Shaping the FCR from 'My Way' to 'Excuse Me, May I Have My Way Please'

To shape a Functional Communication Response (FCR) from simple to complex, walk the learner up the four-rung ladder from Ghaemmaghami and colleagues 2018: rung one is a sentence fragment in any tone ("my way"), rung two adds an autoclitic frame and a calm voice ("may I have my way please"), rung three adds an attention-seeking word at the front ("excuse me, may I have my way"), and rung four is the full two-part response with a pause for acknowledgement ("excuse me… may I have my way please"). Move up one rung at a time, and when the learner stalls and stops getting reinforced for two sessions in a row, step back down a rung, rebuild strong responding, and try again. The paper waited six sessions before stepping back down. In real practice, two is plenty. At the same time you are shaping the words, you are shaping a second ladder the paper does not put a label on: the evocative context. The room gets a little harder to be in at each rung. This page walks the two ladders side by side, shows you what each step looks like in a real session, gives you the rule for when to drop back down, and ends with how to hand the whole thing to a caregiver. SBT here means Skill-Based Treatment.

The FCR Ladder from Ghaemmaghami 2018, One Step at a Time#

The whole point of the ladder is that you are not asking the learner to jump from no functional communication to a polite, two-part sentence in one go. You are building it one word at a time, and at each rung you raise the bar for what counts as reinforceable.

Here is the ladder in order:

1. Rung one, the simple FCR. A sentence fragment with no calm-voice requirement. The learner can yell it, whine it, or say it flat. As long as some form of "my way" comes out, it gets reinforced. This is where you start, because the learner already has some version of this in their repertoire.
2. Rung two, autoclitic frame plus calm voice. Now you want "may I have my way please" in a calm voice. The "may I have" is the autoclitic frame, which is the grammar wrapper around the request. The yelled version from rung one no longer gets reinforced here.
3. Rung three, add an attention-seeking response. "Excuse me, may I have my way." The "excuse me" is the attention-seeking response. If the learner skips it, no reinforcement.
4. Rung four, the full two-part FCR. "Excuse me." Pause for the adult to acknowledge them. Then "may I have my way please." This is the polished version a typical child would use to ask a teacher for something.

First you have a vocal mand in a sentence fragment and there's no calm voice requirement, so the child can yell, scream, or do whatever. All they have to exhibit is some form of "my way please." The next step, we're adding an autoclitic frame: "may I have my way please," stepping up complexity by also requiring a calm voice. From the talk — Matt Harrington

Each rung is a change-in-criterion step. The bar moves up, the old version stops paying off, and the new version starts paying off. Nothing else changes that you are not changing on purpose.

The Hidden Second Ladder: Evocative Context Moves with the FCR#

If you only shape the words and leave the room exactly as easy as it was on day one, you have not actually taught the kid anything that holds up in real life. The Ghaemmaghami paper shapes a second ladder at the same time, and most clinicians miss it on the first read.

The evocative context is everything about the situation that makes the request needed in the first place. At rung one, the adult might just touch a preferred item without taking it away, and the demand is light. By rung four, the adult is removing the preferred item, looking away, presenting a demand, and not granting the request right away. The world got harder. The FCR got more polished. They moved in lockstep.

Not only are we shaping up the communication response, we're also slowly shaping up the evocative context. This is present throughout almost everything in the PFA and SBT process: this idea of taking really small baby steps to get higher and higher slowly, specifically without challenging behavior. From the talk — Matt Harrington

You can think of it like this. The FCR ladder is what the kid has to do. The evocative ladder is what the adult has to do. If you only move one, you get a kid who can say a beautiful sentence but only when the room is dead easy, or a kid who can survive a hard room but only with a one-word grunt. You want both.

A small practical note. When you bump the evocative context, do not also bump the FCR criterion in the same step. One ladder at a time. If you change two things and the wheels come off, you cannot tell which one did it.

What 'My Way' to 'Excuse Me, May I Have My Way Please' Looks Like in Session#

In a real session this shows up on a change-in-criterion graph. At rung one you see a spike of "my way" responses because that is what gets paid. When you move the bar to rung two, the "my way" line drops and the "may I have my way" line climbs. That is the shaping working.

Then you step to rung three and add "excuse me… may I have my way." This is the rung where things can stall, because you are asking for a brand-new piece on the front of the response. The graph goes flat. No reinforcement is happening, because the new behavior is not happening yet. The learner is essentially on extinction for a skill they do not have yet.

That is the moment to step back down.

