- All right, thanks Sherry.
Got it.
- Got it.
- All right, let me share this presentation there
and welcome everyone.
Again, as Sherry said, my name is Jeremy Tretiak.
I am a board certified and licensed behavior analyst
in the state of Vermont.
I do a lot of my work as a contracted behavior analyst
in schools.
So I'm gonna talk
and pull up this slide show full screen at the same time.
And I do a lot of,
I also direct our school-based inclusion program
at Green Mountain Behavior Consulting.
And I've been a coach and a trainer here
with Vermont PBIS for,
I think like six, five, six years at this point now.
It's been, it's been a bit.
And so I'm actually looking forward
to our full functional behavior assessment
and BSP, behavior support plan, two day training.
That will be hopefully presumably in person here,
if things hold coming up later this month,
and in the meantime here
happy to offer this presentation remotely for folks.
And I do believe it will be recorded and uploaded.
If you want to point anybody else in this direction.
So I'm still trying to get,
what I can't get to here is get this thing out of the way.
There we go. Okay.
So I can present this.
Okay, again, I can only see about three of you
and two of those folks are Sherry and Amy.
So if anybody has any questions as I go,
again, as Sherry said, this is a quick one hour
sort of primer,
so I will speak quickly and move pretty quickly here.
But if folks do have questions, please raise a hand.
And I think it will shoot you to the top of my screen here
as far as the videos go,
and again, feel free to have your video on or off,
whatever makes you feel comfortable
as we move through this today.
So again, show or hide your video, session is being recorded
and we're gonna start you're muted,
but feel free to speak up
if you have something you wanna share
or a question to ask.
Si I think it's always important for me
to think about any higher level of intervention, right,
when we think about the multi-tiered systems of support
that we have for students in place at our schools
to think about them in terms of where you're at
in the implementation process of PBIS,
if that's what we're talking about
or other social, emotional learning curriculum.
And so that we're always sort of revisiting and revamping
and hopefully reinvigorating our practices
as we look at them within this continuum of implementation.
And that, you know,
recognizing that full implementation takes a lot of time
to get to.
And that it's not something
that we can sort of just leave on the back burner
and hope will stay there,
that it's something we have to continue to support
and do some learning around in order to keep things fresh
and, sort of, bylaws.
So my hope here for you guys by the end of this session,
I actually said is brief,
but my hope is that by the end,
you guys will have an improved ability
to develop a basic hypothesis
related to the function of a target behavior
and when we talk about function-based thinking,
we really think about that as sort of a,
in the moment on the spot, all the time type approach.
And, you know, I speak a little bit
throughout the presentation
about how we might take that to the next level,
but we're really thinking about how we're doing this,
you know, moment to moment as the day goes by.
And we have interactions with various folks
throughout the school.
And when we're using or understanding function of behavior,
right, as part of this hypothesis development,
the real point of that hypothesis
is so that we can choose an effective
function-based response to the behavior
that's going to help reduce any challenges
associated with that behavior.
And also to increase the lagging skills, right,
in terms of teaching reinforcing those lagging skills
that are maybe missing from a student's
behavioral repertoire
so that they can better access their education.
You know, really think about, you know,
what we're there to do as far as behavior intervention goes
for students in schools is to increase effective access
to a students right to education.
And it really, you know,
and I think of as the key aspect
of any functional assessment
is really understanding how your behavior, my behavior,
our behavior as adults,
as sort of the folks who are in a position
to really influence a lot of the environmental variables
in a situation,
how we, how our behavior influences other's behavior.
And that can go for students, that can go for our colleagues
and peers as well.
And so really understanding about what our role is
in shaping the environment
so that we can influence behavior in a positive way.
So, you know, what is this idea of function-based thinking,
FBA thinking or function-based thinking?
It's certainly based in a more thorough concept
of functional behavior assessments.
So folks who are familiar with the federal legislation
that requires some type of functional behavior assessment
when a student is experiencing challenges
in accessing their education as a result of behavior, right?
It sort of drives us towards this process
of a functional behavior assessment,
which can be relatively simple, right?
We have certain checklists out there, we have forms.
We have a pretty good prescribed process
that, again, as I mentioned earlier,
we as a Vermont PBIS group train over a two day session,
but it can also involve a really complex process
of detailed observations
and comparative analysis of student's behavior
to other behavior and all that, right.
So we can think about the FBA
as sort of the big overarching process
that has a lot of different degrees of difficulty
or degrees of complexity.
And so the function-based thinking
that we're gonna discuss today
really is grounded in that principle,
but it's a much simpler and global way of through operating,
going through your day
looking at the different ways
that you're interacting with others
and students are interacting with their environment
that might influence the behavior.
That's the key point there that I just made
is that environment influences behavior, right?
It shapes behavior.
And so different consequences
as they sort of fall behind a behavior as it occurs
will either drive somebody
to engage in that behavior more in the future,
or, you know, maybe stay away from engaging that behavior
if the consequences aren't so desirable.
And the function-based thinking
is really a model for systematically defining our behaviors.
So we need to know what we're looking at first, right.
What is it that we're concerned about?
And then how do we look at the environment
in a way that is objective rather than subjective?
