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The training offered by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) stresses that
the development of goals and strategies involves constructive, creative thinking
and there is no comprehensive equation for each outcome. The individuality of
the child and in particular his or her personal strengths must be considered
alongside the results of the outcome analysis. Taken from various CDE
publications and training documents including Cessna (1993,
1994) and Filbin et al (1996), below are
brief summaries outlining how student needs may display themselves in different
problem behaviours, including some examples of possible teaching goals. With
their theoretical foundations in a number of well established behavioural
traditions these ideas do not claim to present new thinking only to offer
practical options for those attempting to write behaviour plans. Power and
Control
A need for power and control may manifest itself as stubbornness, aggression,
blatant defiance, bullying and acting out. Teaching goals that allow the child
to achieve the same outcomes include the development of leadership skills, good
listening skills or the opportunity for training in empathy. Strategies and
interventions should involve ways to legitimise control and give responsibility
to the student.
Attention
Attention seeking obviously involves such behaviour as disruption and acting out
particularly when the teacher or other students are focused elsewhere. Making a
lot of noise, clowning around, constantly asking for help, or talking and
laughing, may be specific behaviours observed. Such students may also irritate
or be abusive to other students. The overall goal for such students should
involve anticipating their needs and then including such needs in the classroom
by allowing them to contribute in an appropriate way.
Protection/Escape/Avoidance
Behaviours that reflect this outcome are typically those that involve the child
wanting to leave a situation or to stop a situation. This may include running
away, not coming to school, acting out on requests to do something, adopting
negative, `can't do' attitudes to work and being unwilling to take risks.
Notably, behaviours may be seen to decrease as demands decrease. Specifically,
this child needs diverse situations which will encourage them to take a chance,
take some responsibility and possibly to recognise and `show off' their
strengths.
Acceptance/Affiliation
Behaviours that suggest a need for acceptance or affiliation may include acting
out, particularly as the class clown. It may also be seen as trying to please
the teacher, bullying, putting others down, telling tales or perhaps fighting,
particularly in boys. In general the student may use inappropriate verbal or
physical interactions with both peers and teachers although it is important to
recognise that this may include withdrawal from peers especially during group
activities. Clearly the important goal here is to teach appropriate social
skills. The skills involved in communicating appropriately and effectively and
in making friends, starting conversations and listening may be very valuable for
this child to acquire.
Justice/Revenge
Behaviours such as the display of physical or verbal aggressions towards self or
others, vandalism or destruction of objects, intimidation and threatening
remarks, setting up others or simply defying authority may all be defined as
actions concerned with seeking justice or revenge. Such behaviours and motives
suggest that the teaching of skills such as negotiation and conflict resolution,
anger control and the ability to self monitor one's own behaviours would be very
valuable if the student is to adopt replacement behaviours.
The CDE emphasise that when stating goals and strategies in the behaviour
plan it is important that any specific people responsible for each of the
interventions are named. Additionally, they expect that an evaluation strategy
allowing for an appraisal of the success or failure of each of the interventions
is clearly described on the plan: This must be highly specific and may involve
further observation or time sampling observations or else judgement of success
or failure of the plan becomes subjective. Clearly the evaluation determines
whether the plan needs further revision. |
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