Supporting Challenging
Behaviour
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An Introduction to Behavioural Approaches
Fake Introduction
• "PowerPoint is designed for making a slide show a little more attractive with
images and text that move, but when an idiot makes them all move, interest is
lost."
- Anonymous
• " PowerPoint. Putting people asleep since 1987. "
- Anonymous
• "Using PowerPoint is like having a loaded AK-47 on the table: You can do very
bad things with it."
- Peter Norvig
Real Introduction
• What is the most important consideration when supporting a child
with challenging behaviour?
Real Introduction
• Think about a student that engages in challenging behaviour that
you support. You can use this example throughout today to create
personal meaning around our discussions.
• Objectives for the next 2.5 hours
• Understanding challenging behaviour
• Theories of behavioural intervention
• Concrete strategies
• Practice
• Lots of breaks
Still Real Introduction
• “Must Knows” for this session
• I have a sarcastic and dirty sense of humour.
• I hate fluff – especially in presentations.
• We could spend months talking about challenging behaviour
but we don’t have the time so we are going to focus on key
areas.
• It is fast paced so please come back from breaks on time so
we can fit it all in!
• No dumb questions (I mean no question is a dumb question).
Behaviour 101
• Three theories on why we behave in the way we do…
1. Classical Conditioning: Pairing unlearned stimuli with
innate/automatic learning.
2.
Operant Conditioning: Reinforcement and Punishment.
Behaviours that are reinforced increase and behaviours that
are punished decrease.
3.
Social Learning Theory: We learn through experience in a
social context through concepts like observational learning
and modelling.
Behaviour 101
• Classical Conditioning
• Learning where a pairing of stimuli are made between an
automatic stimulus and a neutral stimulus. The neutral stimulus
ends up eliciting the same response as the automatic stimulus
after pairing them together.
• Pavlov and his salivating dogs are the famous example of classical
conditioning.
• Conditioning can happen by accident and is called accidental
conditioning when numerous events in our environment can
produce emotional responses.
Behaviour 101
Classical
Conditioning
Behaviour 101
• School Example of Classical Conditioning
• Students enter Mr. Smith's classroom on the first day and are
chatty. Eventually Mr. Smith stands up from his desk and walks
towards the chalkboard. Students continue to talk. He clears his
throat and waves his hand, motioning people to quiet down. The
students shut up.
• On day two, Mr. Smith again sitting at his desk as the students
enter. He walks towards the chalkboard and the students do not
quiet right away. He then tells the students to be quiet. They do
so.
• On day three, Mr. Smith sits at his desk as the students enter and
as he walks toward the chalkboard, the students hush on their
own.
Behaviour 101
• Classical Conditioning Examples
• Peter gives a presentation to the class and feels sick to his
stomach the entire time. Now the thought of giving another
presentation makes him nauseous.
• The year before, Sally had a teacher that would rip up homework
assignments and yell at the class when it was not completed
making her cry. Now the experience of sitting in class during
homework checks is very emotional for Sally.
• Susan was bit by a dog on several different occasions when
young. Now as a teenager, dogs
Behaviour 101
• What do we learn?
• We have to focus on creating positive learning environments /
experiences for our students.
• Be sensitive to possible Classical Conditioning situations that can
often manifest as anxiety or other emotional responses.
Behaviour 101
• Operant Conditioning
• Type of learning in which an individual's behavior is modified by
its consequences; the behaviour may change in form, frequency,
or strength.
• Behaviour that is subsequently punished should reduce in
frequency and behaviour that is reinforced should increase in
frequency.
• Extinction is eliminating a reinforcer to reduce behaviour
Operant
Conditioning
Behaviour 101
• School Examples of Operant Conditioning
• Peter is given an in-school detention for screaming in the hallway.
His screaming decreases.
• Sally gets her teacher to laugh every time she interrupts the class
in the middle of a lecture.
• George has a math question removed from his homework every
time that he works hard in period 4.
• Bobby is kept in from recess every time she is caught stealing in
her homeroom class.
Behaviour 101
• Principles of Operant Conditioning
• Token economy is an exchange system where a token is given as a
reward for a desired behaviour. Tokens may later be exchanged
for a desired prize or rewards.
• Shaping is a form of operant conditioning in which the
increasingly accurate approximations of a desired response are
reinforced.
• Chaining is an instructional procedure which involves reinforcing
individual responses occurring in a sequence to form a complex
behavior.
