My Journey into ABA

Happy Tuesday :)

Another quick mini-episode! In this episode, I share my journey into applied behavior analysis, highlighting key experiences that shaped my approach and emphasizing the importance of collaboration, individualized support, and continuous learning in the field.

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The conversations on The Pause That Connects are for informational and discussion purposes only. It is not intended as medical, therapeutic, or behavioral advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for guidance specific to your situation. 

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The Pause That Connects, a podcast about slowing down just enough to better understand the people we care about. I'm your host, Amber Olsen, a board certified behavior analyst, consultant, and someone who's spent years working alongside families and professionals supporting neurodivergent individuals. Whether you're a parent, a teacher, a provider, or just simply curious about how to help, you're in the right place. Here we explore practical strategies, honest conversations, and ways to build connection through compassion. So excited you're here and let's get started. Hello again and welcome back to another episode. I wanted to give some background on myself and my path and how I kind of got to join the field of applied behavior analysis, why I started my own company. I explained why I wanted to start this podcast a few times, but I'll kind of sprinkle that in at the end. But yeah, I kind of just want to talk about that path and maybe it will intrigue others who might be interested in joining the field or joining a helping profession field. And yeah, so this is going to feel very random initially, but I'm going to take it back pretty far back to 2014 when I was in a high school program where I received the education and training to becoming an emergency medical technician. So an EMT on the back of an ambulance. I received the training and I took the exam to become one about a year after starting the program. The program wasn't a year, it was just high school and life things that took time. But it was really interesting during that educational period because there was, we spent hours talking about how to splint. We spent hours talking about supporting patients with diabetes. We talked for hours about trauma. And we talked for about 15 minutes on how to support specifically autistic patients. So we did talk about pediatrics, and then that's kind of where we talked about it. So quick thoughts on that are that autistic people aren't only pediatrics. There are also autistic teens, adults, and older populations. But one thing that I was taught in that class that day that I have taken with me to different career paths, I've talked about it with different parents. I've even coached some other medical professionals on how to use it. Is my teacher taught me that if you go distal to proximal, so that means kind of the farthest away to the closest. So starting if you were supporting a patient who came or was complaining of stomach pain, you would start with like their fingertips and you might play with them and talk about how it relates to paw patrol or something of that nature. And then you would kind of move that way, like to from their fingertips to their wrists, to their elbow, to their shoulder, to then moving closer to the abdominal area. Because truthfully, we all kind of feel a little, would feel a little shocked if someone just dove right into that area. And so that definitely can help with children, and then it can help with just various other populations as well. That was something that I had no idea. It was so impactful. And I just I had no idea that that quick tip and suggestion could be so incredibly beneficial to not only my EMS time and as well as my career today. I then went to work in an emergency room where I there were a few times where even the doctor, we would approach someone who, again, in these cases, uh did have a diagnosis of autism and it was not working. And I do remember one day where I approached the doctor and I said, There, I I was taught this one skill. I'm just a 19-year-old telling you this, but and I explained the distal to Proximal and we tried it and it worked. And that's what really opened my eyes to just wow, like we really could use a lot more support in every field on how we can just have better approaches overall, but especially in those emergency situations or medical situations. So that was those two kind of experiences were super foundational to the rest of my career. But then I went into college and pursued my bachelor's initially in biology, but switched to psychology and really didn't have any idea of what I wanted to do. I had been very interested in the brain and how the brain worked and what affects the brain, but I really didn't know what I wanted to do. So I graduated and moved to Texas and didn't have any research experience, but I really wanted to try to use my psychology degree in some way. And one of really the only jobs that I could find that for someone with only a bachelor's degree in psychology without any research experience was in this field that was called ABA. And again, that's applied behavior analysis, and I didn't know anything about it, other than in the description, it said you will be supporting mostly children diagnosed with autism and helping them with communication, regulation, and just building relationships with others. And that was really exciting. I have known just people very close to me have been diagnosed with autism, and I just did some volunteer things in high school where I supported at dances with autistic individuals and individuals diagnosed with Down syndrome. And I loved every second of it. I always