Brittany Hs PPT Slides

Over pages 546, 547, 548, 549

Behavior Challenges through Adolescence

While symptoms such as non-compliance, aggression, and stereotypic behaviors do improve or abate as a person ages we want to ensure long term success as they journey into adulthood. Examples of problem behavior in which others would want to intervene are: nonverbal adult engaging in self-injury or a teenager hitting classmates to get attention.
Information from: mayer-johnson.com

Intervening and Assessing Behavior

A team is usually put into place to address behavior challenges and to form an effective intervention plan. It is critical include all of the people who work with the individual for more perspectives and a greater understanding that allows for the most proactive plan.
This team often includes: Parents Siblings Special ed. Teachers Paraprofessionals Related service professionals School administrators Case managers

Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)

Is defined in the textbook as the process that helps teams move from reaction to proaction.
It is essentially a problem-solving approach that includes multiple procedures to in turn create educational supports and interventions that helps an individual successfully unlearn a problem behavior. It is flexible in the fact that different procedures can be used under different circumstances.

Functional Behavior Assessment(cont.)

The three essential steps of FBA are:
Team interview/record interview Systematically observing the times, events, and situations in which a behavior will and will not occur Establish a behavior hypothesis that will be used to develop goals and a positive behavior plan

Source:www.tbh.com

Step 1: Problem Identification

The team will start by identifying/defining the problem. This entails moving from simple descriptions to those that are much more behaviorally defined and specific. Example: Team may move from defining Lonnys behavior as angry to something more descriptive such as When Lonny is told no he will hit, grab others, and fall to the floor.

Step 2: Problem Analysis

The team will complete interviews and observations so that a strong connection between behavior, person, and environment become clearer to everyone involved. Example: Team might conclude that when Lonny asks for a desired object or is told no he will hit and scratch to get the object he desires.

Step 3: Intervention Development

Once the team completes the FBA they can develop a multicomponent intervention plan. Example: Lonny can no longer use his current picture communication device to avoid the possibility he will ask for something he cannot have and become aggressive. Strategies are individually created to:
Prevent the problem from occuring Teach the person a new way to get needs met Respond to the problem behavior in a new way so that it no longer works to meet the individuals need

Step 4: Monitoring Progress/Evaluate

It is critical that the team evaluate the success of the plan because it is for the complete benefit of the individual. Success is typically measured by tracking whether the problem behavior was decreased, a new replacement behavior increased, and if the persons life bettered from this plan.

Benefits of FBA and Intervention

Team learns more effective ways of working with students with autism Team works with a variety of diverse services and learns to collaborate Team members who actually know the individual are the ones scaffolding and supporting them