And then how do we use those observations
and our understanding of the function of behavior
to select interventions that match function
and have the greatest likelihood of success
for influencing the behavior
in the direction that folks want to see.
And that could be what the school culture is desiring.
It certainly entails what is going to be more,
provide a more meaningful point of access,
as I said, for the student in their learning.
So here's another way of looking at what I just said.
A lot of text on there.
And again, we go over this in much greater detail
in our FBA training,
but really we're operating here, right?
So this is on the spot decision-making.
Right now I'm in a situation
that is creating some challenges for me or for the student
in terms of accessing their education.
And I'm going to think about their behavior
from that objective lens so that I can make decisions
that will ultimately discourage that behavior
and encourage replacement.
And when we talk about who should be doing this right,
that more complex,
that might be when you call it a team
that would include, perhaps somebody like myself
in terms of a BCPA,
simple FBA's to work backwards across this grid,
might be somebody who would attend that training
that I mentioned a couple of times,
that might be an in-building person
or a district based person
who has a little bit of extra training or specialty
in looking at behavior this way.
But going back to the function behavior thinking,
on the left side of our grid here,
it's you and it's really everybody, right.
If we're doing this and thinking about this
in terms of our continuum of supports that the pyramid
or the, you know,
that old pyramid image of the big green base,
the yellow middle and the red top.
When we think about that universal approach
that encompasses all of the interventions
that sit on top of it, right?
It encompasses all the students,
even if we like to think about it in terms of, you know,
80% of our students responding effectively
to those interventions,
it doesn't mean that we strip that thinking away,
or those supports away as we move up the continuum
of supports and move up that pyramid, so to speak visual.
And so when we think about
who's doing the function-based thinking,
it's really everybody,
it's everybody in the school building
who's approaching our interventions from that universal,
that universal lens, right.
So this is where we're at today here on the left side,
everyone.
All right, certainly we have some benefits, right?
We think about, you know, when we're choosing interventions,
if we're not using a thoughtful objective approach, right,
really, we are just sort of throwing things at the wall
and hoping something sticks, right?
And so we wouldn't choose, you know,
a reading intervention that doesn't have evidence behind it,
or doesn't match the student's need.
Very similarly when we're looking to choose and apply
effective interventions and responses to behavior,
because this is the evidence-based approach, right?
Looking at behavior through a functional lens.
And really what we're talking about
when we go back to this piece here
about everyone's doing this on the spot decision-making
about effective responses,
we're talking about really early intervention.
And so we're looking to sort of stop higher level behavior
from, you know, occurring, right,
by arresting it in its tracks at a low level, right.
So if we can intervene at the lowest perceptible levels
of challenges,
we really hopefully take some stress off the whole system
as we think about, you know,
the fact that we're going to have students
with higher needs that we will have to apply
more intensive interventions for them.
And so we're intervening early on
so that those behaviors don't become a trench in time.
And really just like many of our interventions
within the PBIS system,
while they might take a little bit of time upfront, right,
and effort upfront to learn this
and maybe change your thinking,
the idea here is that we've got reduced problem behavior
over time.
So it's really amounting to a time savings
for teachers and administrators
in terms of addressing those behaviors
repeatedly in the moment.
And then also the followup that happens
on an administrative level.
And the idea there certainly
is that that leaves us more energy
and more effort left in our tank, right?
More fuel left in our tank
for working with the more challenging,
the more intensive behaviors that might be occurring.
And certainly if we're using function-based thinking
from a universal level,
just like universal practices
within the reinforcement system,
the acknowledgment system for example,
within the larger PBIS system
help improve the efficiency
of the higher intensity interventions, right.
We might tie, let's say our targeted plans,
our check-in check-out plans to meet universal expectations
as an example.
And that improves the efficiency
of the targeted intervention there.
Function-based thinking on a universal level
certainly is going to improve the efficiency
of our higher intensity interventions as we move up
that continuum for students.
So we like to really conceptualize
in order to make this an objective process,
conceptualize behavior in terms of this behavior pathway.
We'll start with this very simple model here
and by the end of the presentation,
we build it up a little bit more,
into a more complex picture,
but really we're talking, right, ABC's of behavior.
And what I, you know, it's sort of convenient here,
I guess you can say that the ABC's, you know,
it has that nice ring to it.
So you can put that in your head and remember that,
but it also is a meaningful piece, right?
We're not talking about the basics of behavior necessarily,
we say the ABC's like, we use that term.
We're talking about very specifically the antecedents,
the behavior and the consequence.
And so when we think about the function of behavior, right,
it really takes into account all of these pieces,
including setting events and conditions, right?
So when we think about setting events,
we're really talking about those things that happened
perhaps a little bit removed from the actual event.
They might've happened at home even,
they might've happened on the bus ride in,
they might be ongoing conditions of hunger or fatigue,
right.
That will certainly influence any individual's
momentary motivation to engage in a certain behavior.
If I'm hungry, I'm more likely to engage in behaviors
that are going to get me closer access to food, right.
If I'm tired, I might engage,
I might be more likely to engage in behaviors
that are going to get me out of an environment
that's very stimulating or requiring a lot of my energy
in order to focus and participate fully.
And so those setting events, you know,
often could be really difficult to flesh out, right.
