Throughout this school year we have been meeting every 2-6 weeks to discuss how my daughter is doing in school and to fine-tune her behavior plan. I have been very happy with her team this year, but we still didn't have a behavior plan in place that I felt was easy to understand or easy to follow. Just this last weekend I attended a conference on inclusive education and I came out of it feeling that I had learned a lot - especially from the 4 hour session regarding behavior intervention. I returned home determined that I would rewrite the behavior plan and submit it to the rest of the team. I started with the bones of the old behavior plan and spent all day Sunday reworking it. I wanted to share with you what we did. Keeping in mind that each behavior plan has to be custom to the kid in question if it's going to work, I still wanted to share with you what we did. Note: We did have the meeting at school on Tuesday (yesterday) and other than a few minor additions, the plan was well received.
For privacy reasons, I've just used the titles under participants and 'Child' instead of my daughter's name.
If you're interested in reading more about Dr. Riffel's behavioral work, you can go to her website at www.behaviordoctor.org.
DRAFT - Behavior Support Plan
Student: Date:
Grade: 1
Participants: Principal, SSN (significant support needs) teacher, Mom, Home Behavior Specialist, OT, Grandmother, General Ed teacher, Assistant Director Special Education, Advocate
Areas of Concern: Child has a number of behaviors she displays for various reasons. These behaviors include (but are not limited to): running away, flopping on the floor, throwing things, hitting, kicking, screaming, spitting, licking, biting, disrobing, pinching, hair-pulling, and climbing on furniture.
Function of Behavior: The function of behavior, generally speaking, is either to get something or to get out of something. According to Dr. Laura Riffel in Positive Interventions and Effective Strategies, behavior “To GET” something is to get attention from adults or peers, access to preferred items, access to preferred places, access to preferred people, or access to preferred sensory input. Behavior “To GET OUT of” something is to get out of work, interactions with adults or peers, or sensory overload.
We have to look at each situation that comes up to determine the function of the behavior if we’re going to affect it.
For example, if Child is given a task that she doesn’t understand, her response now is to go through her alphabet of behaviors to avoid the task. Interventions directed at the specific behaviors aren’t going to work. We need to understand the trigger and work from that point.
Needs to Learn:
- How to ask for help
- How to communicate her feelings appropriately
- How to transition from preferred to non-preferred activities appropriately
- How to receive instruction in the general classroom
- How to complete school work at her desk in the general ed classroom
- How to stay in her seat/spot during group instruction in the general classroom
- How to stay with class or adult while in the hallway
- How to appropriately ask for a break
- How to say, “I don’t understand” or “This is too hard”
I find that Child can be very literal. We need to catch her being good and tell her exactly what she did that was good. “Wow Child, you did a great job sitting in circle. I like how you stayed in your spot and listened to General Ed Teacher.” Everything I’ve read is that you have more success changing a behavior by praising the child for doing it the right way rather than waiting for them to do it wrong and then trying to correct it. We need to know what specific behaviors we’re trying to reinforce so we can catch her being good at these activities. The things I see listed are: being quiet in group, keeping her hands and feet to herself, transitioning appropriately, expressing her feelings appropriately, complying with adult directions on the 1st request, and being kind to others (peers and adults).
As an interesting note, the research is that while kids are (on average) being good and following the rules about 80% of the time, they only get complimented for the good behavior less than 2% of the time.
Right now we have Child on a token economy. She earns tokens for exhibiting the behavior we want to reinforce. My understanding is that for token economies to work, once a token has been given, it isn’t taken away. She doesn’t earn any tokens when the behavior is inappropriate, but she doesn’t loose tokens for that behavior either. Taking them back is called response cost, and the research on it indicates that while it might work in the short term, it doesn’t work in the long term – and what are you going to do when you’ve taken all the tokens? At this point she has nothing left to lose. Ideally, at this point she should be able to earn enough tokens per day to fill a number of token charts. We should vary the amount of tokens each time to between 4-10 tokens to mix it up a bit. I think when she fills her token chart she should be able to get that earned break in order for the reward to be tangible to her. I don’t think scheduled breaks will have the same pay-off. In addition, it doesn’t make sense to make her earn more tokens to fill a chart when she’s working well. I think ‘raising the price’, after the token goal has been assigned, has the potential to devalue the token economy in place.
