About
Perspective
Sally Talala-Hooper, M.A.
Whenever children are involved, there is change… dynamic change in fact. Families are certainly dynamic. We often grow, we sometimes shrink, we move, our little ones change grade levels and schools and friends, we change jobs... and on it goes. Sometimes as life rolls on we lose our footing and behaviors can get away from us or just organically pop-up with new circumstances.
Classrooms are dynamic too. They are constantly changing. Students as well as staff come and go, progress is made, regression sometimes happens, novel challenges arise, new state curriculum is adopted, laws change, schedules are modified, students come from diverse populations with varying needs... Let’s face it; all this dynamic change can be exhausting.
The silver lining? The unique and dynamic nature of children allows for innovation, transformation and potential. Meaningful progress for children can be realized when we apply evidence-based solutions. My approach is simple - I believe in maintaining a positive mindset, creating partnerships with a purpose, and always striving for significant outcomes for children. Dynamic Behavior Solutions should feel collaborative so we can become the best versions of ourselves... for our children and students alike.
ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Dedicated & Experienced
I have 30 plus years of experience working in the field of autism and special education. While pursuing my undergraduate degree at UCLA, I began treating children under the direction and supervision of the late Ivar Lovaas, PhD. The training I received while at UCLA has been pivotal throughout my career.
Later, I attended Chapman University, earning a M.A. in Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage & Family Therapy. It was during this time that I began working as a Behavior Consultant and Workshop Facilitator for a non-public agency, Autism Partnership. I specialized in behavioral interventions for children with autism, adapting home and school environments for optimal success, consulting nationally to school districts developing evidence-based programs, and training parents & classroom personnel in principles of Applied Behavior Analysis.
The majority of my career was spent as Autism & Behavior Specialist for a local school district in Palm Springs, CA. There, I designed and managed intervention programs for students with autism, monitored implementation of state & federal regulations for students, and served as a liaison between the school district and other agencies. Additionally, as a Behavior Intervention Case Manager, I conducted FAA's and other assessments, developed positive behavioral support plans for students with behavioral disorders and developmental disabilities and served as administrative designee on all IEP's for the district's early intervention program for students with autism.
These days my work goes into writing. I've taken everything I used to teach one family at a time and put it into a series of parent behavior guides, so a parent can get to it at ten at night without waiting for an appointment. I still take a small number of district consultations and IEP cases each year, but the guides are the main work now.
Papers presented
Association of California School Administrators, Pupil Services & Special Education Symposium, Monterey, California.
Annual Convention of the Association of Behavior Analysis, Chicago, Illinois.
Arizona FEAT Conference, Tools for Teams, Tucson, Arizona.
Taubman, M.T., Brierley, S., Wishner, J., Baker, D., McEachin, J., and Leaf, R.B. (2001). The Effectiveness of a Group Discrete Trial Instructional Approach for Preschoolers with Developmental Disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 22, 205-219.
Oldie But Goodie
A long, long time ago, when I was still teaching and my surname was still maiden (Brierley), some colleagues and I investigated the effectiveness of a group instructional extension of one to one discrete trial teaching (DTT). Group instruction? Of DTT? Wasn't the gold standard forty hours a week of one-to-one? Yes, except I had found myself emergency credentialed and teaching in a dynamic public elementary school classroom full of developmentally delayed children. Equipped only with BA from UCLA, my training from Dr. Ivar Lovaas himself and three years of behavioral treatment experience, I used the only tools in my toolbox at the time - namely discrete trial teaching - only I didn't have the luxury of a one-to-one ratio. Public school, remember?
I had managed to train my amazing classroom assistants in stolen minutes before and after school, and we had at it... helping each child reach their full potential. Let me explain how we applied this clinical sort of experience in a dynamic classroom. First off, we issued individual trials during large group instruction, small group instruction, on the playground, in the bathroom, while waiting for the bus... one student at a time - sequentially. Discrete trial teaching wasn't relegated for a cubicle in a corner. Rather, we embedded that type of instruction throughout the school day understanding acutely that minutes mattered. So do seconds. While the sequential delivery of DTT in a group arrangement had distinct benefits like efficiency and individualization of instruction, peer communication and certainly social interaction among students is limited. In an effort to offset the limitations of sequential instruction, sometimes we would issue an instruction to the whole group simultaneously, with the expectation that all the students would reply in unison, or chorally. Here we could check off the benefit boxes for increased opportunities for social and observational learning, but individualization would go out the window. Balancing both these formats became critical. Other times though and more often than we even realized, we presented a third type of group instructional format. We overlapped trials. Simply stated, overlapping instruction means that more than one trial is going on at any given time. An instruction for a student may begin before a trial for another student is finished. Overlapping the trials was born of necessity. For example, I may have opened a trial for one particular student and while they were responding, another student's behavior required my immediate attention. One of my assistant's may then provide the feedback for the initial student while I had yet another trial open for the second student. Classrooms are dynamic and special education classrooms are especially so. Young students with developmental disabilities are generally not inherently patient, which makes cooperatively waiting for the teacher to wrap up a trial with their neighbor extra challenging. What may have begun as a survival strategy, revealed itself as this amazing variation and compliment to group instruction and wasn't just relied on when behaviors occurred. It was integrated with intention. The benefits were plentiful. Overlapping trials allowed for skill acquisition in groups (acquisition of the student's own target objectives as well as the target objectives of their peers), improvement in pro-social behavior including social interaction, opportunities for observational learning, efficient behavior management AND individualization. Wow, we'd discovered the holy grail! Integrating these three methods (sequential, choral and overlapping) and relying predominantly on overlapping is in my opinion, the trifecta of group instruction and successful integration of discrete trial teaching in classroom settings.
What we were able to demonstrate through our research is as valuable today as it was then. The generalizability and naturalistic nature of group instruction is noteworthy. The methods are evidence-based. The application yields efficiency and allows for comprehensive skill areas to be targeted. Although the research is nearly twenty years old, too many classrooms today still fall short embedding this precision instruction. So while it's past the point of being new, it's still something to be cherished.
Taubman, M.T., Brierley, S., Wishner, J., Baker, D., McEachin, J., and Leaf, R.B. (2001). The Effectiveness of a Group Discrete Trial Instructional Approach for Preschoolers with Developmental Disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 22, 205-219.
For access to the entire publication, click here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0891422201000683