'Clickers' as reinforcers in ABA

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I don't think that the OP's intention in using a clicker is to stop stimming in general. He mentions that there is a problem in ABA with attending, due to stimming behaviours which interfere with attention to tasks and that a clicker was being used to reinforce / reward attending to tasks ?

At least that is how I read it.

I am actually experiencing a very similar situation with my own son. He has severe attention issues and much of his ABA goes into behaviour management - trying to get him to focus on the work (so that he can actually gain skills) than actually doing any work ! - so a clicker might work for us, too.

I think sometimes we need to do whatever we can to help our children learn and progress. I don't believe in stopping his stimming in general (he is pre-verbal and it obviously serves some purpose, even if he can't tell us yet what that is). However, I do think that stimming when he is supposed to be working and learning is detrimental to his progress and prognosis in the long run, and this might be a good way of redirecting a child in a socially appropriate way (the clicker sound is soft enough that only the child can hear it, as opposed to verbal requests to please stop and pay attention / focus, especially in a public place such as a mall or a store).

In an earlier post I explained that our ABA supervisor taught us a method that has the same intent. We ask my son to "Touch your nose and touch your ear." when trying to get his attention back during session or at home when we really need it. She explained it could be any command, but needed to be something he could easily do, didn't mind doing and that it was a physical comment helped(verses looking or saying something). It works for us about 70% of the time the first time, some times he will go right back to being distracted/stimming/actively ignoring what we are working on and we do it a second time. If that doesn't work they usually give him a minute or two and try again.

You might try something like that with your son like that. It is easy to try, just make it something he would like to do. My guy was learning body parts at the time, so he really enjoyed that.

I prefer the clicker because it makes a discrete sound that the child can learn to take as a cue to pay attention. It might be mighty embarrassing to ask a child to touch his nose (when waiting to cross the street or at a busy playground with lots of other children around, for instance), although such a request might work within an ABA setting. Using the same cues across settings to getting a child's attention also helps with generalization (which is currently a BIG challenge with my son).

Makes sense. I don't see anything wrong with a clicker for a very young child. We don't use the touch your nose thing outside home for the exact same reason you mentioned. I don't know if I would use a clicker in public either. If she had whipped out a clicker instead of the touch your ears, we would be using the clicker. If for some reason it stops we might try the clicker. We just call his name and if that doesn't work, call his name and touch him when we are in public.

I find the clicker concept interesting because it sounds similar to hearing a reward sound in a video game, like the "bing!" sound when you get a coin in Super Mario.

To clarify; no-one cares about stopping his stimming, except when the stimming actually prevents him doing something else he needs to do.

So if he was able to hum, and make noises and do whatever he wants and do a task, then no problem. But if he needs to do something but can't because he is hyperfocused on a stim then that is a problem. For example he rolls his eyes and bangs things, and spins sticks in front of his eyes - you can't look at something while rolling your eyes. And he gets heaps of breaks in his sessions and can stim as much as he wants then.

I think the clicker or similar techniques have their place. It's certainly better than what happened at school, his constant rattling of door handles was annoying the staff, so they called an 'expert' in, who decided he needed medication. WTF?!?

Autistics are PEOPLE not DOGS, simple as that. I wonder how you or any other NT or ADULT would feel if anytime you were doing something and your spouse did not like what you were doing they used a CLICKER on you?Sorry, ABA has NOTHING to do with helping a child with autism be a part of the world, it has to do with making him be something he is not to please those around him.

I think ABA can be useful and ethical if and only if
1. It is done with a reward-only approach (no aversives)
2. There's no "quiet hands-ing" or other stim-shaming for non-harmful stims
3. The goal is not indistinguishability, but rather teaching communication ability, preventing self-harm, etc.

It has a bad name because it has an awful history. It's incumbent on experts in behavioral health to explain to the public that why it doesn't