"Students whose families are involved in their education, regardless of family background or income, are more likely to earn higher grades, be promoted, show improved behavior, and enroll in post-secondary education programs." |
Changing Challenging Behavior There are three main steps that all teachers take in trying to curb a student's disruptive behavior in the classroom . The first step is prevention of the behavior at all levels. The second is to understand any underlying factors that are causing the students behavior. Finally, identifying and creating the skills needed by the student to help them make the appropriate choices in the classroom and at home. (Smallwood, 2003)
|
Techniques for Changing Challenging Behavior
Dr. Fred Jones has created a system that is commonly using in schools to help improve students behavior. Many of the techniques that are used by teachers using his Positive Classroom Discipline can be carried over into the home. Here are a few of the basic techniques that can be carried over.
INDIVIDUALIZED INCENTIVES
Basic Design The classic behavior modification program is the individualized incentive program for a behaviorally and/or educationally handicapped student. The objective of such a program is typically to replace problem behavior with appropriate behavior. The steps in implementing such a program serve as a model for contingency management in general.
1. Pinpointing the Problem What behaviors do you want to change? Very often teachers and parents will have a vague and undifferentiated notion of the problem when pressed to describe it. They may describe the child, for example, as oppositional, nasty, lazy, or out of control. "Pinpoint interviewing" will help delineate the boundaries of the problem and will sometimes turn up surprises as the exact nature of the problem is explored. For example, one elementary teacher who requested a management program for a student who was described as incorrigible could not cite any instance of incorrigible behavior during recent weeks. When interviewed further the teacher was able to cite only one memorable experience-an instance earlier in the year when the student spat in her face during a tantrum. The incident was so disgusting to the teacher that it colored all subsequent perceptions of the child.
2. Pinpointing Behavioral Assets Understanding a student's liabilities is only the first part of diagnosis. What are the strengths upon which you can build? Knowing that a student hits other students frequently is one thing, but knowing that he or she can often go all morning without hitting is quite another. A management program is not built around deficit behavior since a deficit provides no foundation for building. Rather, most management programs focus on maximizing assets. A management program almost always focuses on the simultaneous manipulation of a pair of behaviors the one you want to eliminate and the one you want to build in its place. If you focus only on the elimination of problems, the building of appropriate behavior is left to chance.
3. Recording Target Behavior You cannot assess improvement unless you have some notion of the rate of target behaviors (key problems and key assets) before and following intervention. The data from recording the rate of target behaviors before intervention is called "baseline data," and most behavior modification programs make their first appearance in the classroom with the recording of baseline data.
Baseline data can also produce some surprises of its own. Sometimes the problem isn't there, and often a discipline problem disappears as a result of baseline data, especially if the teacher is taking the data. When the problem disappears, it is typically because the teacher quit ignoring the problem and began looking at the offending student every time he or she misbehaved. Often the taking of baseline data by a teacher is more valuable as a means of training the teacher to track the problem behavior than it is as a source of data.
4. Pinpointing Critical Reinforcers A reinforcer is not necessarily a reward. A reinforcer is anything that anyone will work for. A reward offered by a teacher but spurned by an uninterested student is not a reinforcer. It is simply a waste of time - a false start.
A reinforcer is not necessarily pleasant either. It is axiomatic that children have a very low tolerance for being totally ignored. Children work for attention, and if they cannot get good attention, they will usually work for bad attention rather than accept no attention for a prolonged period of time. Consequently, children will at times provoke their teachers or parents when the only consistently observed consequence is criticism or scolding. Reprimands, scolding, criticism, and even receiving a beating can serve therefore as reinforcers in the course of human events.
When building a management program the reward must be potent enough that the student will consistently work for it. It must be of critical importance to students to induce them to forgo accustomed forms of reward that reinforce inappropriate behaviors. If you cannot find a critical reinforcer, you are up a tree.
5. Intervention Intervention typically focuses on changing any or all the following:
a. The setting. The setting includes general contextual factors which may govern the occurrence of the problem, such as room arrangement, seating location, lighting, and the presence of distractions. The setting, however, can include almost anything the presence of which influences the occurrence of the problem. For example, "setting" may include the presence of certain people, expectations, or pressures to perform.
b. Events preceding the problem. Preceding events include specific prompts or cues for the onset of the problem behavior. Such cues, which precipitate or trigger the onset of the target behavior, usually come from either the students or the teacher.
Rearranging the setting and the precipitating events (prompts) to alter the rate of a problem behavior is typically referred to as "stimulus control" since the intervention focuses on altering the stimuli that govern the onset of the behavior.
c. Events following the occurrence of the problem. Events of interest which follow the occurrence of a problem include specific consequences of that behavior. These consequences or "contingencies" include both positive and negative events as well as no consequence at all. That portion of an intervention which focuses on altering the consequences of a target behavior is typically referred to as "contingency management."
Although "intervention" looks simple, it hides most of the technology, lore, and collective wisdom of behavior modification. It is the specific nature of the intervention program that will either work the teacher to death for limited results or produce widespread improvement at minimal effort.
