DRAGENtherapy · 17 lanes · Autism is one · Free lessons
DRAGENtherapy: behavior science for any behavior you want to change.
I do sell ABA services, but there are no RBTs or supervisors. It is only a sole BCBA running the show, who is also implementing the treatment directly.
I am Chase Alexander Hought, M.S., BCBA. ABA means applied behavior analysis. A BCBA is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. An RBT is a Registered Behavior Technician and a BT is a behavior technician: the person who usually runs the sessions.
Every behavior is doing a job. The work starts by finding out what that job is. Not by making the behavior stop — by understanding what it accomplishes for the person doing it, and then teaching something that works better.
Taught by a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with ten years of work with autistic children and the families and teams around them. This page starts with a free lesson. For your own child, start with a free 15 minute conversation.
17 lanes · Autism is just one
If it is behavior, it can be measured. If it can be measured, it can change.
Behavior analysis is the science of why people do what they do. Autism is where most BCBAs work, but the same science runs eating, moving, using, sleeping, studying and working. These are the lanes I take, as a behavior specialist.
Weight and health habits
Eating, exercise, sleep, water. We count what you do, set small goals you hit, and make the right choice the easy one. In 22 studies, people who wrote down what they ate, how they moved and what they weighed lost more weight (Burke, Wang & Sevick, 2011).
Substance use and recovery
Contingency management pays off staying clean, with proof, right away. It has some of the strongest evidence in addiction treatment (Higgins et al., 1991; Petry, 2000). I work alongside your doctor or counselor, never in place of them.
Autism and development
Communication, daily living, school readiness and hard behavior, done by the BCBA himself. No RBTs, no hand-offs.
Habits you want to break
Nail biting, phone time, procrastination, smoking. Find the job the habit is doing, then build a better way to get it.
Parents and families
Bedtime, mealtime, screens, homework. A plan the whole house can run, taught with practice and feedback.
Teams and workplaces
Organizational behavior management: clear targets, honest feedback, and results you can graph.
Older adults and memory loss
Keep daily skills longer, ease wandering and agitation, and teach caregivers what to do in the moment.
Burgio & Burgio (1986), behavioral gerontology.
Workplace safety
Behavior-based safety: watch for the safe act, give feedback the same day, and graph the trend until injuries drop.
E. Scott Geller, The Psychology of Safety Handbook (2001).
Sports and fitness
Coach technique with fast, clear feedback, video and small steps, from the golf swing to the deadlift.
TAGteach: a click marks the right move the instant it happens (Fogel, Weil & Burris, 2010).
Tutoring and learning
Short timed practice charted every day, so you see learning speed up week by week.
Ogden Lindsley (1992), precision teaching.
Gambling
Gambling is a behavior with a payoff. We find the payoff, change the setting, and build other ways to get it, with your counselor.
Ghezzi, Lyons, Dixon & Wilson (2006), Gambling: Behavior Theory, Research, and Application.
Money habits
Saving, spending and paying bills on time, with goals you can see and rewards that come soon enough to matter.
Medication and health routines
Taking pills on time, wearing the CPAP, doing the physical therapy at home. Small steps, tracked, made easy.
Brain injury recovery
Rebuild routines and handle hard behavior after a brain injury, alongside the rehab team.
Picky eating
Grow the foods a child will eat, one small step at a time, after the doctor rules out a medical cause.
Cathleen Piazza's pediatric feeding research.
Pets and animals
Positive reinforcement training for fear, barking, pulling and aggression. The same science, on four legs.
Susan Friedman, behavior analysis with animals.
Green habits
Recycling, saving water and energy at home, school or work, driven by prompts and feedback.
I only take work inside my training as a BCBA, and I will tell you plainly if someone else fits you better. Behavior plans do not replace medical care: if you are in withdrawal, in crisis, or have a health condition, start with a doctor. In the US, call or text 988 any time.
Approach
Function before compliance.
A child who screams when a worksheet appears is communicating something. A plan that only makes the screaming stop has not solved anything — it has removed the only tool that child had, and left the original problem untouched.
So the first question is never how do we stop this. It is what is this getting them, and what could we teach that gets it more reliably. Skills first. Dignity throughout. Compliance is not the goal and never has been.
Good intentions without data are guesses. Everything is measured, and the measurements are used — a plan that is not working gets changed, not defended.
Learn it first, free
Find the job a behavior is doing.
You do not need a clinician to start. You need a pencil, four columns and five days.
4-term contingency data is a record of four things each time a behavior happens: the motivating operation (MO), what made the payoff worth more right then; the discriminative stimulus (SD), the signal that the behavior would pay off here; the behavior; and the consequence, what happened right after. "Consequence" here means what followed, not a punishment. Write it the way a camera would.
Almost every behavior is doing one of four jobs:
- Get attention. Someone looks, talks, laughs, comes over.
- Get away from something. A task, a noise, a room, a demand ends or is delayed.
- Get a thing or an activity. The tablet, a snack, the swing, the front seat.
- It feels a certain way on its own. Rocking, humming, picking. No one else is needed.
MO: an hour into a game. SD: Mom: "Put the tablet away." B: drops to the floor, screams. C: "Fine, five more minutes."
