Strategies to Address Disruptive Behaviors Chapter Eight Strategies to Address Disruptive Behaviors

OBJECTIVES Explain and give examples of teacher-mediated, peer-mediated, and self-mediated interventions for annoying and disruptive behaviors. Select the best intervention for a student’s disruptive behavior. Design and implement a token economy. Design and carry out a group contingency. Design and carry out a self-monitoring procedure.

Making Decisions About Interventions Why students disrupt classroom activities: To gain your attention (positive or negative) To get the attention or approval of classmates To avoid doing work To gather information; for example, to test the limits of your authority or to find out whether the rules will be enforced To make a boring class more interesting!

Consider the case study What motivated the students in Miss Perrone’s class to act as they did? Which behaviors warranted teacher attention? As we discussed in Chapter Three, who owned the problems?

Teacher-Student Interactions Alpha and Content-Imbedded Requests Sound-field Amplification High-probability (high-p) Request Sequences Differential Reinforcement (DRO and DRL) Praise-and-Ignore Approach Reprimands

Let’s review different kinds of teacher requests. Turn to Table 8-2. Can you provide new examples for each of these types of requests?

High-probability (high-p) Request Sequences Deliver 3 to 5 easy requests to which the student has a history of responding (high-probability requests) immediately before you ask the student to do something that she typically refuses (low-probability request).

Differential Reinforcement of Other (Low Rate) Behaviors (DRL) A procedure in which reinforcement is given if the number of behaviors is less than a designated limit.

DRL: Pro’s Wide application. Can be quite simple. Good for group situation. Can be subtle.

DRL: Con’s The name of it! It sounds very technical. May not transfer, unless generalization is built into the intervention procedure. [See Chapter 12.]

DRL: Tips Don’t overly complicate it! Use sparingly. Think of it as your habit--second nature. Don’t be too demanding in your initial expectations; use shaping.

Praise-and-Ignore: Tips Ignoring will not work unless the reason for the student’s behavior is solely to gain your attention. Do an A-B-C analysis to determine this. Remember that disruptive behavior will increase before decreasing. Do not give up when students test you. If you give in and pay attention to the student, then you have made matters worse. Develop ways other adults can distract you from the student who is being disruptive so that you do not find yourself giving the student attention. Let others know to ignore the student’s disruptive behavior. Be sure to give frequent praise to the student for appropriate behaviors. Consider the “peak” of the extinction curve before you begin this strategy.

Reprimands: Tips Issue your reprimand privately, not publicly. Humiliating or embarrassing a student is likely to increase that student’s resentment and may create an unsafe situation. Raising your voice repeatedly merely desensitizes students to your reprimands. Use a normal speaking voice. Be sure you have the student’s attention. Do not insist that the student give you eye contact. Do not point your finger at the student. Try self-monitoring your gestures, or ask students to help you.

Targeted Interventions

Public Posting A strategy in which individuals and/or groups are publicly acknowledged for their appropriate and/or not-so-appropriate behaviors

Public Posting: Pro’s Easy! Group focus. Diverse applications. Inexpensive. Visible. Good for transitional settings (e.g., halls, outdoors).

Public Posting: Con’s The behaviors that are acknowledged in the public posting must receive adult/authority figure attention and recognition in order to be effective. Can be more complex than it appears, especially if you include a group contingency.

Public Posting: Tips Be positive about the activity. Don’t complicate it. Start with an easy goal. Build on small successes. Involve students in the design and implementation.

Token Economy A behavioral intervention based on the principle: A neutral stimulus---when repeatedly paired with a reinforcer--- becomes reinforcing.

Token Economy: Pro’s Efficient. Effective. Offers a continuum. Fair, reasonable. Visible evidence of accomplishments. Changes with student’s progress. Incorporates many individual goals.

Token Economy: Con’s Needs initial planning time. Needs periodic review and revision time. May take a while to fine-tune the economy.

Token Economy: Tips Don’t overly complicate your system. Don’t load up the reinforcers in the first level. Do involve students in the selection and implementation.

Token Economy: Tips Don’t predetermine reinforcers. Do have progress incentives, so that students will want to move towards their goals. Consider a levels system, but pay attention to the IEP when you do so. Remember the LRE goal.

Contracting: Pro’s Useful for an idiosyncratic problem. Good for habit-breaking. Encourages empowerment. Serves as a documentation for a self-management intervention. Visible. Easy to understand. “Generic”.

Contracting: Con’s Time-consuming. Not good for a group of students. Weak, as strategies go. Must be reviewed frequently to be effective. Requires student skills in reading and math.

Contingency Contracting: Tips Use this only if you are well-organized. Use this for unusual problems, those that come up occasionally for one or two students. Too many contracts? Shift to a group intervention. Use sparingly or uniformly. Use in combination with another strategy.

Peer-mediated Interventions

Group Contingency

Group Contingency: Pro’s Builds teamwork and group cohesion, if done well. It’s in tune with normal adolescent development. The locus of control is within the student, so you have empowered the student. Efficient.

Group Contingency: Con’s Not as easy as it looks! Requires careful planning, preferably by a team. If not well done, can worsen the initial problem.

Group Contingency: Tips “Easy in...easy out” : Use the principle of successive approximations. Always provide a loophole to prevent scapegoating.

Group Contingency: Watch the coercive wording! each every must will lose will be punished if you do not.... everyone

The Good Behavior Game A type of group contingency in which two teams compete for points by doing an academic task and by following rules.

Good Behavior Game: Pro’s Some students enjoy the competition. Builds group cohesion. Promotes active learning. Efficient. Fits into academic lessons. Many uses.

Good Behavior Game: Con’s Students will need basic group involvement skills as a prerequisite. May be considered “juvenile” by some. Can be overdone.

Good Behavior Game: Tips Use sparingly. Assess your group’s skills first. Choreograph it to avoid scapegoating problems.

Contingency Contracting A written agreement between two or more parties. Usually involves a reinforcement for specific behaviors.

Self-Mediated Interventions

Self-Monitoring A behavioral intervention in which the student takes the major responsibility for observing, counting and recording his own behaviors.

Self-Monitoring: Pro’s Portable, crosses settings. Individually tailored. Relatively simple. Diverse applications. Good adjunct to contracting, token economy. Like the “real world.” Empowers the student.

Self-Monitoring: Con’s Takes time to review. Requires careful selection of the target behavior. May take a little while to get off the ground.

Self-Monitoring: Tips Plan for cheating. Expect forgetting (“fading”). Plan to wean students from the intervention. Don’t take it over! Define the target behavior(s) by trial and error, with the student.