just felt so happy and so excited. And so I had a feeling I would like this career, but my goal was to pursue neuropsychology. But truthfully, and I feel like this experience is true for so many professionals in the field. Every podcast I listen to, every conference I go to, it's always like ABA found me, or I kind of fell into it. I really loved how we could use visual supports to help break down skills. I loved how the role play to support peer interactions or advocacy. I loved just finding unique ways to make sure that their support was individualized. So if you really like superheroes and we're trying to think of a list of things to help you regulate, and we call it your Spider-Man list, because Spider-Man makes you really happy. And so we call it your Spider-Man list and your Spider-Man skills, and then that connecting and resonating so much more with you because it's individualized. And that's exciting to talk about your Spider-Man list. Instead of I say, hey, let's talk about your regulation strategies and let's take those deep breaths, because it may not be a deep breath on your Spider-Man strategy list. It might be Spider-Man breaths, or it might be a Spider-Man hug, just kind of labeling it all of those ways. And so I just thought, wow, this field is so cool because I had a lot of experience babysitting autistic children and toddlers throughout high school. And I just kept thinking, man, if I had these tools then, I feel like I really could have made a huge impact on how they communicated, how they completed their daily living skills, like brushing their teeth, how they regulated when things did get really tough and tricky. And so I was super excited pretty early on. And so then fast forward a little bit more. I had an experience where my supervisor, BCVA, which is a board certified behavior analyst, was really supporting me to make sure that I supported my friend that I was helping with a dental appointment. And we did all of these things ahead of time. We read social stories, we had all of these visuals, we practiced it, and then we get to the dentist and we let the dentist know that we had all this support ready and really thought that it was going to be a successful appointment. And man, it was not. It just the the professionals kind of right when my friends started having just a harder time, they kind of not held him down, but put like a few of them put their hands down on his shoulder and his arm, and that really overwhelmed him more. We have got to have more training. We've got to collaborate more, and I could have done a better job collaborating. There's just a lot of things that could have been done both long before that appointment and also right before. And so that situation has continued to stick with me. But so I became really excited throughout my career as an RBT. So that's a registered behavior technician, and that's kind of like the certification to provide the therapy and the strategies. And then you have the BCBA that I had mentioned before, and that's the provider who identifies areas that we can build on and support and uses different assessments and collaborates with parents and other professionals to really see what the best support plan would be. So the BCBA kind of does assessments and collaborates and creates it. And then the RBT is the one who is delivering that directly day to day. And so I pursued my master's degree in special education with an emphasis in applied behavior analysis and really just kept falling in love with everything. I loved my program. I loved my professors, I loved all the articles I was reading, and I was so excited for this career. So I really loved the company I was at, but I wanted to keep growing and work with adults. And I gained some really amazing experience both within my original company working with adults and then with another one. And after that, I kind of just realized that I really wanted to just continue on my own path and focus on all ages and uh continue receiving mentorship and guidance on other populations to support. And I grew in ways that I never could have imagined. I started off from scratch without any clients. And so I really dove into making sure that I was becoming the provider that I wanted to be and taking lots of different trainings, going to lots of different conferences, collaborating and meeting so many different professionals. With starting my own company, I needed to find resources close by that I could refer families to if I couldn't help, both in the field of ABA, but also outside. I met tons of speech and occupational therapists. And when you meet new people, you realize that there's so much more to learn. And so another great example is my previous company had kind of given some trainings on gestalt language processors. And if you want to learn more about that, I do have an episode with Rachel. And so that's what I was going to say. Rachel is phenomenal, and she owns rooted therapies in Texas and just a wealth of knowledge. And so providers like her continued to help me identify where I could grow, where I could learn more. And so then, as I had my company for 11 months, just under a year, I were throughout that time, I had talked to so many families and reflected on my conversations with all of the families that I've met. And I was made aware of so many different resources. And that's when I was like, man, more people need to know about these people, these resources, these organizations, because there's so much out there. And I also was thinking about how we just need to have more conversations and conversations about what we're happy we know, what we wish we knew, what we wish we would have tried, what we're happy we tried, because those conversations stimulate more thoughts and more ideas. And so I was always inspired