This literature review examines the relationship between Positive Behavioral Support (PBS) and student achievement across a broad range of student populations and school contexts. Drawing on more than two decades of research, the review traces PBS from its origins as an intervention for students with serious behavioral challenges to its expanded application in urban schools, multicultural classrooms, anti-bullying initiatives, and school-wide reform efforts. The paper explores how PBS works at both the individual and systemic levels—covering functional behavioral assessment, collaborative team-building, behavior intervention plan design, and school-wide implementation strategies—ultimately arguing that PBS produces measurable gains in academic performance, social functioning, and long-term life outcomes for students.
Positive Behavioral Support (often referred to as "Positive Behavior Support" or "PBS") is defined as an empirically validated, function-based approach that began as a means to manage individuals who exhibited problem behaviors (Carr, 2002). Over time, PBS evolved and began not only to work toward eradicating challenging behaviors, but toward replacing them with positive social skills and behaviors. In the academic context, positive behavioral support may be used to garner systematic change, or it may be used more discreetly to bring about positive changes and improved functioning on the part of an individual student (Carr, 1999).
A cursory review of the state of today's schools in the United States reveals that discipline problems—and, in particular, defiance—plague students and teachers. As a result, a significant amount of class time is devoted not to academic learning, but to behavior management of one or two individuals (Smith, 2007). Given that the United States is in a crisis with regard to academic performance, teachers and students can ill afford to spend time focusing on the behavioral issues of a few students at the expense of an entire lesson and the education of those who genuinely want to learn. Furthermore, with the advent of zero-tolerance policies, the stakes for misbehavior on the part of the troubled student are much higher than they were in the past (Smith & Sandhu, 2004). Coupled with the fact that once students have been expelled their chances for a successful life are greatly diminished (Turnbull, Edmonson, Griggs et al., 2007), it is society's duty to find ways to help these students change self-defeating patterns and replace them with functional ones.
PBS has proven effective in replacing negative patterns of behavior with positive ones in troubled students. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that in the two decades since PBS came to the forefront of psychology and pedagogy, it has proven to provide a wide range of other benefits to educators and students alike (Scott, 2001). Indeed, PBS assists not only emotionally disturbed youth (Nelson, 2000), but also multicultural youth, urban youth (Utley, Kozleski, Smith, & Draper, 2002), autistic youth (Koegel, Symon, & Koegel, 2002), bullied youth and their bullies (Oswald, Safran, & Johanson, 2005), impoverished youth (Turnbull & Turnbull, 2002), and schools as a whole (Lane, Wehby, Robertson, & Rogers, 2007) in moving beyond self-defeating patterns and finding functional ways to achieve success in school and in overall quality of life (Minke & Anderson, 2005). In fact, data gathered over the fifteen years following PBS's conception reveals that its use decreases the need for more intrusive or aversive interventions such as punishment, suspension, and expulsion, and can lead to both systemic and individualized change across each of the foregoing subgroups.
PBS can focus upon the needs of an individual student or the needs of an entire school. In each case, PBS works toward changing environmental variables such as the physical setting, task demands, curriculum, instructional pace, and individualized reinforcement in an effort to help the individual—or even an entire student body—obtain, foster, and refine the skills necessary to attain success (Kaffar & Hoover, 2008). As a result, PBS has proven to be remarkably successful with a wider range of students, in a wider range of contexts, and with a wider range of behaviors than was initially anticipated at the advent of Positive Behavior Support.
In addition to addressing a wider range of students, contexts, and behaviors, PBS addresses more than mere improvement in test scores. PBS truly sets students up to achieve in a more holistic sense, focusing on social functioning in ways that lend themselves to not only academic achievement but also personal growth. Thus, similar to how PBS is not limited to improving reading or math scores alone, this review focuses upon achievement in a more inclusive manner—one that includes traditional academic achievement as measured by test scores and grades, as well as achievement in social skills so that a student may someday succeed in a world that requires more than a high SAT score to thrive in today's global market. Indeed, this is the approach that practitioners believe should be taken in order to eventually improve overall school success and achievement (Carr et al., 2002). In "A Promising Approach for Expanding and Sustaining School-Wide Positive Behavior Support," a study of the implementation and outcome of PBS in the academic setting, Sugai notes the benefits of PBS as follows:
"To improve school success for every student, issues that are not typically considered as part of behavioral education must be addressed by general and special educators. Researchers and practitioners must examine issues related to classroom discipline, cultural diversity, and culturally responsive teaching to develop successful approaches for teaching prosocial skills and reducing antisocial behavior" (Sugai, 2000).
