Whole Child Consulting

The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires - Now Available

2008-08-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

A "good learner" is someone who readily responds to instruction in a wide variety of situations. These learners can easily learn from the natural environment and inclusive settings. "The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires" covers 139 items that assess the ease with which a learner can be taught. These items are separated into 9 categories: Behavioral Excesses, Behavioral Supports, Resilience and Regulation, Readiness, Perseverance and Focus, Flexibility, Preferences for Learning Channels, Spontaneity, and Potential to Benefit from Inclusion. "The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires" will help teachers and parents identify ways in which they can improve the efficiency of their instruction. Every learner's programming can benefit from consideration of the items contained in "The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires".

Introduction

2008-08-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hi, and thanks for your interest in "The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires". This blog has just been opened....minutes ago, and I want to introduce myself and orient you to the purpose of this blog. My name is Steve Ward, and I've worked with a variety of educational approaches. I became interested in creating the current inventory when I noticed that most educational teams emphasize skill acquisition MUCH more than the quality of learner responding. I've also noticed that many educational teams believe there is a "right way" to do everything. For example, therapists may say "I thought we were always supposed to use errorless teaching." Or, "I thought it was bad to use edibles as reinforcement." One of the messages I'm trying to share with "The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires" is that there is more than one way to do things. The first priority should be on establishing quality of responding, regardless of the types of behavioral adaptations in place. Later, all adaptations that differ from the natural environment or inclusive educational settings should be systematically removed. Shaping the quality of learner responding is a PROCESS. Believing in a single "right way" to do things creates STATIC programming, and is therefore frequently wrong vis-a-vis the needs of a particular learner.

I'm aware that the inventory can be confusing, especially to those relatively new to the field of behavior analysis. Therefore, this blog is intended to serve 2 purposes:
-assisting consumers with understanding the rationales behind "The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires"
-assisting consumers with scoring questions

I do want to make one quick point on scoring....please don't "sweat it" too hard. Theoretically, hard data could be taken on every one of the 137 items contained in the inventory. Most programs will already be gathering hard data on SOME of the items. But consideration of MOST of the items will be new to most educational teams. Early feedback on interobserver agreement is positive. I think it is more important for scores to be REPRESENTATIVE than to necessarily be precise. So, if you can't decide whether to score something as "almost always" or "sometimes", just ask yourself whether your learner might benefit from further growth on that item. If so, score it "sometimes".

I suppose that's enough for an introduction.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Steve

We are available to aswer your questions

2008-08-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Steve Ward, MA, BCBA and Teresa Grimes, MS, BCBA are available to provide:

Services to individuals between 2 and 80 years of age

Services to individuals with a wide array of diagnoses (e.g., Autism, ADD, ADHD, ODD OCD, Asperger Syndrome, PDD, NLD, etc.)

Services in a wide array of environments (e.g., home, school, work, community)

Frequent contact in between on-site visits- 1 or 2-day workshops
Whole Child Consulting is willing to travel to see individuals in their home environment, wherever that may be.

Please post any questions you may have and thank you for visiting.