The article I read this week is titled "Strategies for Developing and Carrying Out Functional Assessment and Behavior Intervention Planning." This article discusses the framework of building a functional behavior assessment in a typical school. This article was filled with information about functional behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans. I would recommend reading this article if you get a chance!
Like in our screen casts, the article discussed how the functional behavior assessment is used to help determine the purpose of the problem behavior. Is the student demonstrating the behavior for attention? to escape a task or demand? or maybe for sensory stimuli? Once the purpose of the problem behavior is determined, you can create a behavior intervention plan that will serve the same purpose as the problem behavior. For example, if the student is acting out for the purpose of being able to sit closer to the teacher and for the teacher's attention, the behavior intervention plan may say if the student works well for 5 out of the 7 periods, the student may sit next to the teacher for the last period of the school day. Then, the student's task will increase. Eventually the student will have to work well 7 out of the 7 periods to earn the reward of sitting next to the teacher.
One thing I found really neat in this article is the discussion about team-based intervention plans. I believe it is so important to have everyone on board with the child's behavior intervention plan. The classroom teacher, resource teacher, and the specials' teachers should all be aware of this plan. Sometimes a student really looks up to one teacher in particular. I had one instance where I had a student who really liked the male Spanish teacher in the building. It was something as simple as having the Spanish teacher stop in for 1 minute in the morning to give the student a little pep talk, and then stopping in at the end of the day to see how many smiley faces this student earned today for completing his work. This simple check in/check out process really helped this student. I also believe that it works so well when the student's parent gets on board. I found, many times, that a behavior demonstrated in my classroom was also a behavior problem at home. In this case, it was very nice to have the parents on board and want the behavior intervention plan in school, as well as, at home. If the student earned an X amount of smiley faces, the student was able to enjoy his IPad for 20 minutes after school. If the student did not earn that amount of smiley faces, the student would not be able to play on their IPad. I felt like having a parent on board was a great experience and it worked so well.
Overall, I did enjoy reading this article, and I would recommend reading it if you are still unsure and not clear about the functional behavior assessment and behavior intervention plans. The article really does a nice job of explaining the process.
Scott, T. M., Anderson, C. M., & Spaulding, S. A. (2008). Strategies for developing and carrying out functional assessment and behavior intervention planning. Preventing School Failure, 52(3), 39-50.
This sounds like another really practical article. I hope to look it up and read it. I especially liked the information you gave about the team all collaborating together to make the plan effective across the board. That seems to be a common theme in well structured special education programs - collaboration between team members. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI like this article. Mine was pretty informative and reminded me of our screencast as well. I like your personal example. I have had a student before who had to check in and check out and his person of interest was his former Kindergarten teacher. We had to do the process twice a day at the beginning of the year because he could barely make it to lunch without having several issues. By the end of the year though, I saw the benefits of it being part of his plan. He got to check in with this teacher for encouragement, and so she could check his behavior chart. It worked well. But again, it varies for every student.
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