At the outset of the application and development of PBS, it was conceived as a means by which educators could intervene in the lives of troubled and emotionally disturbed youth in order to give them the social skills they need to succeed in school. Specifically, PBS was initially used to address student defiance and the escalation of antisocial behavior (Smith, 2007; McCurdy, Mannella, & Eldridge, 2003). Research reveals that the vast majority of discipline referrals are due to defiance (Gregory, 2005; Kohl, 1994). Defiance in the classroom has the potential to distract other learners and to bring instruction to a halt; accordingly, it is critical for educators to be prepared to understand it and respond effectively to students who exhibit it. As the years have progressed, the types of students to whom this process applies have moved beyond those with defiance or attitude problems. PBS is an inclusive approach that has become increasingly applicable to different segments of society, including multicultural youth and urban youth (Utley, Kozleski, Smith, & Draper, 2002).
Perhaps the reason this form of support applies so universally is that it uses a collaborative team of people who know and care about the troubled student. These individuals—such as family members, teachers, counselors, and administrators—come together to collaboratively and functionally assess the processes this individual performs and which ones he or she has difficulty with. Together, with the student's participation as well, they develop a functional behavioral assessment and determine the specific, individualized needs of the student (Carr, 2002). Based on that particular student's needs, the team derives approaches to reduce the problem behavior and replace it with appropriate behavior. This process is said to have lasting effects because it is person-centered: there is a commitment to listening to the student and the family to identify the large and small choices and preferences they have for their everyday lives (Peterson, Derby, Berg, & Horner, 2005). Along these lines, there is a commitment to the student being present and participating in the community, to gaining and maintaining satisfying relationships, and to developing personal competencies and skills. Finally, there is a shared belief that together the student, family, and PBS team can accomplish significant goals and outcomes to improve engagement, productivity, accuracy, and quality of life for the student (Rock, 2005).
In working toward the establishment of a PBS plan, the group may employ a variety of interventions to help the student learn and grow into a successful student and citizen. Common examples include the following: modifying the environment; addressing antecedents (such as curriculum) to behavior or routine; tactical ignoring of the behavior; distracting the child; providing positive reinforcement when appropriate behavior is exhibited; changing expectations and demands placed upon the student; explicitly teaching new skills and appropriate replacement behaviors; modification techniques such as desensitization; and adjusting how people around the student react to the student's actions (Kincaid, 2002).
Research conducted over the past fifteen years has examined the effect of the types of interventions noted above (Carr, 2002). PBS, with its person-centered and functional behavioral approach, has proven to be effective in promoting positive behavior in students and schools. Appropriately implemented PBS can lead to dramatic improvements that have long-term effects on lifestyle, functional communication skills, and problem behavior in students exhibiting behavioral issues. Specifically, a review of PBS research over the past fifteen years with regard to effectiveness shows that there was over a 90% reduction in problem behavior in more than half of the studies reviewed, and problem behavior stopped completely in over 26% of the studies (U.S. Department of Education). Given its success with individuals with behavior problems, it is therefore not surprising that PBS was increasingly applied to individuals struggling with other impediments to social integration and achievement in subsequent years (Lane, Wehby, Robertson, & Rogers, 2007).
"PBS applied to bullying, diversity, trust, and disabilities"
"Team-based process and key implementation strategies"
"Evidence for PBS applied across entire school systems"
There should be no real controversy regarding Positive Behavioral Support. PBS is associated with improved achievement and desirable adult outcomes, including employment, community participation (Blackorby & Wagner, 1996; Kochhar-Bryant & Bassett, 2003; Nolet & McLaughlin, 2000), individual wages and income, crime prevention, social cohesion, technological innovation, intergenerational benefits (i.e., the benefits parents derive from their own education and transmit to their children), and overall performance of the economy (Haveman & Wolfe, 1984; Sturm, 1993). Because postsecondary success is the overarching goal of school reform, attention to social and behavioral development is justified not only by the resulting increase in instructional time available to students when office disciplinary referrals for misconduct decrease (Utley & Sailor, 2002; Warren et al., 2003), but also by the likely gains associated with improved social integration and behavior in post-school environments such as work and home.
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