If we, especially,
if we don't have really good foundational relationships
with students' families,
and that's really what I'm just,
you know, put that plug in and emphasize at this point
that if we wanna have a good handle on those setting events,
you know, it starts with relationship,
starts and ends with relationship really.
That if we have good relationships with families,
if we have good starting relationship students.
You know, we can have those conversations
that might help us get to what we can do
to improve those baseline setting events
and conditions that will maybe reduce some of the motivation
for engaging in challenging behaviors
if we can take care and address some of those basic needs
that might be, you know, missing,
or, you know, not quite fully addressed for a student.
But when we take into account this, you know,
what happens before the behavior, right?
What's the signal in the environment that says,
Hey, it's time for me to rip up my paper or yell at a peer
or call out, for example, right?
What's the signal in the environment
that tells me it's time, right, to engage in that behavior.
And because over time,
engaging in that behavior has gotten me
let's say away from something that I don't like,
or it's gotten me something that I do like,
access to something that I do like,
I'm more likely to engage in that behavior in the future.
So we really don't look at any one of these pieces
on its own.
We think about this as a contingent relationship
that includes all of these four components.
And when we look at patterns over time,
the relationship between antecedents,
or really among the antecedents consequences
in their relationship within a behavior,
we can start to develop some ideas or hypotheses
about what the function of the behavior is, right?
What is that behavior
or what purpose does that behavior serve for the individuals
so that they, you know, continue to engage in it.
And this goes both for the behaviors
that we might love seeing in our classrooms or our schools,
but also we can think about how we can use that relationship
to build skills and build behaviors
that we think will be more effective for the student
in terms of getting their needs met.
And again, go back to the main point,
accessing your education.
So, you know, just a quick note about
in a definition, right.
Behavior is, as I said, you know, to go back here,
we really start with the behavior, the B here,
because it really starts with defining
that central curdle, right,
of what we're going to observe so that we know,
okay, so when we see that behavior, you know,
what was going on right before that?
What was going right on after, right?
And so,
so a note about that word consequence, right.
When we think about the word consequence
in our everyday existence, right,
we often have this connotation of a punitive thing, right.
We might say, we might catch ourselves saying,
that student needs a consequence for that behavior.
There needs to be a consequence.
And that's fairly good.
That, again, you know, we're talking about
the definition of a word as it relates
to the function-based thinking process, right.
So here we think about consequences
a little bit more specifically, and we define it as,
quite simply, anything that happens after a behavior.
And so oftentimes when I hear
or interact with that phrase around like
this student needs a consequence for their behavior,
I like to reflect that, you know, it's very likely,
in fact, it's almost completely likely, right,
100% likely that a consequence according to this definition
has already occurred, right?
Whether we process as a team
and say, we're going to
on the sort of negative side of things
like suspend or remove recess,
or have a, you know, an apology letter,
something like that, right.
Or when we have those conversations, right,
those are more distant responses to behavior
that may or may not have a direct effect
on the behavior that we're targeting,
but the consequences that shape behavior over time,
they really are pretty immediate in the environment.
So even if we talk about some of those more distant things,
if a student ripped up the paper
and was sent out of class in that moment, for example,
a consequence has occurred based on this definition.
One, you know, the more obvious consequence
is that the student was sent out of the classroom,
but less obvious consequence
is that the student didn't necessarily engage
in the academic tasks
that resulted in ripping up the behavior, sorry, the paper,
and then get sent out of the class, right.
So my point here is that consequences,
you're really looking for, as we talk about this term,
you're really looking for what happened in the environment
immediately after the behavior occurred, right.
Really close in time and space.
And really when we think about consequences,
we can break them into two basic categories
and think about it in terms of encouraging
and discouraging behavior, right?
So some dimension, right,
dimension is just a way of measuring behavior.
The intensity, the duration, the frequency of behavior
is increased as a result of the consequences that follow it,
or, you know, similarly a dimension is discouraged
or decreased as a result of the consequences
that happened after it.
Two very basic categories that we're looking at here
and neither of them are necessarily
completely associated with challenging behaviors
or more pro-social or access related.
And a key piece here, right,
is that past consequences influence the likelihood
the behavior will occur right now, but also in the future.
And so, you know, and I like to emphasize
is that once a behavior has happened in time
and a consequence naturally follows it,
because that just is the natural order things, right.
We can't do anything about the behavior
that's already occurred.
So really when we are considering function-based thinking,
it's an analysis of your experience of a certain continuum,
the ABC's of behavior.
And then if it didn't go the way that, you know,
felt good for you and the student,
the function-based thinking comes in and we say,
okay, so next time I see these conditions occurring,
next time I hand out that worksheet,
what am I gonna do differently to set the environment up
so that this student feels confident
and good about the work,
so they don't rip up the sheet
because no learning is happening
when the student is outside of class.
I think we can all agree to that.
And that we look at the patterns over time
and the consequences as they relate to the antecedents
and the behavior to help us understand function.
And so a note about antecedents, right?
So here, number three, I worked my way backwards.
When we look at our four term contingency here,
our setting events, antecedent, behavior and consequence,
we do have an opportunity for intervention
in consequence based strategies,
we also have opportunities to intervene on behavior
before it occurs, right?
