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Journal Entries and Review of Class Readings

Week One: Theoretical and Values Foundation of Functional Assessment and Positive Behaviour Support After reading the article by Sprague and Horner (1999), I was able to relate some of the big ideas with issues I currently face professionally. I work as a behaviour interventionist with a fifteen year old girl who has been diagnosed with autism and displays high intensity severe self-injurious behaviour on a low to moderate frequency. She has been removed from the public school system due to the severity of the self-injurious behaviours and the lack of sufficient support or know-how needed to understand the function of her behaviours. Her family finds her behaviours unpredictable, frightening and it causes a great sense of fear and stress for her care takers. A team has been established to work with this adolescent and critical to intervention a functional assessment and positive behaviour support plan has been completed. Hypotheses based around the function of her problem behaviours have been generated and various behavioural interventions have been implemented. These interventions have required us to change and manipulate antecedent events, teach her other appropriate behaviours as well as provide suitable consequences for desired and undesired behaviour. Antecedent events proceeding high intensity behaviours have been very difficult to track and cannot be reproduced under controlled procedures as it is both unethical and dangerous for those involved. Due to the level of frequency and nature of her self-injurious behaviours, it has been difficult to analyze and observe the behaviours. Matching law explains why she exhibits response co-variations of self-injurious behaviours in order to avoid or escape a request or demand. However, with implementing differential reinforcement of other behaviour (DRO) we have seen a marked improvement in behavioural allocation. She engages in self-injurious behaviours less and less as she has been given functional equivalent behaviour for achieving

2 her wants and needs. Gradually, we have seen a reduction in her self-injurious behaviours as she is now communicating using picture exchange. I have questioned the lack of research based around the importance of setting events and how they alter and influence behaviour. When doing an assessment, should it not be integral that there is an understanding of the complex effects of distal environmental stimuli? Furthermore, the authors state the great need for further development of setting event assessment methodologies and the impact of setting events on the understanding and treatment of behaviour. When working with this client who engages in self-injurious behaviours, I rely on her mothers daily input and knowledge on how she is physically feeling. For example, if she is sick or tired, as well as what has transpired throughout the day so we can have an understanding of what may be influencing certain behaviours that she exhibits. It would be helpful if there were other means of measuring setting events and analyses of complex stimulus that we could implement other than the setting event checklist.

Week Two: Functional Assessment and Positive Behaviour Support in School Settings

When reading the article by Anderson and Kincaid (2005), I was shocked to learn that 85% of new teachers do not feel prepared or able to manage discipline problems within the classroom. Why are new teachers not taught the necessary skills needed to effectively cope with and manage various discipline problems such as non-compliance and classroom disruptions within the school environment? If teachers were taught the techniques that applied behaviour analysis offers, it may become easier for teachers to determine the function of the behaviour and how best to deal with it instead of using consequence-based forms of discipline. This in turn would give teachers more time to spend teaching the curriculum rather than trying to manage behaviours.

After reading this article, it reminded me of when I worked in a pre-school setting with a four year old boy diagnosed with mild autism. I was hired as a behaviour interventionist to help the boy transition into the pre-school setting as he was having difficulty adjusting to the expectations placed on him and suffering from great anxiety around this transition. A functional assessment had been done and a plan was set in place by the consultant. When I began working with the boy, the pre-school teachers were skeptical and disbelieving of what I was implementing to help the boy. After a month or so, we all began to see behavioural changes. Transitions from one activity to the next were easier, tantrums decreased, and compliance increased. The staff began asking questions and wanted to know what I was doing and why and how it was positively changing this childs behaviour. The staff expressed interest in learning more and wanted to employ these behavioural techniques and strategies that I had been using and apply them to typical children who also exhibited challenging behaviours. It is a relief to see that schools and teachers are looking for better ways of addressing problem behaviours with more adaptive and positive interventions instead of punitive measures that are sometimes used. I understand that it will take time, teacher and staff involvement and commitment, strategic implementation and continual monitoring, like any change, it takes time, attention and a great deal of personal perseverance.