6. Going Back to the Drawing Board If (a) you know your behavioral management basics, (b) you know the ropes in your particular setting, (c) you have enough clinical savvy to deal effectively with the affective and interpersonal aspects of the situation, and (d) you have adequate control of the environment, you will eventually succeed with your behavior management program.
This likelihood of eventual success does not imply, however, that you will not fail a few times along the way or that you may not succeed at first with a program that is so expensive and impractical that no one will use it. If, for example, teachers whom you respect tell you that your beloved program is just too much trouble and effort for them to use, listen to them Only they know how difficult the rest of their job is. Back to the drawing board!
This final step of program design implies the standard for behavioral management programs - fix the problem! Thirty percent improvement or change significant at the .01 level just doesn't cut it. In behavioral research there are two tests of significance for an intervention: statistical tests and the "so what" test.
Psychologist: We improved the problem by 25 percent!
Teacher: So what! The kid is still disrupting the class and driving me nuts!
Behavior management lives or dies by the "so what" test. As one prominent colleague of mine said (only slightly exaggerating) while reviewing the graph of data from a modestly successful intervention: "if you can't see the change from across the room, to hell with it."
Excerpt from Positive Classroom Discipline Chapter 13 - Behavior Modification and Parallel Programs (fredjones.com)
INDIVIDUALIZED INCENTIVES
Basic Design The classic behavior modification program is the individualized incentive program for a behaviorally and/or educationally handicapped student. The objective of such a program is typically to replace problem behavior with appropriate behavior. The steps in implementing such a program serve as a model for contingency management in general.
1. Pinpointing the Problem What behaviors do you want to change? Very often teachers and parents will have a vague and undifferentiated notion of the problem when pressed to describe it. They may describe the child, for example, as oppositional, nasty, lazy, or out of control. "Pinpoint interviewing" will help delineate the boundaries of the problem and will sometimes turn up surprises as the exact nature of the problem is explored. For example, one elementary teacher who requested a management program for a student who was described as incorrigible could not cite any instance of incorrigible behavior during recent weeks. When interviewed further the teacher was able to cite only one memorable experience-an instance earlier in the year when the student spat in her face during a tantrum. The incident was so disgusting to the teacher that it colored all subsequent perceptions of the child.
2. Pinpointing Behavioral Assets Understanding a student's liabilities is only the first part of diagnosis. What are the strengths upon which you can build? Knowing that a student hits other students frequently is one thing, but knowing that he or she can often go all morning without hitting is quite another. A management program is not built around deficit behavior since a deficit provides no foundation for building. Rather, most management programs focus on maximizing assets. A management program almost always focuses on the simultaneous manipulation of a pair of behaviors the one you want to eliminate and the one you want to build in its place. If you focus only on the elimination of problems, the building of appropriate behavior is left to chance.
3. Recording Target Behavior You cannot assess improvement unless you have some notion of the rate of target behaviors (key problems and key assets) before and following intervention. The data from recording the rate of target behaviors before intervention is called "baseline data," and most behavior modification programs make their first appearance in the classroom with the recording of baseline data.
Baseline data can also produce some surprises of its own. Sometimes the problem isn't there, and often a discipline problem disappears as a result of baseline data, especially if the teacher is taking the data. When the problem disappears, it is typically because the teacher quit ignoring the problem and began looking at the offending student every time he or she misbehaved. Often the taking of baseline data by a teacher is more valuable as a means of training the teacher to track the problem behavior than it is as a source of data.
4. Pinpointing Critical Reinforcers A reinforcer is not necessarily a reward. A reinforcer is anything that anyone will work for. A reward offered by a teacher but spurned by an uninterested student is not a reinforcer. It is simply a waste of time - a false start.
A reinforcer is not necessarily pleasant either. It is axiomatic that children have a very low tolerance for being totally ignored. Children work for attention, and if they cannot get good attention, they will usually work for bad attention rather than accept no attention for a prolonged period of time. Consequently, children will at times provoke their teachers or parents when the only consistently observed consequence is criticism or scolding. Reprimands, scolding, criticism, and even receiving a beating can serve therefore as reinforcers in the course of human events.
When building a management program the reward must be potent enough that the student will consistently work for it. It must be of critical importance to students to induce them to forgo accustomed forms of reward that reinforce inappropriate behaviors. If you cannot find a critical reinforcer, you are up a tree.
5. Intervention Intervention typically focuses on changing any or all the following:
a. The setting. The setting includes general contextual factors which may govern the occurrence of the problem, such as room arrangement, seating location, lighting, and the presence of distractions. The setting, however, can include almost anything the presence of which influences the occurrence of the problem. For example, "setting" may include the presence of certain people, expectations, or pressures to perform.
b. Events preceding the problem. Preceding events include specific prompts or cues for the onset of the problem behavior. Such cues, which precipitate or trigger the onset of the target behavior, usually come from either the students or the teacher.
Rearranging the setting and the precipitating events (prompts) to alter the rate of a problem behavior is typically referred to as "stimulus control" since the intervention focuses on altering the stimuli that govern the onset of the behavior.
c. Events following the occurrence of the problem. Events of interest which follow the occurrence of a problem include specific consequences of that behavior. These consequences or "contingencies" include both positive and negative events as well as no consequence at all. That portion of an intervention which focuses on altering the consequences of a target behavior is typically referred to as "contingency management."
