Positive Behavior Support Strategies for Students With EBD

Introduction: Key Questions in Behavior Support

What are the best techniques for changing operant behaviors? What is the relationship between distant setting events and antecedents that influence student behavior? What positive support interventions should a teacher employ to maintain an orderly learning environment? What support does a teacher need in the classroom? These questions and issues are discussed and critiqued throughout this paper.

Working with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Setting events are "complex situations that occur concurrent with problem behaviors," as Mark Durand explains (Durand, 1990, p. 15). Getting a poor night's sleep, for example, could explain aggression episodes — antecedents — that appear later in the day in the classroom. How does the teacher handle this kind of situation? The teacher must first make an assessment, where possible, of the behavior and determine whether it is related to a setting event. Grace Baron suggests that the teacher collect and record all information about the behavior occurrence in a systematic way, using a "detailed behavior report" (DBR) (Baron, 2006, p. 21).

The DBR relates to the specific behavior, its duration and severity, and the possible antecedent connected to it. The "general antecedents" — time, date, day, and the specific activity during which the behavior occurred — are recorded. Furthermore, the "specific antecedents," such as the actions of others, physical events, and the cognitions of the individual, when recorded, "often reveal the precise reasons for the occurrence of the behavior" (Baron, p. 21). Given that the teacher has kept thorough records through DBRs of a recurring behavior, the prospect of identifying the actual antecedent-behavior-consequence pattern — and hence a possible solution — may be within reach.

A strong response to the question of what positive support interventions a teacher should employ can be found in the work of MaryAnn Demchak and Robin Greenfield. In their book, they discuss how to offer positive behavior support (PBS) when students are aggressive, throwing tantrums, moving toward self-injury, or being destructive of school or personal property. The first step in achieving that support in a learning environment is to identify the problem behavior — which may seem obvious, but it is critical to effectively addressing it. Next, problem behaviors must be prioritized, because in a special education setting there is likely to be more than one. Which behaviors warrant assessment? Once that is determined, hypotheses should be developed based on team-teacher interviews (asking when the behavior is most likely to occur and what settings stimulate the antecedent), and an ABC analysis — antecedent-behavior-consequences — should be conducted (Demchak, 2003, pp. 73–74).

Positive Behavior Support Interventions in the Classroom

Based on those preliminary steps, a behavior support plan should be established that includes: (a) crisis management strategies; (b) an operational definition and summary statements; (c) antecedent strategies; (d) "replacement behaviors the student will be taught"; and (e) procedures for "ongoing monitoring and evaluation" (Demchak, p. 76). The antecedent strategies may include simply removing the trigger for the problem behavior, "modifying an activity or task" that influences or stimulates the problem behavior, adding activities to the classroom routine "that are associated with desired behaviors," and "minimizing the impact of non-preferred activities as much as possible" (Demchak, p. 76).

When should an intervention be put in motion? Edward Shapiro's work offers valuable guidance to teachers facing problem behavior. A teacher should not necessarily reinforce an intervention immediately after the behavior occurs. "Intermittent reinforcement is the reinforcement of a particular behavior that is reinforced occasionally," but not each time the behavior occurs. The factors and variables that influence whether a child continues to engage in "incompatible behaviors" include "the relative, not absolute, quality, immediacy, and rate of reinforcement for the competing behaviors" (Shapiro, 2000, p. 33).

"Temporally distant antecedent events" may be "functionally related to behaviors," Shapiro explains (p. 33). In one study he references, a child who received less than five hours of sleep showed stronger reinforcement for out-of-seat behavior through tangibles than when that child had received more than five hours of sleep (p. 33). Variables that occur outside the classroom therefore have a direct impact on the teacher's ability to institute PBS. This makes it all the more vital that classroom strategies be in place to address all setting events — distant and recent — whenever possible.

Conclusion

When a teacher is trained in matters related to a student's emotional and behavioral disorder (EBD), that instructor should be fully prepared to ask the right questions of other teachers and experts in the field. The teacher should be kept informed of the most contemporary interventions for EBD-related issues in the classroom. Moreover, the teacher should have access to support materials, support staff, and an administration that understands the particular challenges that accompany working with children who have special emotional and behavioral needs.