Positive Behavior Plans: Best Practice for an effective plan

What is a behavior plan? Strategies for teachers/staff to use to directly teach a student social and behavioral skills Focuses on antecedent changes rather than behavior reduction strategies (time out or other negative consequences)

Who is responsible for writing the plan? Case manager Psychologist Social Worker Student Parent Administrator Teacher(s)

Team Responsibilities.... Psychologist - usually responsible for writing the FBA. Information from a good FBA can be the outline and foundation for a behavior plan! Social Worker/Administrator - can help generate strategies, provide bottom-line, problem-solving or consequences Parent - can provide important historical context and information about triggers, long-standing behavior patterns, strategies and home/school collaboration Teacher - can provide observations ideas for various settings, triggers, social rewards and..... l

Responsibilities cont.... Student - VERY important to interview student regarding possible possible reinforcers/rewards/antecedent changes!! Case Manager - responsible for the actual writing of the plan; the team member who usually has the most knowledge of the student and student’s needs

BIP should include: Target behaviors (challenging behaviors and replacement behaviors) Antecedents Purpose of behavior/Rationale for plan Instruction/Strategies Reinforcement Plan Behavior Reduction Data Collection Generalization

Target Behaviors : –Behaviors to be increased and to be decreased; sometimes labeled challenging behaviors and replacement behaviors

Antecedents/Setting Events: This refers to possible triggers in the environment for the behavior. Triggers can be slow (student does not sleep well and is tired/irritable) or fast (student is handed a classroom assignment that is difficult and causes frustration) This describes how teachers can change what they do before a problem behavior occurs.

Purpose of the Behavior/Rationale for the plan: “The hypothesized purpose of student’s noncompliant behavior is to avoid work that is difficult and frustrating. This plan is needed to encourage student to attempt work, to increase work completion and to experience and build on academic success.”

Instruction/Strategies: Describe how the replacement behaviors or prosocial skills will be taught.

Reinforcement Plan: Describe: – what reinforcement will be used to increase the desired behavior –How often the reinforcement will be given –How much reward or reinforcement will be given

Behavior Reduction: Describe a plan for redirection to new behavior Describe the use of proximity control, e.g. move to the student when correcting or redirecting behavior Describe brief time-out from reinforcement

Data Collection System: What information will be collected? How will the information be collected? How often will the information be collected?

Generalization: Write brief plan for staff Collect simple data Fade

IMPORTANT Ideas: Focus on only a few things at a time; it’s better to do a few things well than many things poorly (prioritize!). “Catch them being good” - rather than wait for students to misbehave and then reprimand. Teachers should pay most of their attention to students when they are doing what the teacher wants them to do.

More IMPORTANT Ideas: Any good behavior plan should be two-thirds written positive social skills instruction/reinforcement and only one third behavior reduction. Novelty is reinforcing for most students; break the routine! Surprise with feedback! celebrate success! recognize growth! The place to start when writing a BIP is the FBA!

Still more IMPORTANT ideas: Brief, intermittent reinforcement, (i.e. looking up and smiling at student, giving reinforcing feedback, walking past a student and commenting on their work) is the best way to increase on-task, in-place, and attending behavior. Highlights of the BIP must be in the adaptation section of the student’s IEP. Student’s IEP should contain a behavior goal directly tied to the BIP.

A few more IMPORTANT Ideas: Student behavior will only change if teacher or other staff behavior changes. In the world of BIPs, if you can’t measure it, it does not exist. Behavior which is maintained by punishment, avoidance of punishment or fear of punishment, is weak, does not generalize beyond the person who provides the punishment and breaks down quickly in the absence of the punishment

Resources used for presentation: Best Practice in Writing Behavior Plans, Safe Schools/Healthy Students Program; Don Kodluboy and Rob Purple, September 30, Addressing Challenging Behavior: Functional Behavior Assessment & Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports; Minnesota Center for EBD Training & Support, Addressing Student Problem Behavior - An IEP Team’s Introduction to Functional Behavior Assessment and Behavior Intervention Plans; The Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice, January 16, 1998.