So I've handed out the math sheet, for instance,
and I might cue a student to,
Hey, remember, if you're feeling stressed out
about this sheet,
if you're feeling like you're gonna struggle,
what I want you to do is just turn it over
and I want you to raise your hand
or whatever other signal you might have agreed upon
ahead of time to indicate that you're feeling frustrated
so that I can come and help you.
And so that would be an example
of the antecedent has happened.
I've handed out the math sheet,
which historically has resulted in ripping
and then removal from classroom, for example.
And I'm gonna give a little bit of a reminder
on how I might help the student
so that they don't have to engage in that behavior
and participate instead.
And the antecedent,
another antecedent strategy
happens before the antecedent even occurs, right.
These are really about controlling the environment
altogether.
And so to go back to my math sheet example,
rather than handing out an entire math sheet, for example,
I might hand out one problem at a time
for a specific student
who I know struggles when presented with a large field
of math problems, right.
And so I've controlled the environment in this case,
by trickling out the math or,
sorry, I don't mean to pick on that,
I'm gonna go with the math example.
Trickling out the math problems one by one,
rather than presenting them all at once.
So I control what the present indication
of the antecedent is.
And if you'll notice my basic math here
is that I'm looking at two out of my three opportunities
for intervention actually occur on the antecedent.
And so, you know,
67% roughly of my opportunity to intervene
actually happens before the behavior ever occurs.
So it's sort of like sit with that for a second
and think about the power of antecedent interventions.
When I write my behavior plans,
I like my antecedent intervention section
to be one of the wealthiest
and most important sections of the plan.
Because every time we allow the behavior to be practiced,
even if we're engaging in consequence based strategies
that are helping to reduce the behavior over time,
if it's a challenging behavior, right?
Or helping to build other behaviors,
if we don't set the occasion for our students to engage
in the pro-social replacement behavior
by manipulating the environment
and controlling the antecedents,
we've missed a big opportunity for skill-building.
And if we allow a student
by not controlling the environment antecedent level
to engage in a challenging behavior,
we've offered a practice opportunity for that behavior,
which is not the best thing in the world
even if we have good consequence strategies
in place to address it.
It's a really, I just wanna once again emphasize
the power of antecedent strategies
to really set the occasion for positive behavior change.
So I just will cross out the word problem here,
because I like to really emphasize
that all behavior is under this model, right?
We don't, not just problem behavior serves a function,
all of our behavior serves a function.
At the very most basic level,
we can think about the functions of behavior in two buckets.
Either working to obtain or get something
or on the opposite side of thing,
working to escape or avoid something.
And so I, you know, I challenge you as you sit here
and listen to the presentation to sort of think through
your best and perhaps worst experiences with students,
in terms of, geez that just didn't feel good.
Or man, this felt really great.
I really got this student to approach something
that we've been working on for a long time here.
If you think about those behavior,
you can also go back and think about the head scratchers.
Really start to objectively assess and analyze
what might this student have gotten from this behavior,
or what might this student have avoided or escaped
based on this behavior.
And then we can certainly go and fine tune that,
you know, those two categories into, you know,
was there some social aspect of things
that the student is either getting or avoiding?
Are they looking for adult or peer attention?
Are they looking to avoid adult or peer attention,
for example.
Are they looking to avoid an activity, right.
In my example certainly ripping it up
and getting sent out of class
results in avoidance of that activity,
escape from that activity and,
or on the opposite side of things.
If I am engaging in a behavior,
let's say maybe the younger grades during choice time,
Johnny's got the train, I want the train.
And if I go over
and sort of give Johnny a little bit of a posture,
an intimidating, you know, body language,
Johnny drops the toy and I grab it
and now I have access to the toy.
So I can obtain that toy that way too.
And then thinking about, you know, sensory pieces are also,
you know, a large component of why humans
engage in certain behaviors
either to get more of something in terms of stimulation
or sensory experience, or to get out something.
Example I like to give around escaping a sensory situation
is the fire alarm at schools, right?
They're loud, they're bright.
They stroke.
Certainly when I hear and see a fire alarm go off
at a school,
I'm going to engage in all the behaviors
that help me escape that stimulus
because it's really overwhelming on a sensory vibe.
There's three steps to function-based intervention
that we'll think about and think through here.
And our first is always information gathering
and hypothesis development, right.
And so in order to build that
evidence-based intervention practice,
we're not just gonna go in
and without understanding the context for the behavior.
We're going to take some steps to gather information
and develop an understanding
about why using this model, right,
why this person might be engaging in the behavior.
That helps to inform the plan, right?
So now the plan rather than being a best hope
is actually an evidence-based, observational based,
hypothesis based, right, scientifically oriented plan.
And we have some baseline information
that we know we can use
to assess whether the plan is working
which is our third step, right?
And so really all these steps tie together
because when we gather our information about the frequency,
those dimensions of behavior that I mentioned,
the frequency, the duration, how often is it occurring?
How long is the behavior occurring for an intensity?
How intense, how big or how small is this behavior
in terms of how it affects the environment?
We have that baseline information
as part of our initial information gathering
or hypothesis development step,
we can use that information
to assess whether our plan is working
after we've developed a plan
and provided some opportunity for implementation.