by all of these experiences and all of these meetings of people. And I thought, I wonder if other people could be inspired. And I reference this almost every episode, but even if that's just my mom, that's pretty cool. And so I wanted to start the Pause That Connects just to have that platform to talk to these professionals and talk to these families and talk to these advocates to share their experiences because also what helps us feel less alone is hearing about experiences of those who are similar to ours or we can resonate with. And sometimes the world can be an isolating place and our experiences can maybe feel like they're pretty isolating. But when we hear from others and hear their passion and their perseverance, that's what can really drive us forward. So again, I just think the field of behavior analysis is just so cool. And it's more than just let's stop this behavior. It's how why is this happening and how can I help them to access this thing that they're wanting more effectively or saying this thing that they're needing to say more effectively. So I just think that this field is pretty cool. And I think that other fields are really cool, and I think that the collaboration piece is so crucial, which I knew from my very first company, and then I've made a huge focus of throughout having my company because we can do pretty great things alone, but we can do really incredible things with others. And I just find it so exciting to be able to make connections with all of these different professionals and resources and organizations so that I can keep growing and we can all create keep growing. So kind of a little bounced all over the place just then, but that's kind of my background and why I think ABA is really cool. I do love that the direction is growing more so heavily collaborating with not only the family and other professionals and improving and strengthening behaviors and skills, but also collaborating with the individual themselves. It doesn't matter if they are fourth or sixty-two. It's if we're going to be working with them and working to support them, then we need to know what matters to them. So that is an important piece to keep in mind for myself and for other providers. And again, it kind of goes down to the why. Why are we even working on this target? Asking that to yourself. Just the why question is so huge. And that's a theme of something that I talk about a lot on this podcast. And if anyone knows me, that I mention asking why and figuring out why. Because if we don't ask why, then we're not helping the area that we need to be helping or the person in a way that they need to be helped. So just some thoughts. Uh, this is kind of another short episode, but I just kind of wanted to share that path. If anyone is interested in master's programs and the length of time, most last anywhere from a year to two years. My program was two years. And then once you or while you are like the first day of your master's program, you can start accruing what's called fieldwork hours. And they recently made an update to the just the protocol for that. But when I went through it was for 2000, I had to accrue 2,000 hours and kind of goes into lots of detail of what percentages can be what kind of hours. But it is a lot of invested time in that accruing fieldwork time, and then also your program, but and then studying for the the board exam, but it sure is worth it. So if you're looking into programs in Texas, I know UT ha University of Texas has an accelerated program. Texas Tech has one for all online. There's many, many programs. Other popular ones are Capella, ASU, and so it's just exciting to look into. I would also recommend looking at occupational therapy and identifying and understanding what they do and speech therapy, kind of all the therapies. You never know. You may think ABA sounds cool, but then learning more about speech, it's like, wow, I would love to focus on supporting that functional communication or with OT really helping individuals process those sensory feelings and those executive functioning skills. There's lots of things. And there's lots of areas where we kind of blend into each other and work on some similar things just with a different approach. So just highly encourage looking into that. And if you are a BCBA, I would love to connect. I have recently, within the last year, begun receiving training on acceptance and commitment therapy. And if you're a BCBA and you have not received training, I cannot recommend it enough. It kind of works with and from relational frame theory and just really cool approaches to take. So again, this podcast, I'm so sorry. I do feel like it's kind of jumped around, but I wanted to just give a background on why I joined the field and what BCBAs can do and where you can look if that seems like it might be interesting to you. So I will include some additional information in the show notes, but again, hopefully it wasn't boring or anything like that. I need to stop apologizing for things. But hopefully you found it useful, and I will see you next time. Thank you so much for joining me on the pause that connects. If something in today's episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to follow the show, leave a review, or share it with someone who could maybe use the support. You can find more resources, connect with me, or suggest a topic over at my Instagram, which is at the Pause That Connects, or via my website, www.shinebehaviorconsulting.com. And just a quick note: this podcast is for informational purposes only and isn't meant to take place of professional advice or support. Always reach out to a qualified provider if you need any guidance specific to you or your family. Until next time, keep pausing, keep connecting, and keep showing up with heart. Bye.