When the Learner Stalls: The 2-Session Rule for Stepping Back Down#

This is the most important clinical move on the page. When the bar goes up and the learner cannot clear it, do not sit there for six sessions hoping it shakes loose. Drop back one rung, rebuild strong responding, and then try again.

That's supposed to be getting reinforced, but what happens to the behavior? Nothing. There's no reinforcement occurring at all, because the behavior isn't occurring. The client's meeting extinction because they're not demonstrating the more complex skill. Instead of pounding your head against the wall for three sessions, you decrease down to "may I have my way please." From the talk — Matt Harrington

The published study waited five or six sessions before stepping back down. In a clinic, that is too long. The 2-session rule is the working version of the rule for everyday practice: if two sessions in a row at the new rung produce flat responding, drop back. Some clinicians will move after three. Matt's preference is two.

The reason to move fast is that the longer the learner sits on extinction, the more chance challenging behavior has to creep back in. Shaping only works if the learner is mostly hitting reinforcement. A learner who is mostly failing is a learner who is about to fall out of treatment.

How to Tell if the Step-Up Is Working (Reading Your Own Data)#

Each rung change should produce two things on your data sheet within a few sessions:

• The old form drops. If you were reinforcing "my way" on rung one and you have now moved to rung two, the "my way" line should be falling. If it is still climbing, the kid did not feel the rung change. Check that you are actually withholding reinforcement for the old form.
• The new form rises. The new target should be heading up. It does not have to be a clean line. Shaping is bumpy. But the trend should be up over three or four sessions.

When the criterion increased, so did the behavior that conforms to that criterion. So now we have a lot more "may I have my ways" and much less "my way please." From the talk — Matt Harrington

If both lines are flat, you went too far too fast. Drop back. If the old line keeps climbing, the contingency is leaky. Find the leak. Sometimes it is a well-meaning caregiver in the next room responding to the old form.

What to Do When the Calm-Voice Criterion Is the Sticking Point#

The calm-voice piece is the rung that catches more learners than any other. The words are there. The volume is not. A kid who has been yelling for what they want for years is not going to switch to a library voice because you added a row to your data sheet.

A few moves that help. First, narrow what counts as "calm" for the first week. Anything below a yell counts. Then tighten it. Second, model the calm version right before the opportunity. A quiet model from the adult lowers the volume of the response in a way no instruction will. Third, do not pair the calm-voice push with an evocative bump in the same session. If the room just got harder, leave the voice criterion where it is for a day or two.

If after two sessions the learner is consistently asking with the right words at the wrong volume, you have the same call to make as anywhere else on the ladder. Drop back to the rung where calm voice was not required, rebuild, and then re-introduce the calm criterion as its own small step, not bundled with anything else.

The Hand-Off: Teaching the Caregiver to Shape Without You in the Room#

The whole point of SBT is that it lands in the home, not in your clinic. Two things to give the caregiver.

The first is a one-page version of the current rung. What the kid says. What gets reinforced. What does not. What you do when they get it right. What you do when they use the old form. Keep it shorter than a paragraph.

The second is the step-down rule, written in their words. "If two days in a row at the new step are not working, go back to the last one for a few days, then try again." That single rule is the difference between a caregiver who burns out and a caregiver who keeps the ladder moving.

Caregivers do not need to know the term "autoclitic frame." They need to know which sentence pays today and which sentence used to pay yesterday. Send them home with that, and the ladder keeps climbing on the days you are not there.

Frequently asked questions#

Can I use signs or an AAC device instead of vocal FCRs in this ladder?

Yes. The ladder is about complexity, not modality. A simple sign for "more" is rung one. A two-word sign combination is rung two. An AAC sentence strip with an attention-seeking icon at the front is rung three. The decision rule is the same: bump one piece at a time, and step back down after two sessions of flat responding.

What if my learner is already at a complex FCR but engages in problem behavior anyway?

The FCR is not the only thing being trained. If the words are there but the behavior still shows up, the issue is usually on the evocative side or in the denial and tolerance phase. Step back to a context where the FCR reliably works, confirm the contingency is clean, and then check whether you have skipped tolerance work.

Do I have to use the exact "excuse me, may I have my way please" phrase, or can I pick my own?

You can pick your own. The phrase in the paper is one example. The structure that matters is: attention-seeking response, pause for acknowledgement, autoclitic frame, sentence in a calm voice. Pick words that fit the learner's age, family, and culture. A nine-year-old does not need to sound like a Victorian child.

Keep going#

The shaping ladder is one mechanic inside a bigger process. The pages below cover the assessment piece that feeds it, the single-session version of that assessment, and the trauma-informed updates that change how you set the room up at each rung.