And I'll just emphasize that we really wanna make sure
as part of that implementation,
that the plan is being followed with fidelity,
whereas we don't really understand
whether the plan is effective or not.
So as far as that information gathering goes,
think about how many forms of data we have
in schools already.
And so certainly look at the bottom half of this slide,
there are tons of really formalized behavior
data collection techniques, right?
Frequency counts looking at scatter plots.
Like when throughout the day does the behavior occur,
we can certainly use subjective rating scales
to help us understand, you know,
what folks impression or interpretation of behavior is.
I'm gonna talk in depth in a minute here
about ABC charts,
but to go back to the first half of this slide,
think about all this data
that we already have at our fingertips, right.
I really want to emphasize
that the function-based thinking level,
we're really at that again, that universal level, right?
So we're thinking, you know, work smarter,
not harder here.
How can we be as efficient as possible
when we're looking to gather some information,
if we need more of it, right.
Versus just our observations in the moment
and build interventions that do have that
sort of evidence-based platform.
We already have our behavioral observation
and data collection forms, right?
We have our minors, our majors,
however you're dividing up the behavior tracking
in your school.
We have data around attendance and targets.
We have data around nurse's visits.
A huge sort of avoidance reinforced behavior
is my belly hurts, right, my head hurts.
I got a loose tooth, those kinds of things, right.
They get us out of the classroom
and into the nurse's office.
So looking at nurses visits
and again, you know, work completion
is a huge permanent product data point
that we have at our fingertips when we think about
what are those school-based data methods, right?
That we've got easy access to, right?
And so thinking about
how can we use the information we already have,
and then maybe call a few relevant
and appropriate data collection tools
from this bottom half of this slide
in order to sort of round out our thinking
and provide a little bit more information when we need it.
Now to talk about some ABC charts.
This is really the meat and potatoes
of sort of the function-based thinking,
whether you're doing it in this predominant show,
sort of like more formalized written product, right,
that you'll see on the screen.
But these are the types of thinking that you're doing
all the time.
What am I doing right now in this moment
that might be influencing the likelihood
that this behavior will occur.
And then if the behavior does occur,
what am I doing that might be encouraging it
to continue to occur
or what might I do to discourage it
and encourage a more appropriate placement behavior.
And so I've included in the materials
a sheet that looks somewhat like this.
If you were to go on, you know,
the Google and look at,
and search in ABC data collection sheets,
you'll see about 150 different versions of this.
This one is pretty simple.
Time, setting and staff.
Setting is important
because we can sort of develops some patterns around,
is this happening in math or reading or all the time, right.
And then our basic antecedent, behavior consequence, right?
So what happened before the behavior?
What was the behavior?
What did we observe and what were the results and reactions?
And there are checklists that are a little bit easier,
you're not writing notes.
I prefer a more open-ended note in my own practice,
but certainly checklist exists out there too.
And I know that you can find those in the materials
on the Vermont PBIS website for the function-based,
sorry, functional behavior assessment
and behavior support plan two day training as well.
So you can go through the materials
on your special trainings
and find some different versions of this type of sheet
if you're interested in that as well.
And the important thing here
is we're really talking about objective facts, right?
And so this is hard work, right?
Like this is,
we're really trying to sort of remove the ego a little bit,
remove our own opinions,
our own judgments and guesses
about someone else's thoughts, right.
It's not appropriate in ABC data collection to be writing,
I think they were mad at Johnny and so he smacked Johnny.
Okay.
Maybe, maybe, right.
But maybe he wasn't mad at Johnny at all.
Maybe he just wanted that toy train, right.
And so if we write, you know,
a student approached Johnny
who was playing with a toy train,
the student hit Johnny,
the consequence was Johnny dropped the train
and the student grabbed the train and started playing.
I'm not making any guesses or opinions or judgments
about what either of those students were thinking.
I'm just writing down the objective observable facts.
So I think, you know,
the two big O words to put in your brain here,
objective and observable.
So we can use that format
and we'll take an example like this, right.
And just sort of look at it two different ways, right?
So here's one presentation.
We have a setting event,
typically on days when John has worked alone for 30 minutes.
An antecedent, he's given a math worksheet
and perhaps some other assignments.
The behavior is that he doesn't do his work
and he uses profanity.
And here are the consequences,
the teacher gives the rest of the class a task to do
and then sits with John to give them support
and help them to do the work.
Now, the important thing I'm gonna show you two examples
that I want you to to think about
as we look at these two examples
is the fact that behaviors that look
perhaps very similar on the surface
can end up as we develop these hypothesis,
serving different functions
based on the consequence relationships to that behavior.
So in this example, right,
we can place it on the ABC data sheet,
we see that we have our setting.
John's been working alone for 30 minutes.
You know, might put our time in there too,
when math classes.
Antecedent, teacher hands math worksheets out
and gives them direction to complete them silently.
The behavior, John puts his head down and back up.
Stares out the window for five minutes,
starts using profanity and saying he won't do it.
The teacher gives the class,
the rest of the class some work to do, a task,
sits with John, gives them support
and helps them do the work, right?
