Successful Interventions: Getting to Function

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Successful Interventions Getting to Function

• Terrance M. Scott, Ph.D.
• University of Louisville

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What does Function Mean?

• Function is a statement of predictable
  relationships between a behavior and the
  environment
• 1. Behaviors are related to the environment
• Something signals it to occur and not to
  occur(environmental events are antecedent
  signals)
• Something maintains it(environmental events are
  responses that keep it going)
• 2. We can change behavior to the extent that we
  control the environmental antecedent signals and
  maintaining consequences.
• Antecedent manipulations are most efficient as
  the focus of intervention

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Intervention

• Do the least amount necessary to facilitate
  success
• Control antecedents
• Deliver instruction
• Control consequences

Considered in light of function
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Control Antecedents(Arrange Environment)

• Environmental Arrangements (distal)
• Schedules and routines
• Physical arrangements
• Proximity
• Contextual Modifications (proximal)
• Prompts and cues
• Choice
• Behavior momentum
• Task difficulty
• Proximity

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Environmental Arrangement

• The physical environment includes
• Design and placement of furniture and activity
  areas within the classroom
• Design of materials within activities
• Lighting, temperature, noise levels of the
  classroom
• Accessibility, appropriateness, and availability
  of books, materials (toys), bathroom passes,
  paperwork, coats, hats, etc

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Schedule

• Arrival Times
• Consistent Times
• Sequencing and Length of Activities
• Planned Clean-up/Transitioning Routine
• Productive Learning Times Early
• Explaining Changes

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Advance Organizers

• 900 - 930 spelling -page 23
• 930 - 940 restroom break
• 940 - 1030 math -workbook p. 19
• 1030 - 1115 music -walk quietly
• 1115 - 1125 wash hands
• 1125 walk to lunch
• 1130 - 1230 lunch and recess

• Public display
• Consistency
• Prompts

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Physical Arrangement

• Seating
• Teachers desk
• Students desks
• Sight lines
• Teacher positions
• Traffic Flow
• Associated activities (e.g., pencil sharpening,
  getting water, using the bathroom, beginning and
  end of day)

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Proximity

• Consideration of the teachers placement in the
  room in relation to the students.
• Movement
• Continue moving around room and maintain frequent
  close proximity to all students
• Approach
• Hovering near to a particular student or area

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Contextual Modifications

• Contextual modifications include
• Predicting problem behavior by specific time,
  location, activity, grouping, etc.
• Creating changes in the environment immediately
  prior to times when problems are predictable -
  for purpose of prevention

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Non-Verbal Prompts and Cues

• Signals that set student up for success
• Proximity Control - move to student
• Facial Expressions
• Hand Signals/gestures
• Implemented before behavior
• Less intrusive than verbal cues
• They can be used as rule reminders, and advanced
  organizers (schedules).
• Make them part of the routine and system- teach
  children what they are and what purpose they
  serve.

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Verbal Prompts and Pre-Correction

• Verbal Prompts
• Clear statements that act as reminders
• Delivered in contexts where failure is
  predictable
• Use the smallest necessary to facilitate
  successRemember to raise your hand.
• Pre-Correction
• Clear question that acts as reminder
• Student is required to respond
• Teacher praises or corrects student
  responseWhat will you do if you need my help?
  Raise my hand.Exactly, good for you!

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Behavior Momentum

• A strategy for increasing the probability of
  compliant behavior by asking a student to do two
  or three things they typically want to do and
  then following these requests with a request for
  a behavior the student typically does not want to
  do.

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Using Choice

• Students are provided opportunities to
  independently make decisions between two or more
  options that affect their daily routine.

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Modifying Task Difficulty

• Students problem behaviors are often a result of
  frustration with academic work. By re-adjusting a
  students curriculum to less challenging work,
  students experience success and problem behaviors
  decrease.

This is one step in facilitating success - need
to fade back into normal task Student must be
able to perform fluently at level presented
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Deliver Instruction(Effective teaching)

• Replacement Behavior
• Functional fair pair
• Teacher behaviors
• Modeling
• Opportunities to respond
• Feedback
• Instructional Design
• Errorless learning techniques
• Chaining, shaping, etc.

