1. Parties and Gatherings Angela Mouzakitis MS Ed., BCBA

2. Does this sight give you major anxiety?

3. Assessment of the Situation  What is happening now and…  Why is it happening?  Is it over-stimulation?  Is it a learned behavior?  Why is the behavior occurring?  Is the behavior getting worse, or staying the same?

4. Write down what is going on?  How long can you stay at the party?  What are the behaviors that you are seeing?  Is your child having fun?  Are your other children having fun?

5. What do you wish would happen?  Participate?  Play by himself?  Play with friends?  Enjoy himself?  Last long enough so you can have a cup of coffee with an old friend?

7. Assess the Environment  Is there a part of the environment that is more problematic than others?  Ex. Birthday song?  Ex. Camera sensitivity  Ex. Food preferences?  If you can pinpoint an area, your strategy might be very specific to one target.

8. Link Strategies to the Environment  Once you have identified what the problem is, and why the behavior is occurring, you can develop a plan of action. Intervention to target camera phobia/anxiety

9. Parent Preparation  Before you go, find out everything you need to know about the party  Ex. Will Santa be there?  Be honest. Let people know you need to have the details of the party to better prepare your child to have a good time.  This will help you know how to tailor your strategies.

10. Preparation for Child  Many ways to do this:  Verbally  Visual supports  Social Story  Trade books (Barney goes to a Party)  Calendar  List of activities  Videos

11. Communication Strategies  Request for Break  Request for “time to go

12. More to Come in a Bit…

13. Parties and Camera’s: James and the Giant Flash!

14. Parties and Events and Camera’s  James would become completely withdrawn in the presence of a camera.  What does this mean for a family?  What events DON’T involve a camera?  Can you modify the environment?? Not really.  A plan is needed.

15. Steps of De-sensitization Plan  Meet with team  Identify the problem behavior  List a hierarchy of anxiety behaviors identified by team, but mostly parent.  Create a plan  Create a hierarchy of exposure to various levels  Slowly introduce first level while pairing the environment.  Measure anxiety at that level  Move to next level when anxiety is 0.

16. Stages of Anxiety Identified – Camera 10. Complete shutdown, fetal position, crying. 9. Eyes closed, no response to others, not re-directable 8. Eyes closed, no response, verbal perseveration 7. Eyes closed, responding, verbal perseveration 6. Eyes squinted, focus on camera, not redirectable 5. Eyes squinted, verbal camera perseveration, responding to other questions, requesting to leave 4. Eyes squinted, verbal focus on camera, redirectable with highly preferred activity 3. Focus on camera, eyes not squinted, asking about future camera events 2. Some questions about camera, redirection possible. 1.1 comment on camera, focus returns to task at hand 0. Unaffected by camera, focused on original task.

17. Use stages to identify when to move on.  As you introduce a level, stay on that level until anxiety behavior is at a zero for several days in a row.

18. Identify activities  As you introduce each anxiety related area, pair the environment with preferred items and activities. Keep this going until anxiety rating is at a 0.

19. Stages of Environment for Systematic Exposure 1.Arts and crafts of camera 2.Looking at magazine clippings of camera 3.Creating camera’s from crafts 4.Holding play cameras 5.Pretending to take pictures with play cameras 6. Pretending to add a flash to the camera 7. Pretending to take a picture with play camera using camera vocabulary 8. Holding a real camera 9. Turning a real camera on. 10. Pretending to take a picture with a real camera. ETC..etc…etc.

21. For More Information Angela Mouzakitis MS Ed., BCBA Queens College Appliedbehavioranalysis.blogspot.comSpeechandaba.blogspot.com