Hiring & Training Instructors

This section is designed to assist families in hiring instructors at the start of a program and for programs already in place. In most cases, college-age instructors are the most successful. We recommend that you look for potential instructors who enjoy children and are outgoing.

Requirements of Instructors

• Instructor must be capable of being consistent in working with the team of instructors.
• Instructors must be comfortable giving and receiving constructive feedback in a group of people.
• Instructors must be dependable.
• Instructors must be capable of giving physical reinforcement.
• Instructors must be energetic and creative.
• Instructors must be willing to follow the recommendations of Redwood Learning Center and not experiment on their own.

Finding Instructors

Many families run ads in local newspapers, including college newspapers. Check your local newspaper for the latest rates for running an ad. Here is an example of an ad placed in a newspaper:

HELP WANTED
Creative and personable person needed to tutor our 2-1/2 year old son with autism. 10-15 hours per week. Professional training provided. Flexible hours. Pay starts at $8.25 per hour. Located 15 minutes from ABC campus. For more info see . HYPERLINK http://www.name.freeservers.com or call (name) at (phone number).

Some families design a web site, in which they give a job description and describe their child’s strengths and weaknesses. Potential instructors are asked to review the web site before an interview is scheduled.

Job Description

Instructors will be working in an early intervention, behavioral treatment program implementing the methods developed by Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas, PhD. at UCLA. The program encompasses all areas of functioning. Specifically, the program targets the development and acquisition of receptive and expressive language, toy play, peer play, socialization, abstract concepts, and self-help skills. Teaching of appropriate behaviors proceeds in incremental systematic steps in an effort to maximize a child’s success. Cognitively demanding concepts are intermixed with less demanding concepts and one-to-one instruction is interspersed with play activities. Each instructional session lasts approximately two-to-three hours. During a session, the instructor will engage the child in a specific task for 1-3 minutes and then take a short break (1-3 minutes). During each hour of the instructional session, the child should also be given a longer 10-minute break. Instructors should use secondary rewards as the main reinforcement. Primary reinforcement may be used to motivate the child in new, or more difficult program, or if the child is not receptive to secondary rewards during a session. Instructors should use many prompts when teaching novel skills and then systematically fade the prompts out. Overall, the number of successes (even if prompted) should always outnumber the failures in an approximate 9:1 ratio. Instructors will work on a team of three-to-six adults, together contributing 35-40 hours per week of one-on-one instruction in the home. Each team member will provide 6-12 hours of one to one instruction per week; enough time to establish procedural competence, while not spending so much time that the child becomes dependent on each member.

Interview Questions

• Do you have any knowledge or experience with autism?
• Do you have any experience with ABA or working with children?
• What is your past employment experience (years, training)?
• Do you arrive to work on time consistently?
• Are you available to work weekend hours? Early morning hours? Evening hours? (whatever your needs are)
• Are you open to receiving ongoing feedback and guidance?
• Are you capable of giving yourself feedback in a group of people?
• What qualities do you possess that would allow us to benefit from you working in our program?
• What do you see as your potential weaknesses and are you willing to improve in those areas.

Optional Interview Questions

• Why are you interested in Applied Behavior Analysis?
• Do you believe that children with autism can become indistinguishable from their peers?

Interview Discussion Topics

• Your policy on staff meetings (they are mandatory).
• Your policy on tardiness.
• Your policy on attendance (if an instructor needs to change a session, they should be responsible for finding another instructor to work for them, and/or find a time to make up the missed session).
• Your policy on videotaping sessions.
• Your policy on confidentiality.
• Their resume and references.
• Your policy on instructors working with multiple families.
• If hired, will the new instructor be willing to sign an employment contract?

You may want to have the interviewee spend a few minutes interacting with your child as well as observing a session as part of the interview.

Training Instructors

• Require the instructors to read:
1. Maurice, Catherine Let Me Hear Your Voice
2. Lovaas, O. I. (1987) Behavioral Treatment and Normal Educational and Intellectual Functioning in Young Autistic Children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 3-9.

Training Instructors for Ongoing Programs:

Have the new instructor watch the video of your initial workshop and if possible, attend an initial workshop for another family who is beginning our program. Before the new instructor begins participating in sessions, they should be trained in these areas:

1. Research
2. Methodology
3. Discrete Trial
4. Prompting
5. Reinforcement
6. Terminology
7. 5-Steps of Acquisition
8. Rules to Instruction

Initially, when the new instructor begins working with your child, they should overlap with a trained and competent instructor. Follow these guidelines when the new instructor begins:

1. Trainee observes a senior instructor working with the child.
2. Trainee and the senior instructor dually participate in the session (both do sittings). Initially, the senior instructor will do a sitting, then the trainee does a sitting of the same program. When the trainee gains an understanding of the child’s current programs, the trainee and the senior instructor take turns doing sittings (not doing the same program two times in a row).
3. Senior instructor observes the trainee running the session and gives feedback.
4. Senior instructor will discuss all child specific information (i.e. maintenance programs, current programs, self-stimulatory behaviors and how to redirect those behaviors and negative behaviors and how to work through those behaviors).
5. The trainee should be ready to do sessions independently after 2-4 weeks of overlapping 3-4 sessions per week.
6. When the new instructor begins doing sessions independently, schedule instructor-training sessions (available to families in Salt Lake City area only).
7. It may be beneficial to video tape the new instructors during their sessions so that you are aware of the progress they are making or any concerns that may arise.

Instructors Working for Multiple Families

If an instructor chooses to work in home programs for more than one family, their schedule must allow for them to attend all staff meetings for both families. The family who first hired the instructor should have priority as to which times they need to schedule the instructor for sessions. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times.

Wages/Taxes

Typically, most families pay their instructors between $6.00 and $10.00 per hour for the first three months, and then raise the pay $.50-$1.00 per hour if the instructor proves to be reliable and competent implementing program procedures. The next raise is usually given within six months to a year, depending on the instructor’s skill level and reliability. Regional differences may be taken into account. Eastern states near larger cities (e.g., New York City) typically pay their instructors between $10.00 and $20.00 per hour.

Most families hire their instructors as independent contractors, and have each instructor fill out a 1099 form from the IRS. When the instructor is hired as an independent contractor, no taxes are withheld from their paycheck. The instructor is responsible for taking into account that no taxes have been withheld, and they may want to save a portion of their check each month (approximately 20-25%). Please further research this as much as you feel necessary. The IRS web site is . HYPERLINK http://www.IRS.gov. The section pertaining to special needs and what deductions families can make is publication 502.