What is Instructional Control?

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Instructional control is a planned method to establish a trusting relationship with your child that helps them learn to cooperate with instructions. Robert Schramm’s Seven Steps to Earning Instructional Control is a guideline that outlines this in steps:

1.    Show your child you are in control of the items and activities they want to access.

This may include putting items in a certain area or out of reach, so the child learns they access them through the adult.

2.    Show the child that you are fun!

Play with them and make their experience more enjoyable than it would be on their own. If they are playing with cars, make funny noises, drive the car on their arm, pretend to crash them together, make them race, etc. Get creative; the sillier the better!

3.    Always follow through.

Show the child that you mean what you say. When you ask them to do something, do not allow them to access the fun thing until they complete the task. It is important to be clear when something is a choice vs when it is not. If something is not a choice, make sure to present as a statement, not a question. (Ex: “Do you want to sit?” vs “Sit in the chair.”) You may also present it as a question with choices that have the same outcome to promote independence while maintaining control. (Ex: “Do you want to sit in the blue chair or the green chair?”)

4.    Show your child that following your directions will benefit them.

The child gets access to all the fun things when they follow directions. It may be beneficial to start with demands they can already do. (Ex: high fives, come here, sit down, etc.)

5.    In the beginning, provide reinforcers (their favorite things) for every desired response.

Over time, reduce the amount of time with the reinforcer the child gets. This will help increase the number of tasks they will do before getting access to the reinforcer.

6.    Demonstrate you know your child’s priorities as well as your own.

Make sure you are offering reinforcers, or rewards, that are truly interesting to them. Decide what is the most important skill to work on for them to access the most fun things and focus on that.  (Ex: Learning to request items they want/need may be more important to learn before labeling colors.)

7.    Demonstrate that engaging in undesirable behaviors will not result in access to reinforcers.

The child must be consistently shown that inappropriate behaviors do not get them what they want. For example, if a child hits and screams “I want a cookie!”, they are not given the cookie. However, if they ask quietly and calmly “may I have a cookie?” they may get it.

Robert Schramm’s book The Seven Steps to Earning Instructional Control goes into more detail about each step. Each family and learner has individual needs that may need to be addressed. For guidance on specific challenges, consult a BCBA.

How to get started in ABA!

Step 1: Make sure that your child’s diagnostic paperwork is up to date within the past 2 years.

Step 2: Email a copy of your child’s diagnostic paperwork to contact@kidschoicetherapy.org or fax it to 405-857-8489.

Step 3: Call us at 405-857-8280 to fill out the KidsChoice Intake Form. Once completed, our Patient Care Supervisor will work with you to schedule your child’s ABA Assessment.

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Learn more about Applied Behavior Analysis by checking out the ABA Fact Sheet below!