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Teach Replacement Behaviors

• What do we want the student to do instead of the
  problem behavior under the same circumstances?
• Relevant, Effective, Efficient
• Must meet the same function as problem behavior
• Must do so at least as well as problem behavior
• Fair pair
• Appropriate for both student and teacher
  (environment)
• Dead mans test (do something rather than
  nothing)

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Modeling

• Show and tell students what it is that is
  expected under specific circumstances. Do not
  assume that they know and can.
• Use verbal prompts along with physical
  demonstration
• Watch me, notice how I use a quiet, inside voice
  when I say this - excuse me.
• Right now Im thinking that I need to do
  something smart because Im feeling mad - so
  watch me take a deep breath and walk away.
• Use natural models
• Did you notice how Billy held that door open for
  Ben? That was very responsible.
• Remember how we talked about ignoring loud
  noises? Look at Andrea right now - thats great
  because shes focused on her work.

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Opportunities to Respond

• Providing students with opportunities to be
  engaged with instruction
• Asking questions
• Group (choral) or individual responses
• Closed or open ended questions
• W
• Requests for student behavior
• Raise hand to indicate agreement
• Create and share
• Demonstrate
• Tell story (relevant)

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What if the replacement behavior is something
they already know how to do?

• If the behavior is already in the students
  behavioral repertoire then the focus of
  instruction is on context (when/where) and
  function (why)
• Context
• When will hand raising work and when will it not
  work?
• How will I know when it is a time that I should
  raise my hand?
• Function
• Why is this way better for me?
• What will happen if I continue to use the
  negative behavior?

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Errorless learning Strategies

• Developing instruction to preclude (or minimize)
  incorrect responses
• Indicators
• When students are not learning effectively and
  efficiently with other procedures
• When teaching complex skills
• Rationale
• effective
• positive teacher/student interaction
• fewer inappropriate social behaviors
• students learn little from repeated errors

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Shaping

• Reinforcement of successive approximations of a
  desired terminal behavior. Used when students are
  unable to master any of the components of a
  complex behavior.
• Start with a simple behavior and teach/model
  variations that look progressively more like what
  it should be in the long run.
• Lots of reinforcement for each demonstration at
  first
• Fade reinforcement over time and require more
  behavior

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Chaining

• Reinforcement of combinations of simple behaviors
  that are already in the repertoire of the
  individual to form more complex behaviors.
• Sequence
• Task analysis of a behavior
• Teacher models all steps
• Teacher prompts student to do first step
• Reinforce student success
• Teacher guides through remaining steps
• Gradually have student add steps until all are
  done together as a chain
• Can also be done backward

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Control Consequences(Be Functional)

• Provide function for appropriate behavior
• Reinforcement
• Block function for inappropriate behavior
• Type II punishment

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Functional Consequences

• All positive consequences must either
• Meet the same function as the problem OR
• Provide a consequence that is larger and more
  reinforcing than the function of problem behavior
• All negative consequences must
• Deny the same function as the problem OR
• Provide an aversive that is more powerful than
  the function that the student receives

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Consequences that Do Not Work

• Yelling
• Getting angry
• Disgust
• Ignoring
• Becoming emotional
• Belittling
• Unrealistic threats
• Unconditional praise

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Reinforcement

• Praise
• Immediate, social, vicarious
• Not good for students who dont want attention
• Prone to quick satiation of not varied
• Privileges
• AM break, Recess, Kids Choice Lunch
• Related to the curriculum (things that we already
  do)
• Cant always be immediate
• Tangibles
• Food, toys, materials, etc.
• Powerful but expensive and unnatural
• Not easy to use with high frequency
• Menus
• Allow an array of possible choices
• More complex to establish

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Token Economy

• A system in which students earn symbolic
  reinforcers (tokens) in exchange for specific,
  appropriate behaviors. These tokens can then be
  exchanged (or spent) on preferred tangible
  objects or time doing preferred activities.
• Characteristics
• Students can be reinforced very frequently
  without satiation
• Points spent at teacher-designated time
• Points that are not spent can be banked and used
  for an auction or special event on Fridays
• Must be faded over time in favor of more natural
  consequences

