read Behavior Books for Teachers and BCBAs

In this episode, we’re sharing some of our favorite behavior books for teachers, BCBAs, and parents. From foundational ABA classics to practical sensory guides, we’ll explore resources that equip you with tools to better support your learners!

🎯 Key Takeaways
📚 Build Your Behavior Toolkit: The right books can equip parents, teachers, and behavior analysts with actionable strategies.
🧠 Diverse Perspectives: From ABA foundations to sensory needs, there's something for every professional and parent.
💡 Practical Insights: Books like The Behavior Code and Let Me Hear Your Voice offer real-world advice for navigating challenging behaviors.
🛠️ Accessible Formats: Whether it's quick-reference guides or in-depth reads, these resources are designed to be user-friendly and impactful.
🤝 Validation and Connection: Books can help professionals and parents feel understood while learning how to better support their learners.

📖 Books We Discussed
Let Me Hear Your Voice by Catherine Maurice
A foundational ABA resource for parents navigating early autism diagnoses.

Understanding Your Child’s Sensory Signals by Angie Voss
A quick-reference guide for identifying and addressing sensory challenges.

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
Learn negotiation tactics that translate to managing tough behaviors.
Get 4 quick tips for teachers I created from this book

ABA Visual Language by Makoto Shibutani
Simplifies complex ABA terms with visuals and easy-to-understand explanations.

The Behavior Code by Jessica Minahan
A must-read for understanding and supporting students with anxiety, defiance, or withdrawn behaviors.

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📚 Connect: Follow us for more tips, tools, and discussions about all things behavior and education. 

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Transcript

Ep. 45: Must-Read Behavior Books for Teachers and BCBAs

Audra: [00:00:00] he talks about is mirroring, which is a great one, and that is where a learner might be expressing something, and rather than telling them they're wrong or correcting them or something, you just mirror back what they're saying so that they feel validated and valued 

Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast Part 2. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Sami Brown, here to bring you fun and functional advice for behavior support professionals and special education teachers. Let's get started. 

Audra: Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists. Today we are just doing something quick and fun because I want to. That's why. I was in my office and I was looking around and I saw some old books that I'm like, wow, those are really good books. So I thought maybe we'd just share a couple of our favorite books from our field and what we use the most. So the first one that I have might be a controversial book because it's an old book. It was written in 1993. And my son was diagnosed in 1997, [00:01:00] so it was still fairly a new book, but it was back in 1993, early ABA stuff. And in fact, the afterword is written by Lovaas himself. And so it gives you an idea that, that there is in here a lot of kind of the old school ABA technique stuff. It's let me hear your voice by Catherine Maurice. The reason it means something to me is because when my son was diagnosed, we didn't know what to do. Now, again, this was back in the late 19, I was about to say 1900s. I'm not that old, the late 1990s, and what to do, it was very minimal. In fact, when he was diagnosed, he was two years old, and we had a feeling that this was going to be the diagnosis, even so, when we got the diagnosis, it was a shock. And my husband's uncle is a very well known child psychiatrist he specializes in ADD, but we called him up immediately and said, he's autistic. We don't know what to do. And he immediately [00:02:00] said, get him into some Lovaas type program. And it was with that information that we found this book, and we found kind of our, Our direction in life. And this particular book, it's a story about a mom who has two kids and she sees the first one start to disappear. And she ends up finding ABA and it's her story of her two kids, and it does go into some bits of recovery and some of that aspect, which is fine, whatever you have your personal opinion about that or not, but I found that it was meaningful to me. It's a very quick and easy read, but it gave me a lot of comfort that there was something you could do about what was happening. And it wasn't that we wanted to fix him, we just wanted to give him the best chance that we could. That he could have possible. And so, and it not only changed the trajectory of his life, but it changed our life and it provided him so much. You know, a life that he wouldn't have had. I have no doubt that today he would not be [00:03:00] as independent, successful, and happy as he is today if we had not found this field that we went into.

Sami: I think it's interesting that what you were saying too about, you know, just books and our materials is that, especially coming from that parent side, you are having a child that's, Got some underlying developmental challenges, whatever that is, you're going through pursuing a diagnosis or support intervention that you're looking for resources to fill our own tool buckets too, because as parents and especially as mothers, we're feeling that need of not that I want to fix you, not that I want to change, but I want to be best equipped with my own knowledge that I can serve you the best way.

Audra: That's exactly it. And that's why, you may read this and find some things you don't like about it. That's fine. The field of ABA has changed so much in the time from then to now. I can't even tell you how much it's changed, but I've seen that change happen. But the fact is that this and the direction that it gave us and our little family at the time was so meaningful. I think exactly what you said. [00:04:00] It's about giving whatever book, whatever therapy, whatever direction you find is finding yourself with the right tools and it works also for the teacher is finding the right tools that you need to help this particular learner right here.

Sami: So I'll piggyback off of one of your books that you had that you used and it kind of had a trajectory to one that this is, I've had this. It's really early on. I don't even know what year this was even published. Ah, 2011, so not the most recent. But it's called Understanding Your Child's Sensory Signals and it's written by a occupational therapist. And what I find to be so fascinating about this is just the setup. Some of the books that have the content that we're looking for to fill our tool belts are so cumbersome that I don't even know where to start and I don't have the mental and emotional energy to read chapter to chapter. I just can't.