Week Three: Functional Assessment and Positive Behaviour Support in Family and Community Contexts One big idea that strongly resonated with me in the chapter written by Koegel, Koegel, Boettcher and Brookman-Frazee (2005) was that when working with families who have children with disabilities, it is important to consider family ecology, to develop a mutual professionalparent partnership, to recognize the familys capabilities and strengths, to consider the childs

positive attributes and to build on the familys existing knowledge and skills. Parents and family members have a unique understanding of their child with a disability, as they spend the majority of time with the child. Therefore, their participation and collaboration should be an integral and essential contribution to the development and implementation of a positive behaviour support plan. Family members have more teaching opportunities in a naturalistic setting that can lead to a greater chance for increasing positive behaviour and generalizing new skills. Incorporating parents and family members into the support plan as well as building an excellent parent-professional relationship will provide a fundamental foundation and increase the chances of success. It is important that both the family and professional find a good match based upon open communication and cultural similarities, or awareness and sensitivity to cultural differences. Intervention should be mutually determined, contextually appropriate and based around the familys ecology and daily routines whereby the family will be motivated to attain the goals and strive to succeed. I believe, when families are incorporated into the process and given the tools, they become empowered to be able to make positive change. They do not have to rely completely on the professionals in order for their child to receive intervention. They become the teachers and are able to incorporate teachable moments into every moment throughout the day. Week Four: Building Collaborative Relationships Reading the article by Buschbacher, Fox, and Clarke (2004), reiterated the importance of parent-professional behavioural collaboration and solidified, even more so, what I believe and wrote about in the previous journal entry. From a professional point of view, working within the field, I have had the opportunity to work with families who choose to be involved in the support

plan and work with the interventionists to learn various behavioural techniques that can modify their childs behaviour and contribute to positive change in daily family routines. This means including the family in a way that is sensitive to their ecology and way of life and finding good contextual fit to enhance the likelihood that the parents will have success and see a decline in problem behaviours and an increase in child engagement in family routines. Unfortunately, I have worked with parents who do not want to be involved in the collaboration process and hope that by hiring a team of interventionists to do the work improvements in child behaviour will automatically transfer from one routine to another and ultimately decrease problem behaviour. I can say, in all honestly, I find this the most challenging and frustrating aspect of working as a behaviour interventionist. Being involved in a research study, I was able to see how instrumental parent-child interactions are and when parents are given appropriate behavioural techniques and support to work to change problem behaviour, it can have a direct influence on reducing challenging problem behaviours, decreasing negative parent-child interactions and increasing child engagement. I believe parent and families are the most important collaborators in positive behaviour support efforts as they are the childs most knowledgeable advocate in terms of knowing their needs, strengths, and inclinations. As professionals, we should always be working to include families and parents whenever and wherever possible to increase the chances of maintenance over the long term as well as generalization of the support plan. Empowering families and parents with the needed behavioural techniques and strategies that are instrumental in making behaviour change in a child with behavioural challenges can lead to positive lifestyle transformations for the entire family.

Week Five: Strength-Based Assessment and Person Centered Planning After reading the article by Kincaid (1996), person-centered planning is a philosophy and approach I value and always wish to keep in mind and consider when working with individuals with disabilities. I have not yet experienced a group facilitation whereby everyone participates in a person-centered planning activity but I think this is a great way for everyone to come together to positively construct a plan. Developing a plan for an individual that incorporates aspects such as gaining and maintaining relationships, participating in the community, having the ability to develop personal competencies and being able to make choices are key factors that can contribute to an enriched and fulfilling life. I like this concept as it incorporates a functional analysis as well as includes the perceptions, opinions and ideas of all the different people who work with and know the individual in varying realms of their life. I think it is a great way to create a clear and meaningful plan for the individual and the means to realistically develop those goals and objectives. I believe, by using this approach, it would be easier to create a plan that had better contextual fit for the individual, those implementing the plan and for the environment in which the intervention will be implemented. The involvement of the family, the individual, those who work within the community and educators all working together toward the same purpose could potentially increase the likelihood that the plan would be maintained. This approach goes beyond just repairing an individuals deficits but helps to develop a higher, more meaningful quality of life. The only downfall I could find with this approach is it seems to be utilized with specific chronological and developmental stages like transitions in adulthood or to address particular problem behaviours.

Week Six: Eco-cultural Assessment and the Design of Contextually-Appropriate Plans I found the article by Bernheimer and Keogh (1995), very interesting and it made me contemplate and reconsider the design of all the plans I implement for families I currently work with. I am not happy to admit that I too join the ranks of professionals who frequently complain about the lack of involvement of parents and their inadequate follow through on so called, welldesigned, intervention plans. This article gave me great insight and a dose of humility as to why our plans are sometimes not implemented and maintained by families. For me, it reiterated the importance of a family based approach to assessment which should be an integral part of the intervention design and plan. We need to take into account a number of ecological factors that contribute to the development of an acceptable support plan. Even the most technically sound plans will fail if the plan does not take into account the goals, values, beliefs, wishes and needs of the family. A successful intervention is one that can be utilized in daily routines and the authors propose an eco-cultural approach for assessing families which, they believe, is the best way to integrate all the necessary information important for planning and implementing interventions. I liked this approach as it does not take the traditional and exclusive view of emphasizing solely on the child who engages in problem behaviour. The entire family must be considered in terms of understanding their daily life and the needs of the given child in order to develop an intervention plan that is specific to that particular family. Assessment must be an ongoing process that accommodates for change over time as a families needs change as their child and family grows and develops. Assessment must also include consideration of how doable or

