I have the best job in the world. There is nothing more rewarding than hearing a naive learner say their first words, maybe after years of people believing they would never talk.
“The CLM taught me how to be an effective instructor and how to achieve positive outcomes for my learners.” – Michelle became a BCaBA back in May 2014
No one can understand the joy I feel when I walk in a client’s home and see them light up with joy because we are going to play. Everyday of my life is about the small things. One day at a time I watch children develop into competent learners. I see them grow to their full potential.
My job used to be all about me directly working with the clients to achieve those outcomes. My reinforcer for many years was knowing that because of me, and my team, my clients are able to ask for the things they need, persist through challenging tasks, and participate in activities with their peers. Now my reinforcer is watching my teams achieve those outcomes and watching naive instructors effectively implement components of the CLM curriculum. I love hearing a new staff members in their journey discovering their potential as an instructor or problem solving to find what consequences are maintaining problem behavior or hearing them tell me that we need a richer schedule of reinforcement, because now I get to work in a capacity that helps me to impact even more learners and helping more educators provide free and appropriate education.
Shortly after graduating from High School I was working as an instructional aide for a local agency and felt rather lost without any training. I was lucky to have a TUCCi coach named Ian Clark working in that classroom with me. He started coaching me on how to condition myself as a preferred instructor. He taught how to use operant conditioning to help teach my learner, by the end of the year I knew I wanted to work for TUCCi so I could learn all about Applied Behavior Analysis. To this day this chance encounter has been one of the luckiest incidents in my life. Had I not met this TUCCi team, I may have never been introduced to the vast potential I had as an instructor.
The CLM taught me how to be an effective instructor and how to achieve positive outcomes for my learners. I can’t speak highly enough about the CLM and Vicci Tucci, what Vicci had developed is incredibly comprehensive and thorough. I have watched so many naive instructors blossom into effective teachers through CLM implementations and a team effort on individual cases. The CLM helps these instructors and their learner reach their full potential. As my understanding of the field grows, I am more and more inspired to achieve higher educational goals.
I moved to Hawaii to complete my Bachelors degree at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I worked for a number of agencies while living there and was terribly disappointed to find that not all companies follow best practices. I encountered a number of situations that drew me back to TUCCi. I found that my supervisors weren’t up to date on best practices and what they expected me to teach wasn’t socially significant to the individual learners. I left Hawaii because I wanted to learn from and work with the best.
I recently became a associate behavior analyst (BCaBA). I associate this success with the nurturing environment I work in. I owe a lot my success to being exposed to amazing CLM coaches like Christina Lovaas and Danielle Jolley as they believed in me and have always supported me in my journey through the years. I believe that great leaders have been given the chance to prove themselves. Someone in their career identified them and took the time to pass on their knowledge and expertise to help them grow to their potential. This is exactly what my wonderful team in San Jose has done for me. I will forever be thankful for this transfer of knowledge and for all the support. I look forward to working with up and coming therapists like Nicole Cunha, David David, and Emily Pusateri and being able to support them as they grow within our company.
ABAI’s Students’ Right to Effective Education: Fundamentally and Foundationally Embedded in the Competent Learner Model This is the second in a three part series looking at how the Competent Learner