And so this one's actually really interesting because in the table of contents. It says, find your sensory signal and it's got kind [00:05:00] of a list. And so I'll just read off a few like bite self or others bangs, head on walls or objects, avoids eye contact, afraid of raindrops or animal fear.

And it goes through, there's quite a list all the way through the alphabet but basically you just go to that page and at the very top it tells you what sensory category. So like scratching yourself or picking at skin, the sensory category is listed as tactile and self regulation. It gives a sensory explanation for why that could be occurring. It has some possible questions that you would ask yourself like, When does the child do it? Is it only in stressful situations? Is it in new situations? And then it's got kind of a list of bullet pointed ideas to help. And I wouldn't call them interventions, but just suggested strategies.

And so I just find it really interesting that if you have a learner that's got some underlining sensory, you just got kind of a handbook to just quickly go to. And it's by Angie Voss. So I don't know if I held up that cover. 

Audra: Oh, that's really funny. [00:06:00] Is it V O S S? 

Sami: Yes. 

Audra: I wonder if they're related because my next book is by Chris Voss, C H R I S. It's a guy. I don't think they are, but that's really funny. So this is It this is my next one. This is absolutely my most favorite behavior book of all time. What's funny about it, it has nothing to do with education, but this is written by a former FBI top hostage negotiator and his field tested tools for talking to anyone into or out of just about anything.

And it is such a quick and easy read, but the tools that he shares in here. And he's worked with some of the most challenging, and it could be some of our little learners. They're all grown up in this book. If you catch what I mean, is he works with some of the most challenging behaviors that you can imagine, and it's over all the years and the techniques that he's used.

And I'll put some of the notes that I took from this and kind of adapted to an education field and I shared with my staff over the course of the years and Sami, you've probably seen [00:07:00] them, you can see if you're watching on YouTube. I just have it like basically dog eared and, and I haven't looked through this in a while.

So I'm just going to randomly open one. Let's see a strategy he talks about is mirroring, which is a great one, and that is where a learner might be expressing something, and rather than telling them they're wrong or correcting them or something, you just mirror back what they're saying so that they feel validated and valued, and it just seems to deflate some of that, and we've done this many, many times with a student who's very agitated and upset, And just giving that validation, just saying back to, Oh, you're right. I would be really upset about that too. Or I see you're very sad about this situation, giving them that feeling that validation back. And so that was one of the best ones in here. Anyway, it's just full of all, and these great stories over the years of situations that he had to come into of, you know, Very difficult situations and and his whole idea is you're [00:08:00] not trying to make a compromise. You're trying to get the other person to come up with the ideas themselves that will make the situation better for themselves and a lot of the situations we find our little learners in, if they continue on the path that they're on, it's not going to end well for them. So, it's how do we get them to understand that changing the behavior, changing the environment, changing something that's happening is going to be better for them personally than us just telling them what to do.

Sami: Hey, so mine is the ABA visual language, and I really like this because we talk a lot about losing our technical language, and so it kind of breaks down a lot of the ABA type terms into a visual and then a very brief explanation. I like it for if you're working with a family that's in private ABA and they might be using terms it'll provide some education back to someone who's maybe not in the ABA field.

But also a great way to be able to [00:09:00] explain something. Not that you want to dumb it down, but being able to break it down into a very simplistic language. I just really like this and it's a really easy, it's not even like a a read. It's just got pictures and little snippets. 

Audra: We should create a book that's like the ABA meme, like every concept we can think of and then generate a meme out of it to explain it.

Sami: I would love that because I feel like 

Audra: we speak in memes. 

Sami: We, we do, we do. 

Audra: All right, then my last one is one that most people are familiar with in the education field, in the behavior education field. It's The Behavior Code. This is so good if you're working with students with defiant behaviors or oppositional defiant disorder, any type of behavior issues. Anyway, I love this one. And my most favorite chapter in here is called You're Not the Boss of Me. Each of the chapters in here are, they're short and easy and I think it comes with a workbook or something, but I've never used the workbook. I just find the book itself. [00:10:00] But here are some of the chapter names. So just give you an idea. So one is Get Away from Me. So the student with anxiety related behaviors. You're Not the Boss of Me, which is the student with oppositional behavior. I Don't Care. The student with withdrawn behavior. I've had students who refuse to come to school. So that's, that's a tricky one. I Didn't Mean To. The student with sexualized behavior. And then a bunch of commonly asked questions. So it's just, it's a really good, it has a bunch of like calming activities and different things that great index and stuff. So this is another thing I highly recommend. 

Sami: Excellent book study. And then also, if BCBAs are working in schools, making copies of chapter and then using it as professional development. Super helpful. 

Audra: There's like an ABC chart in here and everything. And dealing with trauma, social deficits, response strategies. The Behavior Intervention Plan for the Student with Oppositional Behavior. Talking about what we talked about last week. It's like environmental changes and stuff. Such a good book. Highly recommend. So those are the three that I love.

I have a million others, but those are the ones that [00:11:00] popped out to you. We'll do this again. I think it's fun. As I was pulling these off the shelf, I saw all of my old favorite children's literature books and I'm like, Oh, I want to share those. Because I have some of my most favorite children's picture books and stuff that you can use to teaching social communication and other things.

So yeah, so we'll do that again soon. That's fun. And if you have any, join our Facebook group. If you have any really good speaking specifically like behaviors, books that you like, please go in there and share them. We'd love to hear them. We're always looking for other ideas. And it's just good to collaborate with each other and get some ideas. 

Intro: Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists and be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss an episode.