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A Scaled-Down Token Economy (for older students)

• With older students (Grade 8 and above) the token
  economy cannot be as intensive
• Script or tickets (e.g., Bonus Bucks)
• An intermittently delivered reinforcer that
  qualifies student for a chance to earn
  privileges.
• Students receive ticket for pro-social behaviors,
  they write their name on the ticket and at the
  end of the class period there is a quick drawing
  to earn a reinforcer (reduced homework, sit at
  the teachers desk for the following day, etc)
• The more tickets, the better the chance for
  reinforcement.

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Ignoring (extinction)

• The teacher identifies the functionally
  maintaining reinforcer and simply makes sure it
  is not available in the case of misbehavior
• Only works if the withheld stimulus is functional
• If not functional it will be reinforcing of
  misbehavior
• Likely to result in more behavior before less
• Extinction burst
• Must be able to control environment to prevent
  reinforcer
• May not get attention from teacher but increased
  misbehavior may get attention from peers

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Response Cost

• Response cost is a punishment intervention
  strategy in which the student loses a pre-defined
  amount of an earned reinforcer based on
  demonstrating an inappropriate behavior.
• These reinforcers may be tokens, previously
  awarded stickers, or other earned item
• Used in conjunction with a token economy
• It typically avoids confrontations with students
  and it can be effective more quickly than other
  behavior reduction procedures (e.g. planned
  ignoring)
• Especially effective when points are abstract (on
  paper) rather than teacher actually having to
  physically remove a token.

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Differential Reinforcement

• Systematic manner of providing student with
  functional consequence for appropriate behavior
  and making certain that same is not available for
  negative behavior.
• Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior
  (DRO)
• Anything but(that behavior)
• Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible or
  Alternative Behavior (DRI/ DRA)
• Do this (a specific desired behavior), Not that
  (a maladaptive behavior).
• Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates of
  Behavior
• A little of this is ok but too much is not

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Time Out

• Removing access to opportunities for
  reinforcement contingent upon the problem
  behavior.
• Considerations
• Approximately 1 minute per year of age - not to
  exceed 10 min.
• Avoid escape from aversives (will reinforce
  problem behavior)
• Must truly remove access to reinforcement
• Debrief quickly afterward and set goals
• Contingent observation
• requires the student to move to another location
  in the classroom so that they can still observe
  other students appropriate behavior and its
  reinforcement
• Time Out Ribbon (for young children) - they do
  not move but there is a signal that they are
  isolated
• Time out works best under two conditions
• Using it consistently
• The environment has a lot of reinforcement
  available (its more fun to be there than in time
  out)

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Behavior Contracts

• A formal written agreement of behavior
  expectations between the teacher and student
  which specifies
• (1) clear behavior objectives
• (2) positive and negative consequences
• (3) goal
• (4) review dates to evaluate performance
• (5) The contract is signed by the teacher,
  student, and others who participate.
• Conditions
• Establish a meeting time and place to create
• Write the contract using age-appropriate wording
  and a form of an Ifthen statement.
• For the first contract, modify the criteria so
  that the student is more likely to have initial
  success.
• Mutually determine an appropriate reinforcer for
  meeting the criteria
• Specify the criteria in writing so that the
  student and teacher are clear on expected
  behavior, rewards and duration of the contract.

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Overcorrection

• Students are made to either practice a correction
  or perform restitution for their misbehaviors
• Positive Practice
• repeated practice of correct form of relevant
  replacement behavior that results in a decrease
  in future responding
• Running in the halls- go back and walk 10 times
• Restitutional
• correcting the environmental effects of an
  inappropriate act to a condition better than it
  was before the act that results in a decrease in
  future responding
• Making marks in their textbook- Erase stray marks
  in all of the textbooks

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The University of Louisville
Doctoral Program In Behavior Disorders
Terry Scott College of Education and Human
DevelopmentUniversity of Louisville Louisville,
KY 40292 t.scott_at_louisville.edu [phone]