¶ … behavioral consultation, including its goals, assumptions, communication within the context, and the area of conjoint behavioral consultation. Goals of Behavioral Consultation

Palmer and colleagues describe the process of behavioral consultation as a multistage process of problem solving that offers services to clients indirectly. A consultee-consultant relationship facilitates the triadic relationship, with the consultant endeavoring to modify client behavior through instilling skills to effectively resolve future problems, in the consultee. Hence, organizational change successfully ensues, with the aid of the multistage approach to problem solving.

Assessment, evaluation and intervention are interlinked; this is the most effective means of treating the client. The stages of evaluation and assessment typically depend on noticeable, specifiable, and measurable data measurements. None of the existing widely-accepted human behavioral or personality theories strongly disagrees with the notion of humanity being, to a considerable degree, products of the environment surrounding them. But behavior therapy states quite precisely how individuals are impacted by the environment, with regard to established principles of learning (such as, operant and classical conditioning, modeling). People embarking on therapy usually expect to be asked, or made to think, about their experiences in early childhood, in painstaking detail (Behavioral Assumptions). Models like the psychoanalytic model that have gained widespread popularity in America almost throughout the course of this century indeed strongly stresses on the significance of working through or exposing early occurrences believed to be crucial. It is assumed that gaining "insight" into such experiences will help "cure" the client. There are two key questions linked to the above supposition, one of which is: How can one be certain that these insights' content satisfactorily depicts actual childhood experiences? As is revealed often, insights that are put forward before therapists constitute a specific category of verbal conduct, bound by the very learning principles that shape other behaviors. The phenomenon of verbal conditioning, in which an experimenter can, using selective reinforcement, increase particular classes or kinds of verbal reaction, has been repetitively verified at the laboratory level. Considering the seemingly higher motivational levels of a majority of clients, such influences may be anticipated to have even greater potency in therapeutic settings. Hence emerges the idea of variation of learning histories and the need to alter other people's behavior.

Communication in Behavioral Consultation

Communication constitutes a central element of the behavioral consultation model. For instance, the consultee has to acquire information, including basic background information, client behavior, behavioral setting, characteristics, plans, nature of the observations, and any extra informationCommunication helps ensure correct and valuable consultee information is acquired. Furthermore, there are verbal processes employed, namely: specification, assessment, summarization, interpretations, and validation. Emitters and elicitors represent consultant leads. On the whole, all this facilitates the entire process of behavioral consultation, entailing the steps of problem identification, assessment, implementation of plan, and evaluation.

Comments

A number of individuals have remarked on behavioral consultation over time. One such remark deals with its apparent reliance on the element of behavioral technology, which possibly has a highly significant part to play in behavioral consultation. The extent of its apparent value is that, without it, one cannot say what the field of behavioral consultation will be like. It also depends on structured interviewing, and assumes an empirical behavioral outlookAlmost all of mankind is guilty of resorting to manipulation. Indeed, it is one among the very first things a child learns -- instinctively bawling and resorting to extreme forms of attention-seeking. Psychological manipulation may be described as exerting excessive influence by means of emotional exploitation and mental distortion, with intent to grab hold of benefits, privileges, authority, and rank at the expense of one's victim. This form of manipulation entails using one individual to benefit another (one must bear in mind not to mistake it for social influence that makes up a positive component in constructive associations) (Manipulative behavior: How to spot and stop the signs - Sovereign Health Group). Manipulative individuals purposefully generate a power imbalance in their endeavor to exploit a fellow human being. Although social influence may be regarded as offensive, the goal here is improving one's friendship or the individual. Thus, to some degree, behavioral consultation may be considered somewhat manipulative in nature (Cautilli et.al, 2005). The service model of consultation varies from that of therapy in the following respect: in the former, consultants collaborate with their consultees for modifying client behavior, while in the latter therapists function as direct instruments in behavior modification; hence, its current impact on behavior. It is argued by some that resistance might merely reflect consultants' failure at inculcating requisite skills in consultees, for performing...