MO: mid-video. SD: Dad takes the tablet at the door. B: screams, kicks the door. C: Dad hands it back for the car.
MO: level almost done. SD: "Tablet off, dinner." B: screams. C: eats with the tablet on the table.
After five days, seven of eight rows have the tablet going away in the middle of something, and six end with him keeping it. The job is keep the tablet. The skill to teach is asking for more time, and the adults' job is to make "one more minute" real, and the ask easier than the scream.
How to do it yourself, this week
- Pick one behavior and write it so a stranger could spot it. "Screams for more than three seconds," not "melts down."
- Print the sheet below. Keep it where the behavior happens.
- Every time it happens for five days, fill one row within a minute. Facts, not reasons.
- Read down each column. The MO tells you when, the SD tells you who and where, and the C column tells you the job.
- Teach a way to get the same thing that is faster and easier than the behavior. Then make sure it works every time, at first.
Practice: which job? Sam (made up) hums loudly during quiet reading. The teacher sends him to the hall, where he keeps humming, alone. Open for the answer and why.
Answer: most likely "it feels a certain way on its own." Why: the humming carries on with nobody there, so attention is not the job. But notice the consequence: the humming also ends reading every time. Two jobs can be true at once, which is why you take five days of data before you decide, and why the fix for the second job would be different (make reading shorter or easier, and teach him to ask for a break).
What is settled, and what is judgment. The four jobs and 4-term contingency recording are settled: recording what comes before and after a behavior has been the basis of behavior assessment since the 1960s, and the motivating operation became its fourth term in 1982. Deciding which job a behavior is doing, and what to teach instead, is professional judgment, and that is what a behavior analyst is for. If a behavior can hurt someone, get help now; a data sheet is a start, not a substitute.
Source: Cooper, Heron & Heward, Applied Behavior Analysis, 3rd ed. (2020), chapters on functional behavior assessment; Iwata et al., Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (1994), on the functions of self-injury. The lessons on this page are free.
Autism
A starting point, not a limitation.
Ten years of work with autistic children come down to a few things worth knowing, whoever is doing the teaching.
The word is older than the diagnosis. Eugen Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist, coined it from the Greek autos, meaning self, and set it out in his 1911 book on schizophrenia. He meant one symptom he saw in adults with schizophrenia: a person pulled away from reality, with the inner life taking over. In the same book he named autistic thinking: thinking steered by feelings and wishes instead of by reality. He said every one of us does some of it (Bleuler, 1911; Evans, 2013).
That is Bleuler. This is me:
Autism is simply a case of an individual who is overly consumed in their own wants. Nothing more, nothing less.
DRAGEN aims to simplify the approach with autistic individuals by removing the illusions of today.
Your child is whole. Your child is complete. Your child is at the tip of the DRAGEN's wing.
It will be up to you to let them climb upon the DRAGEN's wing, or fall into the trap of mainstream ABA therapy.
That first sentence is my judgment from ten years of this work, not a finding. The field's own definition is under Learn more. I offer the DRAGEN side of this choice, so weigh my words with that in mind. Ongoing ABA helps many families, and I will tell you if I think it would help yours. Decisions about your child's care stay with you and the care team you choose.
The long version of that argument about the field is my book, The Illusion of ABA: in first draft, not yet published.
Build skills that make life bigger, respect the person while doing it, and treat the family as partners rather than as recipients of a plan they had no part in writing.
Transitions get planned for early — between settings, between school years, and toward adulthood — because the goals that matter are the ones that still matter in ten years.
The field has said more since. Leo Kanner (1943) used the word for eleven children. He wrote that their aloneness was there from the beginning of life and was not a withdrawal, and he described an insistence on sameness. Smith, Reichow and Volkmar (2015) call those the two essential features of his description. The DSM-5 still looks at two things: how a person relates and communicates with others, and restricted, repetitive behavior (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). That is the field's definition.
Source: Bleuler, Dementia Praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien (1911), English translation by Zinkin (1950), pp. 63-68, as excerpted by the Autism History Project, University of Oregon; Evans, How Autism Became Autism, History of the Human Sciences (2013); Kanner, Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact, Nervous Child (1943); Smith, Reichow & Volkmar, The Effects of DSM-5 Criteria on Number of Individuals Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2015); American Psychiatric Association, DSM-5 (2013).
One BCBA does the whole job.
If you were building a rocket, would you have the rocket scientist build the rocket, or the student? BTs are students.
This field has seen a low amount of success with the current model.
That is my own judgment, from ten years of this work.
The model most appropriate is a localized model whereby the BCBA plays the role of all at once.
There is no need for a therapist, parent consultant, supervisor, and BCBA... when the BCBA himself has done that role better himself in every way shape or form, and is not being bottlenecked by what his BTs are capable of understanding. This is the current problem with ABA services.
I am talking about a model, not about any person. Ongoing ABA helps many families, and I will tell you if I think it would help yours.
I was an incredible RBT but I can honestly say I was not prepared to change lives years ago.
After seeing enough tears of the parents, I had enough. The world deserves better.