So that's the same little, you know,
sort of continuum that we've looked at earlier,
put on this ABC sheet and we're in the back of the classroom
doing our observations or we're as a teacher, you know,
processing the event and we're remembering,
geez, you know, I gave him,
we're doing silent work for 30 minutes.
I handed out this worksheet.
I watched John put his head down to the desk,
stare out the window for awhile.
He was like, out of nowhere he started using profanity
and so I gave the rest of the class something to do
while I sat with John and did some work.
Now that might feel good in the moment, right?
Because John has now doing work and you're sitting there
and maybe the rest of the class is doing work.
But we have observed this pattern of John first refusing
and then swearing and refusing,
sorry, yeah, saying he won't do the work here.
We've seen this now over four math classes.
It's starting to feel like a little bit of a pattern
and it might be increasing in intensity for example.
And we're thinking maybe we need to do something
to address that behavior, right.
And so when we think about,
if we have observed that pattern time and time again,
with the teacher going over and working with John
to help support him one-on-one,
we can develop a hypothesis there
that the function of the behavior for John
is probably teacher attention.
And so that might help direct our intervention, right?
When we have blocks of time for 30 minutes,
when students are working alone,
that time ahead of this antecedent
of giving math worksheets,
that might be the time for the teacher to check in with John
and give a lot of proactive attention for example.
There might be some antecedent teaching strategies
around John.
If you're feeling stressed about this
and you want me to come check in with you,
this is what I want you to do.
Let's practice it.
And then making sure that we're reinforcing through teacher,
by using teacher attention
those strategies that we've taught and talked to them.
So here's another example that looks pretty similar,
but takes a different direction on the consequences.
Typically on days when Sarah comes in late
because she's overslept,
she's given worksheets
and other assignments as our antecedent.
She doesn't do her work and uses profanity.
Looks pretty similar so far.
In this example,
the consequences is that Sarah's sent out of the classroom,
for not doing her work and using profanity.
Again, let's put this on our ABC sheet.
Sarah came into school late, she overslept.
We have two lines going here
and I want to sort of demonstrate here
by using two lines that often are consequence on one line
is related to the antecedent on the next line, right?
So Sarah is given math worksheets,
instructed to complete them
before she can go grab a snack from the cafeteria.
Sarah engages in side conversations with the peers,
she throws an object.
Now the teacher has redirected Sarah to the task.
Now that serves as our antecedent, right?
It's circled back around.
So now we have an antecedent of redirection.
And at this point
is when we observe Sarah beginning to swear at the teacher
says she's not doing it.
Because she's been swearing at the teacher,
she's sent out of the classroom to the office.
So now we've seen this pattern again several times
throughout our observation.
And because the pattern consistently results
in Sarah not doing the work,
we can hypothesize that the function of the behavior
in this example is avoidance of that work.
Now, the other thing that I want
to just highlight really quickly here,
'cause I did say a lot,
really think about what our role is
in shaping the environment and directing this, right.
That's one of our learning objectives here
is that in this example,
the teacher's behavior is just as much sort of,
it can be just as easily analyzed using this model, right.
And so we might just shift over the text a little bit
and say, you know,
the antecedent for the teacher redirecting Sarah
might be that Sarah's engaging in a side conversation.
So now that's the new antecedent
for the teacher's behavior is the redirection.
And then the consequences of that redirection
for the teacher
is that Sarah begins to swear at the person, right?
And so we can use this model
to not only analyze student behavior,
but analyze our own behavior,
which you know, is a little bit harder
to remove our subjective thoughts
and sort of the ego from that.
But consider this as a tool to analyze our behavior.
When we think about some common school examples
for function of behavior,
obtaining or getting,
we'd broken functions
into these two basic categories earlier.
Think about peer attention,
adult attention and connection, right.
You know, we like to sort of understand
that sometimes it's just purely attention.
I'm just looking to sort of get you to look at me,
get you to address me,
but also understanding when we go back to the even,
you know, sort of that more global or umbrella view,
the setting events,
the things that are more distant from the actual behavior
affect motivation for the behavior
and often are related to those sort of
foundational Maslow hierarchy of needs.
If a student is coming to us
lacking a lot of positive adult connections in their lives,
sometimes behaviors,
yes, it it's attention, like don't get me wrong, right.
But think about how is this student
maybe looking to connect with me?
And perhaps it's not how want them,
or what makes me feel good as an adult
in terms of connection,
but it's still is connection seeking.
And then start to think about
how might you redirect that behavior
so that the student can get that connection
in a more pro-social way
that feels good for both you and the student involved here.
Certainly access to a desired activity or desired object.
And then we talked about access to sensory stimulation.
Now on the escape avoidance side,
escape, avoid side of the function here,
we can think about escaping difficult tasks
or even a boring task or physical demand,
non-preferred activity,
peer attention, staff attention, reprimands, right.
And so what's important to see here again,
it was sort of shown on that flow chart
is that there's no sort of objective truth here
in terms of what individuals like or don't like, right.
Our analysis is really here, what consequences,
what variables are influencing behavior
in either direction that is challenging for the environment
or the direction that we wanna see for increased access.
And so the point is that, you know, attention here,
peer attention, staff and adult attention
are on both sides of these possible function.
