Back Bay Systems has over 8 years experience developing ABA / Discrete Trial Training software programs for autistic students. Computer based instruction has many advantages but most commercially available instructional software is not designed with the principles of precision teaching and behavior analysis in mind. Back Bay Systems can deliver powerful programs using your existing classroom curriculums combined with the benefits of computer based instruction in an ABA environment.

What are the benefits of computer based Discrete Trial Training?

• Self-paced instruction. Computer based instruction allows each student to learn skills at his/her own pace. The faster students are not held back by the pace at which other students in the class are learning and the slower students are able to move at a pace that is comfortable and efficient for them. Using such software, students can be working on different levels at the same time.

• Immediate feedback on each learning trial. Typically, instruction is presented to the student on one new skill at a time and the student is given a series of problems or questions that both teach and test for this one new skill. After each problem the student receives immediate feedback (knowledge of whether he/she was right or wrong and, in some cases, what the correct answer is). The immediacy of this feedback is a very important feature that enhances learning. It contrasts with the significant delays that a student experiences in normal classroom instruction when he/she passes in a quiz or test paper and receives it back in corrected form a few days later.

• Prompting. Programs may be designed with a unique prompting system that enables the student to make use of a graded series of prompts (hints) that will help him/her answer the problem correctly without giving away the complete answer. The prompts include such things as the length of the word in question, the number of letters in the word, the first letter, last letter, interior letter(s), etc. Prompting schemes facilitate the minimization of errors and have proven to be very popular with students.

• No advancement until each question is answered correctly. Programs may require that the student give the correct answer to each question in the current chapter before he/she is allowed to advance to the next chapter. In other words, not only is the student given immediate feedback as to whether each answer is correct not, but also the student required to answer each question correctly at least one time.

• No advancement until mastery of current skill. Programs may also require the student to master each skill fluently before he/she is allowed to advance to learning the next skill in the sequence. This eliminates the problem in which a student fails to learn a particular skill and, as a result, later finds him/herself hopelessly behind as the rest of the class progresses.

• Time based skill measurement. Skill mastery may be measured by rate correct/incorrect rather than by percent. Rate is a more sensitive measure than percent correct because it takes into account time and enables the teacher to bring the student to not only to the mastery a given skill but, more importantly, to fluency (fluent mastery) of that skill.

• Computer based positive reinforcers. Positive reinforcers (rewards) may be awarded to students at at various milestones throughout a program such as achieving mastery over a skill, completion of a skill level, etc. The student may be given access to a computer game, audio or video reward or activation of Back Bay Systems' capsule dispenser.

• Progress display. Displays, for the teacher, the student’s current rates correct and incorrect. Programs may create a distinctive display on the student’s screen that enables the teacher to notice, at a distance, whether the student is working at or above the desired rate correct or not. Dawdling or wasting time can be detected immediately and corrective steps taken.

Examples of ABA / Discrete Trial Training software programs developed for clients of Back Bay Systems. Note! These particular programs are proprietary and cannot be sold or distributed under any circumstances.

Alphabet Skills
Hearing a letter name and matching it to the letter, both upper and lower case.
Seeing an uppercase letter and matching it to the lowercase letter
Seeing a lowercase letter and matching it to the uppercase letter

Basic Skills
Pointing
Matching Shapes
Matching Characters

Math Skills
Addition, Subtraction Multiplication and Division

Mouse Skills
Clicking a stationary Shape
Clicking a moving Shape
Drag and Drop (in development)

Receptive Vocabulary
Hearing an objects name and selecting a picture of the object from a variety of categories.

Spelling Skills
Hear a word, type the word.

Phonics
Learn to read using a hear type curriculum

Reward Screen
Ask for items using a picture menu