• Response Cost is a form of punishment specific to a behaviour.
• Premack Principal: Pairing a least preferred with a most preferred
activity (Grandma’s rule – eat your peas and get desert)
Behaviour 101
• Factors that alter the effectiveness of consequences
• Satiation/Deprivation: The effectiveness of a consequence will be
reduced if the individual's "appetite" for that source of stimulation
has been satisfied. Inversely, the effectiveness of a consequence
will increase as the individual becomes deprived of that stimulus
• Immediacy: After a response, how immediately a consequence
occurs determines the effectiveness of the consequence. More
immediate feedback will be more effective than less immediate
feedback.
• Contingency: If a consequence does not contingently (reliably, or
consistently) follow the target response, its effectiveness upon the
response is reduced.
• Size: This is a "cost-benefit" determinant of whether a
consequence will be effective. If the size, or amount, of the
consequence is large enough to be worth the effort, the
consequence will be more effective upon the behavior.
Behaviour 101
• What do we learn?
• We have to focus on creating reinforcing environments /
opportunities for our students.
• Use reinforcement to increase behaviour and punishment in the
school system? (negative punishment – response cost)
• Reinforcement and punishment can be learning tools that create
discriminative learning which means they may learn behaviour in
key situations with key people.
Behaviour 101
• Social Learning Theory
• perspective that states that people learn within a social context
• modeling
• observational learning
• Necessary conditions for effective modeling:
• Attention
• Retention — remembering what you paid attention to.
• Reproduction — reproducing the image.
• Motivation — having a good reason to imitate.
Social
Learning
Theory
Behaviour 101
• Bandura and the Bobo Dolls
• In his famous experiment,
Bandura demonstrated that
children learn and imitate
behaviors they have observed in
other people. The children in
Bandura’s studies observed an
adult acting violently toward a
Bobo doll. When the children
were later allowed to play in a
room with the Bobo doll, they
began to imitate the aggressive
actions they had previously
observed.
Behaviour 101
• What do we learn?
• Children learn behaviour through observation of others – good
and bad.
• Partner students with challenging behaviour with students that
demonstrate good behaviour.
• Social skill stories and other activities like role play.
• School staff can and should demonstrate expectations such as a
teacher taking a “time-out” when they are getting frustrated…
Your Example
• Choose a challenging behaviour engaged in by one of your students.
Which theory so far describes a plausible reason how that behaviour
might be learned?
Theories of Response
• There are two theories that are used in Sturgeon School Division in
responding to challenging behaviour:
• Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS)
• All students will do well if they can
• We see challenging behaviour when we make demands of students and
they have little to no capacity in place to meet that demand
• Demands might be environmental demands such as 84 minute blocks,
specific curricular demands or situations requiring social skills they don’t
have to name a few…
• Positive Behaviour Supports (PBS)
• Students engage in behaviour to meet one or more of the following
needs
• Escape and activity
• Obtain a preferred item or activity
• Obtain attention
• Achieve an unmet sensory need (uncommon and predominantly
reserved for students with developmental disabilities)
CPS Philosophy
• The FOUR keys to CPS (There is a test after this!)
•
•
•
•
Kids do well if they can
Doing well is always preferable to not doing well
Challenging kids do not choose to be explosive or be challenging
Every behaviour is communication
*Students don’t choose to be challenging
but respond to challenges by being
challenging.
Unconventional Answer
• They are challenging because they are lacking the skills not to
be challenging. They are delayed in development of crucial
skills
•
•
•
•
Flexibility
Adaptability
Frustration tolerance
Problem solving
• Inadequate development of these crucial skills can contribute
to a variety of behaviours – outbursts, explosions and
aggression.
• Challenging behaviour communicates that the kid does not
have the skill to respond to the problem adaptively.
• Simply said – They don’t have the skills at that time to do
better
Two Sides to CPS
• CPS the Process
• Steps that can be
followed in supporting
challenging behaviour
by focusing on specific
unsolved problems
• Process can be time
intensive and is
therefore used with
challenging behaviour
• CPS the Philosophy
• The philosophy that top
down decisions,
punishment and
authoritarian styles do not
change behaviour in the
long term
• Instead, we choose a
collaborative process that
builds independence and
accountability
CPS
Basic Steps to CPS
• Use ALSUP to identify lagging skills
• Use lagging skills to zero in on Specific
Unsolved Problems
• Place Specific Unsolved Problems into
priority order
Completed
collaboratively
before meeting with
student
• Meet with student
• Build rapport
• “I’ve noticed that {insert Specific Unsolved
Problem}. What’s up? (use questioning to
find out more information
• Define the problem together (student and
teacher concerns are equal)
• Make invitation for solutions
Each Specific
Unsolved Problem is
addressed
separately
Quick and Dirty CPS
• There is a behaviour of concern…
• Communicate care
• “I’ve noticed that {insert behaviour of concern here}. What’s up?