And so it really takes careful analysis
and really thinking about the situation objectively
to understand what's going on here in terms of avoidance
or obtaining something we want.
Some more examples,
yell, others look at me.
I fight, people listen to me.
I wander, people talk to me, right?
Think about that student who is out in the hallway,
sort of wander around
and they're probably doing a little bit of avoidance
of work as well,
but they might be getting a ton of attention out there.
I hit in order to get toys from other kids.
I cry when the work gets difficult.
And then actually I get told to take a time out.
So there you go.
You took the work off my plate by giving me a time out.
And so I'm now avoiding that situation.
I throw a book, teacher sends me out of class.
I stand against the wall in PE
so my classmates don't throw the ball at me.
And think about, you know,
we're not only talking about more sort of obvious,
intense externalizing behaviors when we're looking at
a functional assessment or analysis.
We're really thinking about some of these internalizing
or withdrawal behaviors as well.
So in this example here
by removing myself from the environment,
I avoid an activity that's not making me feel so good.
Let's see what time we have here.
Oh, okay.
So I don't know that we have the time
to really do this in a group discussion,
but I would offer the opportunity
for folks to type into the chat box as I speak here
and I've pulled that up
so I can see as people are writing
if anyone feels compelled to type a comment here.
You know, this idea,
is there a difference between describing behavior
in a mentalistic term?
So she swears because it makes her feel powerful
versus a behavioral or observable term.
She swears and people leave her presence when she does it.
And the real question, you know,
that extends from this is
would we respond differently to the behavior
if we were thinking about it from a mentalistic term
versus a behavioral or observable term?
And I don't have the answer for you. Right?
But the point that I'm trying to make here
is that when we look at behavior from that observable term,
we have something to intervene on, right?
People leave her presence when she does it,
versus it makes her feel powerful.
Now you could think about perhaps antecedent strategies
using that mentalistic approach, right.
Well, how do we give this student a sense of power and,
you know, agency in other more pro-social ways.
But if we think about like, oh,
this person has spored at me
and I've said, I can't deal with this right now.
And I leave every time
and that behavior is increasing over time.
Then I might say, look, when this student swears at me,
I'm gonna stay present and I'm gonna say,
look, you know, I might have a script.
I really understand that you are,
you're frustrated right now.
And you might be feeling like you don't have
complete control over the situation.
And that's leading to you,
you know, using some of this language with me.
I just want you to know that I'm here to support you.
And I, you know, when you're ready to talk about
what I can do to make you feel better
about being in this environment.
And so what I haven't done there is reinforce the behavior
by allowing escape from interaction with another person
through a swearing.
I'm completely willing to allow for escape.
I just know, right, that swearing is not the most,
it's not the best long-term solution for this individual.
So I'm going to think about how I can do things differently
so that I'm not sort of accidentally reinforcing
this behavior.
And really the true goal is to promote a more pro-social.
I don't see any comments in the chat there.
Okay. No problem there.
I just, again, if people have any thoughts about that,
now that I've spoken to it a little bit,
definitely welcome comments,
and I can read those afterwards as well,
and look at them at the end if we have a few minutes.
No, I'm not gonna do that.
So let's just revisit consequences very quickly here
and remind us, ourselves, that a consequence is, you know,
not that sort of, what are we sort of, you know,
getting our heads around later on,
remove distinct from the behavior,
but the consequences of something that happens
right after the behavior occurs.
And we can think about consequences again,
I said, either encouraging or discouraging,
and let's add another term, right.
When consequences encourage a behavior
or some dimension of that behavior to occur in the future,
we say that the consequence serves as a reinforcer, right?
It reinforces the behavior.
And when we think about consequences
that discourage behavior from occurring in the future,
or some dimension of behavior,
we call this punishment, right.
And so what I'm trying to sort of do here is,
you know, redirect the connotation, right,
the everyday connotation around consequences
as that negative or punitive thing and say, you know, like,
let's actually, we want to discourage a behavior,
we have interventions for that, right.
And punishment is not necessarily a bad word, right.
If used within the context of function-based thinking,
and when I use the word punishment, you know,
I wanna make sure that folks are clear.
We're not talking about sort of the, you know,
yelling at a student or, you know,
certainly not using any type of aggressive action, right.
But we're talking about any consequence
that serves as a reduction for a behavior
that is really, you know,
not working well for the environment for the students
as far as again, that access to the educational setting.
That's what we already talked about,
anything that happens after behavior.
And, you know, we can think about positive reinforcement.
So a student gets access to a desirable situation
based on a contingent relationship to her behavior.
So Sarah gets the teacher's attention
when she works out in class,
Sarah's blurting out in class has increased in frequency.
The important thing here
is that Sarah likes the teacher attention.
So it's increased the frequency
of her blurting out over time.
And I think, you know,
why I go into a little bit more detail here on reinforcement
I know it's a lot on this slide here,
is to emphasize that reinforcement happens
to behaviors that are challenging to the environment.
You know, it's not sort of specific
to the behaviors that we wanna see.
And so the point that I'm making is that
if a behavior is occurring in the environment
and continues to occur in the environment,
and even more importantly increases in frequency
or duration or intensity,
that means that something in the environment
is serving as a reinforcer for that behavior.