Teaching and Reinforcement Plan:
When Child… | The adult (teacher, para or other staff) will… |
Comes to school |
|
Is outside of general class activities (such as learning lab or OT/PT room) | Practice with Child:
|
Has circle time |
|
Is working at her desk | Give her a chance to start the activity on her own. If she isn’t starting: · Have her restate what she’s supposed to be doing to determine if she actually understands the task. · Prompt her to ask for help if she doesn’t seem to understand. Reinforce her for working appropriately, asking for help, putting in a good effort, working quietly, etc. If she completes her work before the end of the activity, let her have a quiet activity (like reading or coloring) in the meantime. |
Is working in small groups or at centers | · Model how to appropriately interact with her peers. · Reinforce her peers for interacting appropriately with Child. · Reinforce Child for interacting appropriately with her peers. |
Is about to end an activity |
|
Earns a break at the learning lab to buy a reward from her menu | Allow Child to use her tokens to ‘shop’ for tangibles or activities. She can also spend more tokens to earn extra time with a given activity. |
Response Plan:
When Child… | The adult (teacher, para or other staff) will… |
Is engaging in minor behaviors that do not disrupt the class such as fidgeting (other examples?) | Ignore the behavior, but praise Child if she does the desirable behavior. |
Refuses to complete a task |
|
Is laying on the floor inappropriately | Give her a choice of whether she will get up on her own or whether she needs help getting up. If she won’t get up on her own, use CPI techniques (two adults with hands under her armpits) to safely get her to her feet and escort her to OT/PT (near the time out room). |
Verbally challenges teacher/para (ex: says the opposite of what you ask, threatens to hit you) | Ignore the challenge. Don’t engage her. |
Is engaging in disruptive behaviors (ex: talking out) | Redirect Child in a neutral tone telling her specifically what she should be doing (ex: Child, you need to use your inside voice and not, Child, be quiet). |
Is beginning to show signs of escalation and frustration (ex: getting louder, visibly agitated) | Continue to redirect Child in a neutral tone. Take a minute to identify the behavior trigger. Depending on the antecedent, it might be appropriate to prompt her to ask for a break or ask for help. Continue to keep the task demand on her, as appropriate. |
Throws objects, shows physical aggression, spits or climbs inappropriately on the furniture |
|
Undressing inappropriately in school |
|
Runs |
|
In time out, is quiet and timer has rung after 5 minutes |
|
In time out and behavior is still occurring after 5 minutes, Child says “No” or is non-compliant |
|
| Is physically aggressive towards staff or a student to the point of causing physical harm to others and/or self and all other de-escalation techniques have been exhausted | Trained staff my use district-approved CPI techniques (two adults with hands under armpits) for transport to time out room. |
Progress:
When Child is demonstrating no incidents of aggression for one week (5 consecutive days), then the reinforcement will be adjusted and the team will determine what other skills Child needs to learn.
Data Collection:
Data collected will include ABC data (antecedent, behavior, consequence) on behavior of concern such as running out of the room, throwing, yelling, hitting, spitting, kicking, meltdowns, etc., number of tokens earned each day, number of any larks earned each day, CPI log including antecedents, and time out log including antecedents. Positive behaviors will continue to be noted in the daily notebook.
Follow-up:
Copies of the daily notebook will be sent home weekly. If ABC, CPI and time out data are collected on sheets other than the daily notebook, those will be copied and sent home weekly as well.
Extinction Summary:
1. Identify the target behavior.
2. Identify all reinforcers that typically follow the target behavior.
3. Be consistent in ignoring the target behavior every time it is exhibited or doing something that ensures that the reinforcer is not given.
4. Maintain the procedure through the expected extinction burst, which is when the student is persistent in repeating the undesired behavior with greater frequency and intensity in anticipation of the teacher giving in.
5. Maintain the procedure through the expected spontaneous recovery period, which is the temporary reoccurrence of a target behavior though the behavior has not been reinforced.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 3
Here in Los Angeles the behavior support plan that is part of the IEP can only state one behavior to follow and it is a form we work on at the IEP.
I wrote out my son's Behavior support plan and his Functional analysis assessment from last year on my site -
http://autismspectrumdisorders.bellaonline.com
There are six students, four aides and one teacher. I doubt the teacher would be able to follow something like this and teach other students at the same time.
Who is responsible for implementing this plan? Does the aide write the notes in the log or the teacher?
Thanks for sharing as it is helpful to see what other states and school districts have. I could never imagine drawing up such an extensive plan for either of my sons.
Does your child also follow the regular school curriculum or does she have her own and do different things than the classmates?
Sorry for all the questions, just never saw something so extensive like this and curious to know how this gets implemented when there are other students in a classroom?
She spends most of her time in the SSN (significant support needs room) and only small parts of her day in the general ed room. We are trying to increase that time. Mainly her SSN teacher and para (and therapists) will be following the plan, but as she spends more time in general ed, that teacher will need to follow it also.
The plan is designed to address how to encourage good behavior (which needs to be ongoing and from all the adults that work with her) and specifies what they need to do in the face of inappropriate behavior (which is mainly going to be handled by the SSN staff).
Errorless teaching, as the team has been using it, means that she is instructed in a new subject in a variety of ways - really depending on what they're trying to teach her. As they start doing worksheets and whatnot with her, she tries it on her own, but if she's starting to get frustrated and is escalating, they will help her find the answer. The idea at this point is to help her succeed in school and help her learn that learning can be fun. The plan is so detailed now because we hope to teach her enough good behavior that fewer and fewer supports are needed and so she can ultimately spend more time in the general ed class with her peers.
Whomever is working with her writes notes in her back & forth book. It's preprinted with all the subjects of the day and has various checkboxes. If there is a behavior, the behavior is noted. We have abbreviations for the behaviors (R/H/K/Y would be run, hit, kick, yell). They note duration of the behaviors over the course of an episode and note any time spent in time out.
She follows the main classroom curriculum as much as possible, but we modify the homework as needed. There are some areas where she is far in advance of her class, areas where she's about at the same speed, and other areas where she is behind.
By writing it out in such detail, and putting as much as possible into layman's terms, the team can better understand what to do, why it's being done, and what not to do in order to get the most effective results.
That's the hope, anyway. ;-)
I'm trying to keep the behavior plan in mind at home, both for consistancy's sake and because parenting the way my folks taught me to is not the best approach to use with an autistic child. "You must unlearn..."