Behavioral Process: Step by Step

Rule #1 Believe that “children do well if they can.”  If they aren’t doing well, wonder why that is - what is interfering. 

Establish realistic expectations that the child is, in reality, capable of achieving.  Expecting something more than what the child can actually achieve is highly likely to result in failure, increased behavioral difficulties, and to foster a sense of ineffectiveness, helplessness, and worthlessness.

Implementation Dip. 

• When you begin a new intervention .. expect things to get worse first.  
• It all works best if the process is entered into collaboratively -- with parent and child / teacher and child in agreement. 
• Let child know what is changing before beginning
• If you change your approach / style and they don't know why, it can make kids anxious and defensive. 

Visualize Success. 

• What will success look like?  
• What are you trying to accomplish?
• What is your purpose?
• What are your short, mid-range, and long-term objectives?
• Flip negative behaviors into their positive opposites.

Move Toward Success Slowly, Progressively, Patiently, Persistently.

• Practice patience.
• Be persistent in your effort to achieve success. 
• Gradually, thoughtfully shape behavior through successive approximations.  
• Expect set-back, ups and down; regressions happen. Behavior is not linear.  When the going gets tough, people regress.  
• Be practical -- close enough really does count. It never needs to be perfect.  We are working a practice to mastery activity.     

Analyze the Task / Situational Demands.

• What are the required steps
• Environmental factors
• Time of day factors
• Competing  factors
• Where is the breakdown?

Evaluate Skill Level.  

• What skills are fully developed
• What skills are partially developed
• What skills are not developed

Assess Developmental Stage: challenges should be matched to developmental capacities.

• Cognitive
• Emotional
• Biological
• Chronological.  Age is the least relevant in terms of developmental capacities, especially in school.  Each child follows a unique developmental trajectory moving at it's own pace.  Age does not tell us anything about ability.    

Develop Behavioral Plan Collaboratively (parents and children)

• Identify problem
• Generate potential solutions
• Choose the best solution
• Implement plan collaboratively (parents and children).
• Launch plan
• Monitor progress
• Evaluate Outcome

Reward & Celebrate Successes. 

• Partial success
• Proportional success (e.g.: minutes success v. minutes of failure, etc.)
• Tangible rewards
• Intangible rewards

Analyze & Celebrate Failure. 

→ Return to step 1, as needed.

Critical Components

• Be Optimistic
• Be Supportive and encouraging.
• Do not criticize.  
• Emphasize mastery: Practice to improve / practice to mastery / practice never makes perfect

Anger:

• Anger is normal / natural / helpful.  Anger tells us when something is wrong, when there is a problem we need to attend to.  
• Anger can inspire action. 
• Anger can lead to determined effort.
• Everyone gets angry
• Too much anger is bad - build an anger management plan

Anger management activities must be implemented prior to reaching the threshold of anger.  As anger increases people become increasingly irrational.  To intervene with anger plan, the intervention must happen before the brain dissolves into an irrational mass of goo. 

• Adult initiated 
• Child initiated

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 603-726-1006 / KenLittle-NH.com

A Guide to Behavioral Intervention

A Guide to Behavioral Intervention

Assess intellectual, instructional, learning, and situational factors and how they affect / contribute to the behavior problem. Develop and utilize a decision-making tree.

• Identify specific problem behaviors and their source / function.
• Conceptualize positive alternative behaviors.
• Progressively teach, coach, and support the student in developing and utilizing the positive alternatives: healthy, value-system-based behavioral and coping strategies in support of school / community / family success.
• Encourage the practice and progressive growth of positive alternative behaviors with coaching and positive, proactive behavioral planning.
• Scaffold: provide more support, encouragement, and behavioral skill instruction until the child begins to show some sense of competence, then wean and monitor.  
• Alter academic / instructional components as needed in accordance with assessment data and educational best practices.
• Establish realistic expectations that the child is capable of achieving. Expecting something more than what the child can actually achieve is highly likely to result in failure, inspire behavioral problems, and foster a sense of ineffectiveness and helplessness.
• Provide a reasonable and constructive disciplinary structure that will work in support of the positive behavior plan to contain and reduce the frequency and / or intensity of the problem behavior over time while simultaneously facilitating positive behavioral growth and academic progress. 
• Collaboration between the child, family, and school personnel is essential. Fractured teams may contribute to costly, counter-productive and / or harmful outcomes.
• Ongoing assessment and outcome evaluation is an essential component.
• Ongoing assessment enhances understanding and accurate conceptualization of the problem.
• If, after a reasonable trial period, whatever is being tried is not producing positive results then reassessment; a different plan or approach may be needed.
• Reasonable trial periods and outcome assessments guide the process.
• There are no guarantees in behavioral work.

Research indicates that gentle, patient, and positive interventions lead to better long-term outcomes.  Avoid critical, punitive, and harsh disciplinary measures as much as possible.

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com / KenLittle-NH.com

Flipping, Positively Flipping

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Flip negative behaviors into their positive opposites; maladaptive behaviors into their adaptive opposites.

Example: "tantrum" is flipped into "using words".  Children at times use tantrums to get needs met.  This is a negative, maladaptive skill. The positive, adaptive opposite skill is to use words to get needs met.

As we move forward we will begin to focus our attention on enhancing skills and abilities, the capacity to manage in and navigate a complex world.


Whenever we encounter a problem or concern we will begin the work of "flipping" the negative behavior into its positive opposite behavior or skill. From here, we will teach, coach, and encourage the use of the positive behavior or skill in the difficult situation.

Difficult situations require adaptive skills in order to navigate successfully. Skills require a lot of practice to master. 

Please keep in mind that all children ... will learn through experience an ever expanding set of behaviors and strategies for the dealing with difficulty.  Some of these may be adaptive and effective.  Some of these will be maladaptive.  

Important note: a maladaptive behavior in a current situation may have been an adaptive behavior in some previous difficult circumstance.  Try not to judge behaviors, but do provide constructive feedback that will enable the child to learn, practice, and develop more and more adaptive behaviors.

More on this soon.

* I'm using child, kids, children, teen interchangeably.

With much gratitude to Tufts University.

Kenneth H. Little, MA / New Hampshire / 603-726-1006 / https://kenlittle-nh.com/index.html