sustainable a plan is for implementation. If the plan is beyond the skills of the family, beyond their resources it is likely not going to be implemented. When reading this article it made me reflect on my own personal experience when working with a particular client. I was hired by a private teaching academy to help implement a plan focussed on helping the target individual acquire school curriculum. The plan was implemented and based at the familys home. It did not take long for me to realize there were other important and needed skills such as toileting and getting up in the morning and getting ready to start school all of which should have been addressed in the plan. The plan was designed simply with an emphasis on the acquisition of cognitive and developmental skills. It completely ignored the context of the family, family functioning and routines. The academy should have addressed the family as to how to make learning optimal for this individual. This may have included identifying certain routines and activities that were difficult and needed improvement like toileting and hence, positively improving the familys lifestyle as well as the quality of life for the child. Working with this family made me realize just how significant and essential it is to include the family in the process of plan design. It is imperative to have a good and clear understanding of how the family functions in daily life and routines.

Week Seven: Implementation Support in School Settings Reading the article written by Morin and Battalio (2004), made me re-examine the issue I read about in Anderson and Kincaids (2005) article, Applying behaviour analysis to school violence and discipline problems: School-wide positive support. I believe, after further reading, I now have a better understanding of why so many teachers do not feel prepared or able to manage discipline problems in the classroom. Teachers may be given the techniques that applied

behaviour analysis and positive behaviour support can offer but it appears to be much deeper and more complex implementing these skills. Teachers need ongoing and intensive technical assistance and support when implementing PBS in the initial stages in order for them to experience success with the strategies and increase the likelihood they will use the approach again. As well, providing teachers with interventions for working with students who engage in inappropriate behaviour needs to be supported with and include knowledge about common roots of misbehaviour and what function it may serve. Initially, I did not consider how personal teaching efficacy or even just self-efficacy beliefs play a significant part in determining how a teacher will view a students behaviour. For example, it was interesting to read that teachers with low personal teaching efficacy and who think their efforts are unlikely to have any positive impact on students are unlikely to adopt these practices. Morin and Battalio (2004) state that self-efficacy beliefs and skill development symbiotically nourish each other which means that teachers need to feel and be efficacious in order to teach in ways that will result in positive outcomes and positive outcomes lead to teachers being more efficacious (p.252). Hopefully with practise and time we will see a shift away from punitive consequencebased forms of discipline toward teachers selecting a more adaptive, positive approach to managing difficult and challenging behaviours. If teachers are given continual support, encouragement and reinforcement, teaching efficacy will hopefully increase and lead to the implementation of positive behaviour supports. Teachers have many responsibilities and the last thing they need or want is an outside consultant to come into their classrooms, observe, and then give them more work to do in their classroom. It is important from a consultants role to communicate a message of collaboration, support and understanding of the school teams heavy responsibilities. Using this approach, it is also important to collaboratively develop intervention

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strategies that minimize the amount of work needed from the school team. A teachers success in implementing simple but effective strategies that improve the performance of the target student will likely increase their self-efficacy.

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References Anderson, C. M., Kincaid, D. (2005). Applying behaviour analysis to school violence and discipline problems; Effective treatment is not enough. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33, 373-391. Bernheimer, L. P., & Keough, B. K. (1995). Weaving interventions into the fabric of everyday life: An approach to family assessment. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 15, 415-433. Buschbacher, P., Fox, L., & Clarke, S. (2004). Recapturing desired family routines: A parentprofessional behavioural collaboration. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 29, 25-39. Kincaid, D., (1996). Person-centered planning. In L. Kern Koegel, R. L. Koegel, & G. Dunlap (Eds.), Positive behaviour support: Including people with difficult behaviour in the community (pp. 439-465). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Koegel, L. K., Koegel, R. L., Boettcher, M., & Brookmand-Frazee, L. (2005). Extending behaviour support in home and community settings. In L. M. Bambara & L. Kern (Eds.), Individualized supports for students with problem behaviour: Designing positive behaviour plans (pp.334-358). New York: Guilford Press. Morin, J., & Battalio, R. (2004). Construing misbehaviour: The efficacy connection in responding to misbehaviour. Journal of Positive Behaviour Interventions, 6, 251-239). Baltimore: Brookes. Sprague, J. R., & Horner, R. H., (1999). Low-frequency high intensity problem behaviour: Toward an applied technology of functional assessment and intervention. In A.C. Repp & R. H. Horner (Eds.), Functional analysis of problem behaviour: From effective assessment to effective support (pp.98-116). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.