Why it is called DRAGENtherapy.
DRAGENtherapy is different. It encompasses behavior science, but it also includes philosophy, ancient wisdom, and common sense.
The treatment itself is behavior science. The philosophy, the ancient wisdom and the common sense are how I teach it.
I do not “do ABA”. The modern trend is to call it as such. It has been covered in mud. At DRAGEN, we bring people to Reflection Island. We take them and make them see themselves for the first time.
What ready means, and who leads.
Through the guidance of Chase Hought, any child can become something they would have never imagined.
That is what I aim for, not a guarantee.
The truth is though, not everybody will be accepted. The DRAGEN only chooses those who are ready.
If you are not ready and willing to listen with complete trust, then it will never work.
Ready means you are willing to do the work. It never means who your family is, where you live, what you earn or what language you speak.
Whether I can start is a separate question. It depends on where you live, the openings I have, and whether I have a conflict of interest. I say so on the call.
The DRAGEN takes the lead, not the client.
I lead the work. You can ask anything, say no to anything, and stop at any time.
Decisions about your child's care stay with you and the care team you choose.
Free for families
A free estimate of the journey to Reflection Island.
I can drive to your house same day, and offer a free estimate as well before heading over to your house just based on a 15 minute conversation.
Same day depends on where you live and the openings I have that day. I cannot take every family. If I have a conflict of interest, I will say so on the call and I will not start.
It is an estimate, not a promise of a date or an outcome. The estimate is a first guess from what you tell me. It is not an assessment.
You do not need to lock into a 6 month authorization with an average ABA company. That is the illusion of today.
An authorization is the funder's approval of hours, usually for six months. It does not hold your family. You can stop a service at any time. If your child has a team now, tell me on the call. I do not ask any family to stop a service.
I can solve your problems... today.
That is what I aim for, not a guarantee. I will tell you plainly what one visit can and cannot do. This is not an emergency service. If someone is in danger, call 911.
DRAGEN is not a long-term subscription. It is a one-and-done approach. Some families will see the DRAGEN once, and some might want to see the DRAGEN yearly while their child continues to evolve.
Some children do need ongoing help. If yours does, I will tell you.
FIRST HOUR IS ALWAYS FREE.
After the first hour: $150 an hour.
You sign a one page agreement before we start. Nothing is owed after the first hour unless you agree in writing first.
The rate is per family, not per child. See the Pricing page.
The estimate
How long may it take to get your child there? It is not a diagnosis, a treatment plan or therapy.
What you bring
Nothing for the first 15 minutes. A free lesson shows how to read your child's latest progress report.
What the first hour is
As I learned in my studies at CSUN with Dr. Kazemi, I explain the skill, I show it, you try it, and I tell you how it went. This visit is about your child.
Source: Shapiro & Kazemi, Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (2017), a review of training strategies.
What you keep
You keep a written summary of what we did. If what we set up stops working, call me. Decisions about your child's care stay with you and the care team you choose.
If I visit, I keep the signed agreement and my visit note, as my ethics code requires. The agreement says where and for how long.
Who answers
Chase Alexander Hought, M.S., BCBA. There is no queue and no intake team. You can also write to chase@dragen.cloud. Leave your child's name and details out of the first email. A safe way to share the records is arranged from there.
Why offer it
“We’d be honored to be the DRAGEN that carries your Lion to Reflection Island. The sharpening, like it was for Julius, will always be yours to do. We just don’t think you should have to find Reflection Island on your own.”
From Julius and the DRAGEN
What Reflection Island is.
“Reflection Island is the philosophical mental state in which a person sees their own potential for the first time in their life.”
Julius is a cub who wants to become a Lion. Here, the Lion is your child. The words below are the author's own.
Reflection Island
“It is the work of therapy itself. It was never something we invented. The skills your child needs have been available to them the whole time. What has been missing is a structured place, and someone experienced, to help find and sharpen those skills on purpose.”
Sharpened claws
“Sharpened claws are the actual, measurable skills your child builds session by session: communication, regulation, independence, connection — the things that let your child compete on the same ground as every other lion, without needing to become someone else to do it.”
“The only way to get to sharpened claws is to journey to Reflection Island.”
Your part
“You, the parents, are a larger part of your child’s Reflection Island than any single hour we spend together each week.”
Your language.
I plan to work with families in every country in the world.
Language is no longer a barrier with the technologies of today. Do not let your language hold you back. All language is beautiful.
How it works today: I am based in California. Each state and each country has its own rules, and I follow them first. I speak English. In person, in other languages, you and I talk through translation technology.
The phone call is in English. You can write to me in Spanish, and I answer in English, with a Spanish translation.
We are all human.
Learn it first
Start with the lessons.
Three free lessons cover the first three things I would teach any family or team: how to write down what happens, how to work out what a behavior is doing, and how to aim reinforcement instead of stumbling into it.
The DRAGEN can change your life in a day... why not today? Every day is today.
Start with a free 15 minute conversation.
The first hour is always free. After that, the rate is per family, not per child. See the Pricing page.
A question about a lesson?
Write in. Please leave out names and details about any real child. For your own child, call. I do not give advice about a specific child by email.