5 Steps to Meaningful Behavioral Support Post Round-Up

As promised in the last post of the series, I wanted to finish up this challenging behavior series of posts by walking through some of highlights and rounding up the relevant posts. This series has gone on for quite a while so I thought it would be nice to have something like a table of contents to come back to if you have more time (yeah right) or need something or missed something. I am sure that over time I will add posts that are relevant to this series. When I do, I will try to link them back to this series through THIS LINK. Most will probably be about strategies for addressing challenging behaviors that I didn't touch on during this series or new research that comes out over time. Or anything else relevant that occurs to me....that's the joy of blogging.

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Implement and Monitor Behavior Support Plans: Data Tells the Story

I think it is time to wrap up the 5 Steps to Meaningful Behavioral Support series by talking about the 5th step--implementing and monitoring the support plan. It's really easy to feel like once you have put together your behavior support plan that you are done and can you relax (oh, and concentrate on one of the thousand things that need attention). Unfortunately, you don't yet know if the plan you put together is actually going to work. So, let me share some tips and thoughts about what the next steps are for this phase of the cycle.

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DOs and DON'Ts for Responding to Challenging Behavior

It's been a while but I really want to try to finish up the 5 Steps to Meaningful Behavioral Support series with the final few posts on responding to challenging behavior considerations. Of course these posts will be interspersed with our Special Educator's Blog Hop coming in February for Valentine's Day and Workbasket Wednesday next week so it won't be too intense.

Oh those behaviors we can't just pretend don't happen! That kiddo who hits the kid next to him because it lights him up like a Christmas Tree that cries screams--"He hit me!" That girl who, in the middle of your instruction when you are working with another student, starts throwing your materials off the table including the scissors.

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How Should We Respond to Challenging Behavior?

Returning to the series on challenging behavior brings us to the third type of strategies to include in a behavioral support plan: Responsive strategies. No matter what we do when we plan behavioral support, there will be days when it fails and when the behavior occurs. No matter how many antecedent strategies and replacement strategies we use, what reaction the behavior gets in the environment is going to affect it and we need to be prepared for them. Not being prepared and as consistent as possible is sometimes what increased the behaviors in the first place, so it pays to take time to design the response. Here are some things we need to think about in responsive strategies.

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3 Ways to Teach Replacements or Coping Strategies for Sensory-Based Challenging Behavior

As I talked about in my last post in the challenging behavior series, there are two primary ways that the different sensory experiences of students with autism might be related to the function of a challenging behavior. It might be to escape from a situation that is too loud, or too bright or too smelly or all of those things among others. It might also be to gain reinforcement from something internal or end an internal feeling that is uncomfortable. Today I want to talk about how we can teach an individual replacement behaviors to get their needs met without the challenging behavior. These are some of the most difficult replacement behaviors to teach and identify so let me share some examples.

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Is it Sensory or Behavior? The WRONG Question--Here's Why

OK, I know I have already ruffled some feathers with the title of this post, but please hang with me and let me explain. I want to continue with the challenging behavior series by addressing the sensory or automatic function of challenging behavior. You can find more of this series here.

Recently on Pinterest I have been seeing lots of posts that pose the title of Is it Sensory or is it Behavior? I'm happy that people understand that all behaviors are not deliberately manipulative, which I think is what they are intending. They are making the differentiation between willful behavior (which assumes that challenging behavior is deliberate) and behavior that functions because an individual (often on the autism spectrum but not always) is overwhelmed by sensory input in their environment. However, there are some serious myths and misconceptions about this approach that I think go beyond semantics of how we talk about behavior that I want to explore in today's post.

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3 Ways to Make Positive Reinforcement Systems Work in the Classroom

Returning to my series on managing challenging behavior, I wanted to take a moment to talk about positive reinforcement of appropriate behavior and why creating systems for giving it might be helpful and is important. Positive reinforcement is both an antecedent strategy /preventive strategy as well as a teaching tool for replacement skills. We try to keep it from being a response to negative behavior since reinforcement would increase that undesired behavior. If we use positive reinforcement systems consistently for appropriate behaviors, we reduce the likelihood that challenging behaviors will be exhibited and we use reinforcement systems to teach new skills to replace challenging behavior like raising their hand to gain attention (positive reinforcement) and asking for a break (negative reinforcement--we took something away and the asking for a break increased). For general classroom management we want to reinforce appropriate behavior across the classroom about 5 times for every redirection or correction that we make (Flora, 2000). We also have a good research literature that tells us that classrooms typically do not reach that ratio and that increasing praise can improve students' behavior (Flora, 2000).

Teachers don’t have just one job. Have you ever met a teacher who felt he/she just had to do well in one thing? I haven’t. Just thinking of everything that a teacher needs to do throughout the day is exhausting. But I don’t need to tell YOU that (unless you aren’t a teacher). However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean to be said. Trying to keep track of everything that is happening in a successful classroom and keep all the students engaged is a monumental task. When I am running a classroom, I find it easiest when I automate as many of the tasks as I possibly can. The more I can do that, the less time I have to spend remembering, and the more engaged I can be with the students—which is always my ultimate goal (you know, prevents challenging behavior, increases skills effectively….for those reasons).

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Defining a Break in Functional Communication Training

In my last post, I talked about how to teach a communication response to replace escape-related challenging behavior and had a protocol for teaching a break response as one of the options. I wanted to take some time today to talk about what a break might actually look like. As I noted in that post, the type of break and what happens during a break can vary as much as all our different students. A break can take place in the same place as the activity the student is asking to escape. Typically this would make sense if the student is escaping from work.
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Functional Communication Training: Teaching Asking for a Break

In talking about replacement behaviors, probably one of the replacement strategies that most challenge teachers is how to replace behaviors that serve to escape from situations. It goes against our grain to teach a student to "get out of" the work we are trying to teach him. It goes against everything we are told by our supervisors and parents. I think this is becoming particularly true in our "high standards" age. I realize when I tell teachers that we should let a student "choose" not to complete something that this seems to be counter to her purpose in her job. I get it. I really do. I promise. And yet....

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5 Ways to Prep Students to Prevent Challenging Behavior: Antecedent Strategies

To read more of the series on challenging behavior click HERE.

So, in this post I want to finish up talking about antecedent strategies by talking about ways to prepare a student prior to a situation that may be related to challenging behavior so that the student can get through the activity productively and without difficulty. Sometimes preparing someone before they have to manage a difficult situation can help them manage their behavior. Think of it as when you remind your significant other that we decided to try not to argue with the in-laws during the dinner tonight. We all do it, it's just a matter of making the preparation clear and meaningful for our students--and planning the time to be able to do it. Here are some ways that we can prepare students to help their behavior be more successful.
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3 Ways to Adjust the Physical Space to Prevent Challenging Behavior

If you are looking for the special education blog hop and the freebies and giveaway, click HERE.

Today I am continuing with the antecedent strategies for preventing challenging behavior in step 4 of 5 Steps to Meaningful Behavioral Support. To see the rest of the series click HERE.

Sometimes, preventing challenging behavior can be as simple as changing around the furniture. And sometimes it helps to have the furniture you need. Since many of us are setting up classrooms for the school year, today I want to talk about how the physical arrangement of the environment can affect challenging behaviors.
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Addressing Setting Events in Meaningful Behavioral Support

Do you remember that I was doing a series on behavioral support? Yea, well I feel like you must think I forgot about the most important part--INTERVENTION! What good does it do to complete a killer FBA if we don't have rockin' interventions that actually reduce challenging behavior?? So, no, I have not forgotten...just got a bit distracted. But now we shall continue. If you want to catch the rest of the series, you can do that HERE.
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