• Focus on student answers and avoid being defensive – Find out
where they are coming from.
• Add the classroom / school point of view in a non-confrontational
way.
• Make invitation for solutions. Brainstorm with student letting them
take the lead.
• Solution must be agreeable to both parties and meet basic
expectations of the classroom / school.
Quick and Dirty CPS
• Scenario
• Find a partner – One of you is an EA working in a classroom when a
student (other partner) is seen poking a classmate with their ruler.
• Switch roles – An EA at recess sees a student arguing about use of
playground equipment.
When Plan B isn’t an option
• Criteria
• Safety issues
• Cognitive delays / Student with developmental disabilities
• Complex behaviour
• We must always default to the philosophy of CPS and then use skills
and knowledge of PBS to support behaviour
CPS
PBS
Plan B
Every student
will do well if
they can
Plan C
Plan A
Changing
undesirable
patterns of
behaviour
Introduction to PBS
• What is PBS?
• “PBS refers to the broad enterprise of helping people develop and engage
in adaptive, socially desirable behaviors and overcome patterns of
destructive and stigmatizing responding” (Koegel, Koegel, & Dunlap, 1997)
PBS
• Problem behaviours are
those that occur with
such frequency and/or
intensity that they:
• negatively impact
learning
• cause harm to self
or others
• damage property of
value*
What is Behaviour?
• EVERY ACTION by a person is a
behaviour
• Every behaviour has a function
• Attention – we are social
beings!
• Obtain desire (item /
activity)
• Sensory stimulation
• Escape (demand /
request / activity /
person)
Behavioural Intervention
• As school staff, we often provide partial
reinforcement for behaviours through a
schedule
• Blurting out behaviour – the teacher
might remind students to put up
their hands. Students blurt out
something often and they are
verbally prompted to stop. Once and
a while a student blurts out
something that is funny and the
students laugh and so does the
teacher. This learned behaviour is
reinforced on a variable ratio
schedule which is the hardest to
extinguish
• What are some of the other things in
school we may inadvertently
reinforce?
PBS
Parents arguing
No sleep
Setting Event –
“sets up” an
increase
likeliness that
an antecedent
will trigger a
behaviour
Teacher
demand
Antecedent –
stimulus that
occurs before
behaviour
Long bus ride
Swearing,
throwing book
Behaviour of
concern
Removal
from class
Consequence
is what
happens right
after a
behaviour (not
always
contrived
consequence)
• One big difference from traditional thoughts of behaviour to PBS is the addition of
setting events.
PBS
• Jill is always out of her seat and talking during independent activities.
SE
Setting
Event: No
direct peer
or teacher
interaction
for 10
minutes
Antecedent
Independent
Assignment
Behaviour
Talking
and out of
her seat
Consequence
Peer and
teacher
attention
PBS
• Competing Behaviour Pathway
SE
Antecedent
Desired
Behaviour
Consequence
Behaviour
Consequence
Replacement
Behaviour
PBS
Little
interaction
Independent
Work
Do Assignment
Positive
attention
Off task
Attention
Request
Attention
Setting Event
Strategies
- Schedule
independent
work after times
of interaction
with others such
as recess
Antecedent
Strategies
- Shorten
independent
work time
- Have work
checked every
10 min
Teaching
Strategies
- Teach Erica to
request
assistance
- Teach self
monitoring
strategies
Consequence
Strategies
-R+ for
completed work
- R+ for asking
for assistance
- Off task out of
desk she is
moved to a
more isolated
corner of class
PBS
• ACTIVITY: Complete this behaviour
pathway with an example.
Setting Event
Strategies
Antecedent
Strategies
Teaching
Strategies
Consequence
Strategies
Conclusion
• Remember!
• Relationship – if you don’t have that things will
not get better…
• When things are REINFORCING they are more
likely to change behaviour…
• Our experience with children tells us that we
must respond to children in different ways…
• Video 1
• Video 2