Although "intervention" looks simple, it hides most of the technology, lore, and collective wisdom of behavior modification. It is the specific nature of the intervention program that will either work the teacher to death for limited results or produce widespread improvement at minimal effort.
6. Going Back to the Drawing Board If (a) you know your behavioral management basics, (b) you know the ropes in your particular setting, (c) you have enough clinical savvy to deal effectively with the affective and interpersonal aspects of the situation, and (d) you have adequate control of the environment, you will eventually succeed with your behavior management program.
This likelihood of eventual success does not imply, however, that you will not fail a few times along the way or that you may not succeed at first with a program that is so expensive and impractical that no one will use it. If, for example, teachers whom you respect tell you that your beloved program is just too much trouble and effort for them to use, listen to them Only they know how difficult the rest of their job is. Back to the drawing board!
This final step of program design implies the standard for behavioral management programs - fix the problem! Thirty percent improvement or change significant at the .01 level just doesn't cut it. In behavioral research there are two tests of significance for an intervention: statistical tests and the "so what" test.
Psychologist: We improved the problem by 25 percent!
Teacher: So what! The kid is still disrupting the class and driving me nuts!
Behavior management lives or dies by the "so what" test. As one prominent colleague of mine said (only slightly exaggerating) while reviewing the graph of data from a modestly successful intervention: "if you can't see the change from across the room, to hell with it."
Excerpt from Positive Classroom Discipline Chapter 13 - Behavior Modification and Parallel Programs (fredjones.com)
Positive Behavior Supports
Positive Behavior Supports is a behavior modification program that is being implemented throughout schools in the United States. It consist of planned interventions to prevent problem behavior and reach social and learning outcomes. PBS is supported by scientific, research-based strategies for helping curb children's behavior. (Parent's Reach Out, 2010)
Strategies Aligned With PBS That Can Be Used At Home
Stop, Relax, and Think—Problem-Solving Strategy
Any student’s ability to deal with anger is contingent upon having problem-solving skills. Stop, Relax, and Think is a process that helps students gain skills to help them stop the behavior, relax or chill out, decide who owns the problem, and what to do about it. Stop. . . Relax. . . Think 1. What is the problem? 2. What do I want or need? 3. Is what I'm doing getting me there? 4. What are my choices? 5. Pick the best choice. 6. Try it. 7. Look at the results. |
Use Positive Words
• Tell a child what to do instead of what not to do. • Show the child by modeling or using a picture of the action. • Clearly and simply state what you expect the child to do. • Remember, young children use inappropriate behavior because they may not understand the social rules yet. • Talk to young children using language they understand. Young children may not understand words like “don’t” because it is a short word for “do not” and he/she may not know what the “negation” of a word means. • Encourage the child in a way that lets him/her know that he/she is exhibiting the desired behavior. • Be enthusiastic and generous with encouragement. Children can never get enough! Example: Avoid Saying ( Don't Run!) Instead: Say & Model (Walk; Use walking feet; Stay with me.) Remember (Way to go!; I like the way your walking.) |
"Behavior change is a Family Affair"
PBS is a system that many families can create in their own homes. Linking similar behavior techniques between school and home will help create success in both forums. Below is a chart to help create a PBS plan within your home. How will Positive Behavior Supports look for our family? Respect • What does respect look like at our dinner table? • How do we positively recognize our children when they demonstrate respect at home? • How will we help our children when they have challenges with respectful behavior at home? Responsibility • What does responsibility look like when our children do their chores? • How will we teach responsibility for homework and school materials? • What are the consequences for our children when they do not use responsible behavior? • How are we working as a family in the process? Safety • What does safety look like in our community? • How do we teach and reinforce safety in a variety of community settings? • How do we know if there are safety concerns or issues for our children and their friends? |
Strategies taken from (Parent's Reach Out, 2010)
A Dozen Prevention Tips for Parents
................to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent risky behaviors.
Parents as Nurturers
• Look directly at your child when he/she talks to you and listen without interruption. • Express your love and respect with your words and actions. • Allow your child to make choices within safe, healthy, and respectful time limits. |
Parents as Advocates
• Work in partnership with your child’s teachers and caretakers for your child’s safety and success. • Find community resources and information for yourself and your child so you can thrive in a complex, ever-changing world. • Voice your opinions to your local, state, and federal representatives on issues affecting children and youth. |
Parents as Teachers
• Teach by modeling. Behave as you want your child to behave. • Spend time with your child doing things you both enjoy. • Speak the truth - be willing to admit mistakes and discover new solutions for yourself and your child. |
Parents as Policy-Makers
• Explain clear, specific, and age-appropriate rules to your child about health, safety, and respect for self and others. • Ensure safe, consistent consequences for broken rules. • Know where your children are at all times. |
Source: Colorado Department of Education Prevention Initiatives (Parent's Reach Out, 2010)
This video is designed to give parents some more
tips on how to address behavior problems at home. |
Additional Website Resources
|