Meanwhile, others contend that consultees hold incorrect views regarding consultation. The above justifications, though true in certain instances, typically emphasize skills deficits, ignoring possible motivational deficits.
The theory of social learning integrates behavioral and cognitive learning theories; the former's basis is the assumption that learning relies on reactions to stimuli in the environment and the latter postulates that psychological factors impact learning. Albert Bandura combined the above two approaches and furnished four learning conditions: observation (environmental), reproduction (cognitive), motivation (environmental and cognitive) and retention (cognitive), and labeled this integrative learning style as 'social learning' (Social Learning Theory -- Psychology Today). The 'bobo doll experiment' is one of Bandura's most well-known experiments. Kids observed adults modeling passive or violent conduct towards dolls, and their observations subsequently impacted how they themselves began interacting with the bobo dolls. Kids who witnessed an adult behaving violently towards the dolls did so as well, while those who witnessed passive behavior behaved likewise.

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC)

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation has been described as an indirect, organized service delivery method wherein educators and parents are brought together to collaborate and handle the behavioral, educational, and social requirements of a person for whom the two parties are responsible, in some way. Its purpose is engaging educators and parents in joint problem solving, with a consultant's aid. In the CBC approach, home-school interconnections are regarded as being critical. The approach expands on previous consultation prototypes by offering simultaneous services to educators and parents (Sheridan and Colton, 1994). Some of CBC's goals are: (a) To share problem-solving responsibility; (b) To improve relations and communication among school faculty, students, and their families (i.e., all involved parties); (c) To collect complete useful information connected with the issue identified; and (d) To hone all involved parties' skills.

CBC constitutes an indirect service delivery method aimed at improving services to pupils and enhancing the teacher-parent problem-solving bond. The process has been subject to empirical appraisal, using underachievers and socially withdrawn students. But its efficacy in aiding with issues only seen at home is yet to be established (Sheridan and Colton, 1994). Nevertheless, considerable empirical proof and theoretical support exists to indicate that domestic events can influence a student's conduct and performance at school. By means of systematic and meticulous analysis of individual cases, research scholars and professionals in the educational field will be able to begin identifying favorable interventions and plans for tackling childhood issues. The case study in question proposes that CBC might prove successful in delivering services to handle specific domestic child issues. Additionally, it supports the development of services offered in the school setting for empowering educators and parents in the areas of problem solving and educational collaboration.

In particular, as constant evaluation (which includes baseline) processes were employed, impact resulting from testing and regression to mean is improbable. In view of the issue's long-standing nature (more than a year and a half) and the significant and instantaneous treatment impacts, the potential for maturation or history to account for the results reduces even more (Sheridan and Colton, 1994). By means of systematic and meticulous analysis of individual cases, research scholars and professionals in the educational field will be able to begin identifying favorable interventions and plans for tackling childhood issues. The case study in question proposes that CBC might prove successful in delivering services to handle specific domestic child issues. Additionally, it supports the development of services offered in the school setting for empowering educators and parents in the areas of problem solving and educational collaboration.

Key Concepts

The field of behavioral consultation has normally been regarded as a multistage (four stages, to be precise) model of problem solving, involving the collaborative work of at least two entities to ascertain a client's requirements and formulate and implement suitable intervention strategies. The four steps involved in behavioral consultation are as follows: identification of the problem, assessment of the problem, implementation of treatment, and evaluation of treatment. The above stages indicate the steps needed for progressing from the point of problem description to resolution, and are procedurally operationalized using interview method. Behavioral consultation, particularly when carried out conjointly with educators and parents, has been proven to offer an efficient and viable way to link treatment with assessment in providing socially withdrawn students with indirect services (Sheridan and Elliot, 1991). CBC expands the concept of conventional behavioral consultation, through systematically connecting educators and parents in dealing with collective concerns with regard to client requirements. Educators and parents work as allied consultees in…