1. Elementary Teaching Assistant Training 2012-2013
Behavior Change
Elementary Teaching Assistant Training

2. Behavior is Communication
Lack of skills – social/academic/language
Escape/Avoid –
Request
Task
Demand
environment
Power/control
Obtain something
They have not had enough opportunity to practice skills

3. Learned Behavior…..
Takes time to learn and even more time to UNLEARN behaviors!!
Do we punish or teach????
Learning new behavior requires:
Instruction of the strategy (repetition, practice in various settings, role playing)
Modeling of the expected behavior
True opportunities to respond
The knowledge or skill to accomplish the requested action.

4. Figuring out what they are saying
Look for trends/antecedents
Where is behavior occurring?
When is behavior occurring?
Who is in the environment when the behavior is occurring?
What happens directly before the behavior?

5. Determining WHY they are saying it…
What does the student get from the behavior?
Escape
Attention
Stimulation
Relief
Control/power

6. How do we modify behavior?
Establish a good understanding of the students behavior support plan/and or classroom management plan
Don’t take behavior personally!!
Focus on one specific behavior at a time.
Teach a skill, reinforce a skill, change the environment
Remember….baby steps.

7. Keep in mind…..
Make the reinforcer for demonstrating the behavior at least as desirable as the reinforcer that the child was getting for the non desirable behavior.
Pick your battles
Be consistent!!!!
Set the child up for success.
Collect data consistently and with integrity
Celebrate the small successes!

8. In practice.
Lets say you want your student to ask for help instead of throwing pencils.
You find out that the child most frequently throws pencils when you are doing writing activities where she has to come up with the words. Throwing does not occur when she has to trace.
By throwing, she has figured out that she gets out of the task, because she gets to go to the sensory room.

9. In practice.
What is she saying? – Writing is hard for me when I have to make the movement and think of the ideas.
Why is she saying it? – language organization and vocabulary difficulties as well as a desire to escape the task.

10. How are we going to change the behavior?
Define the new behavior. You want her to be able to write. Most immediately, you want her to not throw pencils. So…you will be happy if she puts her pencil down and asks for a break.

11. How am I going to get there?
Preventative –
Environment – utilize visual supports
Re-structure task – provide picture as prompt, story starter, word bank, allow dictation followed by tracing.
Provide incentive – allow for use of special pencil, marker, etc. during tasks.

12. How am I going to get there?
Provide reinforcement –
First….Then…. Write one sentence, then we will take a break.
Your reinforcer should align with what the student was obtaining from the non-desired behavior. It also needs to be that powerful otherwise what is the payoff??

13. Tracking our progress
Utlize data collection tools provided by the students team
Communication with the student’s team (support teacher, OT, social worker, etc.) regarding behavior is extremely important.

14. Resources CHAMPS CPI Crisis Model BSP 101
BSP-Pam and Sabrina’s Pro Gro
Teaching a Different Way of Behaving: Positive Behavior Supports-Chapter 7 in “Learners on the Autism Spectrum”