In an attempt to round out my brief (but hopefully useful) series on behaviors, I’m excited to discuss important aspects to consider when developing an intervention plan for a child…AFTER you have figured out the what exactly seems to be going on. Be sure to review the last couple of posts for a refresher on how to start the process of changing unwanted behaviors in your child or student.
I mentioned before the “mind-boggling” responsibility we
have as educators and parents in the lives of young people and I urge you to
always keep this in mind when we are doing something so important as trying to
change negative behaviors into positive ones.
When done well, it can change the course of a child’s life. When done poorly, it can do more harm than
good.
There are general rules, or guidelines you will want to
consider when developing intervention plans for children:
Does it address the
function? If you aren’t seeing
changes in a behavior, you may
not have actually dealt with the WHY of the behavior. For example, Let’s pretend that you have a
child who you believe has a need to gain attention for his yelling and
argumentative behaviors. You implement a
plan for "planned ignoring" by giving extra praise and positive reinforcement when he is behaving and by ignoring the problematic behaviors. After
one week of this intervention, you are seeing no improvement, and in fact, the
behavior is getting worse. It is
important to reflect upon your assessment of his function. Was the behavior truly to gain
attention? Upon further data collection
over time, you may actually realize his behaviors present themselves during all
activities which require a written response.
You realize that it may not have been a function of his desire to gain
attention, but actually to avoid a task that he determined was too hard for
him. Ah, the intervention would change
dramatically wouldn’t it?
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What goes down also
must go up. For every behavior you
want to decrease, you must have a replacement behavior to increase. For example: Behavior to decrease--yelling.
Behavior to increase--raising
hand. Be sure to document this in your plan.
Beyond the
moment: Again, knowing the function
of a behavior is pivotal here. Remember
our “pretend” child above who yelled and screamed every time a motoric task was
asked of him? Part of the overall
intervention plan must take into account pro-active interventions that can help
alleviate the behavior over time. If a
behavior is stemming from a lack of skills, you need to increase the child’s engagement of
skill building activities, reinforcement of skills or remediation. For example, work with the learning support
department to develop a plan to improve the academic skills that may be
contributing to the behavior at hand. A couple computer based intervention programs I love involve individualized, adaptable programming that is engaging and fun for the kids while improving academic foundations. Check out www.dreambox.com for math and www.lexia.com for reading.
Are they socially
acceptable? I have mentioned the
term “Least Restrictive Environment” before (click here to read post from 17 Nov 2011) but now I am
referring to a “Least Restrictive Intervention,” a term referred to through the
Yale Online Autism Course offered on iTunes.
The Least Restrictive Intervention needs to be a socially acceptable
plan that has the capacity to be used, generalized and accepted by peers and in
the “real world.”
Is it based in
rewards or punishment? It is pivotal
to understand that punishments AFTER the behavior are significantly less
effective than stepping in at the antecedent stage. If you do your data collection, you should
know when that is and develop interventions that address replacing the behavior
positively before it happens instead of punishing the negative behavior after. By then, it’s too late…the behavior already
occurred and punishment isn’t getting to the function of the behavior,
therefore it can be assumed such behaviors will continue to be problematic, regardless of the
punishment intervention you put in place.
Also, punishment is just plain negative and we want to infuse as much
positive into these kids as possible, don’t you agree?
Now, should there be consequences for
behaviors? Sure, when done correctly and
not as the primary intervention. Take my
fabulous, yet at times, cheekly daughters.
They will leave their clothes and toys all around the house. It drives me batty. So, as a consequence for leaving their
clothes or toys around, if I pick it up, it goes in the “bag.” At this point all I have to say is, “I just
put your (Fill in the blank) in the bag” and they know what that means. Once the bag is filled, they can “buy back”
their things with points they earn throughout the week for completing their
responsibilities. That said, although it
is a decent plan, it really is a “punishment” because they lose that item for a
non-identified amount of time. As I
learned first hand, I seemed to add to the bag DAILY, realizing I wasn’t really
changing their behavior by doing this.
What was the function of their behavior?
Well…really it was laziness but if we put it in a “gain” or “avoid”
category it would be avoiding the work.
So now, we have daily scheduled “don’t let it get in the bag” clean-up times as
well as organization systems set up in the house so everything has a place and it is easier
to put things away. Laundry zones are in
each room, the playroom is labeled and organized and we have baskets on the steps for toys that were left downstairs and can be brought with them whenever they are going up. Although I
still have the bag if I need it, I don’t use it as often as I did before and the kids don’t feel the need to avoid the work because putting their
things away isn’t so hard for them anymore.
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Reward
Regulations-are they meaningful,
regular and predictable? When
developing rewards into your interventions, kids should know how they can earn
them and when. They should be something
that means something to them…otherwise will it be motivating? As much as my husband loves his job, he does
get motivated by a raise or a bonus.
Let’s face it…if they were paying him Monopoly money he would leave and
find another! A great tool we use
regularly at Live and Learn is a Reinforcer Inventory. We adapted ours from a document written by the Center of Effective Collaboration and Practice to relate more
to our international kids, but we find it a fabulous tool to find out the kinds
of reinforcers that motivate kids! Click here for the reinforcer inventory, click here for the scoring sheet and here for the summary page. All that just for reading our blog! You're welcome!
Don’t forget the
sensory! Sensory needs are a large
part of behaviors, especially in children with autism. It can still fall into a “gain or avoid”
category with a need to either gain certain sensory sensations or avoid them,
but their interventions will need to address this physical need with sensory
breaks or a sensory diet, more than rewards or reinforcers will. Sensory needs may need to be mitigated by
sensory breaks and it can be a “trial and error” process of figuring out what
works. Some things we have tried have
been a yoga ball to sit on instead of a chair, Velcro under the desk to rub
when necessary, a “fiddle basket” of hand held toys to hold onto, gum chewing,
eating an apple or other crunchy food, a rocking chair, carrying heavy books to
another classroom, and playing on the playground. The list can go on and on…there are so many
great ideas but not all work for all kids. An Occupational Therapist is a pivotal
resource for helping to develop a proper sensory diet within the school
day. Carol Kranowitz, author of the “Out of Sync
Child” is the guru on all things sensory. Check out her website at http://out-of-sync-child.com for more information.
Remember that developing the intervention plan should only
be done AFTER thorough data collection and team investigation has been
conducted over time. Developing the
right intervention plan can change the path for a child from failure to
success. And YOU can make that happen! Mind-boggling, isn’t it???
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