And that's where our environmental analysis,
our understanding of the ABC's of behavior
really comes into play
so that we can make sure we're not accidentally
being that reinforcement or delivering that reinforcement
for some of those challenging behaviors.
On the opposite side of that,
again, removing that sort of positive, negative connotation,
a negative reinforcement event
is anything that results in the student getting away
from an aversive situation.
This goes back to ripping up the worksheets at the exam.
Or disrupting the class to get kicked out
so that the work is avoided.
So Sarah calls out during math instruction,
she's sent out of the class
to go back to our previous example
and calling out increases in frequency over time.
And so, you know, just because,
sorry, what I like to emphasize here
is that we can utilize negative reinforcement
very effectively in schools, right?
This is like removal of task demand,
removal of aversive social situations
contingent on a behavior.
And this, when we go to students asking for a break
or asking for help, right?
All of these things can really be examples
of negative reinforcement
because they've reduced the aversive situation
in an effort to increase the behaviors that we do wanna see.
In terms of asking for a break or something like that.
And really when we think about our own behavior, right,
because I did say that we're going to sort of
really try to consider how our behavior
affects student behavior or even peer calling.
Negative reinforcement is one of, in my experience,
the largest drivers of adult,
ineffective adult behavior at schools, right.
For instance, kicking a student out of class, right,
for, you know, perhaps low level disruptions
or disruptions at all, right.
Immediately results in the removal
of that aversive situation for the adult.
It's a powerful reinforcer.
When you take something that's aversive
out of your environment, it's a powerful reinforcer.
And so when you think about, geez,
if you analyze your own behaviors,
I really feel like I'm sending kids out a lot,
like what's going on there, right?
How can I think about how I'm,
what I'm doing and how I might do things differently
if sending a student out of class is creating the situation
for the removal of an aversive situation for you, right,
it is going to serve as reinforcement
for that behavior over time.
And what really sort of gets
kind of stinky about this situation
is that if a student is engaging in a behavior
to get out of class
and that the adult responds
by kicking the student out of class, right,
not only has the adult's behavior
then reinforced through negative reinforcement
because the aversive situation,
the student's disruptions is removed.
This student's behavior is also reinforced
because they got out of that situation as well, right?
And so we have a scenario here
where both adult and student behavior is getting reinforced
and we've got no sort of check and balance on that system
until we start analyzing the ABC
and understand what about this pattern of behavior
is causing this student's removal from class to increase
based on the disruptive behavior.
You know, punishment,
again, anything that happens after behavior
that decreases the probability to behave
will be repeated in the future, right.
So Sarah calls out throughout a class period,
she receives a low mark for participation
for that class period.
And then so her calling out decreases as a result.
So the important piece here
is that Sarah wants the good grade
and she wants the good mark for participation
and as a result of getting a low mark
based on constant call-outs,
she checks her behavior and says,
okay, I need to raise my hand, I need to do other things,
but I can't call out, right.
So this is actually an example of punishment,
because it resulted in a decrease in behavior,
and the punishment here doesn't necessarily have the,
you know, as negative of a connotation
as we might be thinking in store.
So, you know, we can think about
some of our traditional disciplinary consequences.
Verbally redirecting a student
who continually calls out to get your attention, right.
Sending a student out of the room
for refusing to complete a task, for example.
Suspension, for example, right?
These are traditional disciplinary consequences
that are sort of baked into the handbook
or baked into our practices
that when we start to analyze the variables
and we ask ourselves,
why don't these consequences seem to be affecting
the behavior in the direction that we wanna see, right,
we can find that they're not so effective.
We can ask ourselves,
are these consequences reinforcing or punishing,
but the key point is here we only know
whether that consequence serves as reinforcement
or punishment by observing its effect
on the target behavior.
And so if I'm constantly redirecting a student
thinking it's going to get them to change their behavior,
yet they continue to call out,
perhaps their call-outs increase over time,
I'm not punishing the behavior, right.
I'm actually reinforcing that behavior.
I'm starting to give that student the attention
that he or she desires by engaging in the call.
I don't have time for this here, but think about this.
When did you observe someone else,
or maybe you were in a situation
where you were applying consequences
that were intended to move behavior in one direction,
but in fact seemed to have the opposite effect over time.
And that's really our point of analysis
when we think about what can we do as adults
to shift our behavior to influence student behavior
in a positive direction.
I wanna emphasize that a good plan,
one that's likely to be effective,
contains elements that are culturally equitable, right?
And when I say culturally,
I mean both for the cultural environment context
of the student,
and I'm taking an ecological perspective here,
a contextual fit perspective.
So the cultural foundation for the classroom and the school,
also the cultural foundation for the student and family.
So again, to go back to that, you know,
the relationship is sort of our starting and ending point.
We really wanna make sure we understand
the cultural context of the family and the student
and when we build these plans,
involvement at the earliest levels
is really key for success in my experience.
So good and effective plans are culturally equitable.
They're knowledgeable.
They demonstrate an understanding of that context
and they are valid, right.
They actually address cultural variables
rather than trying to erase or minimalize
or sort of marginalize those cultural variables.
And they're relevant, right.
They matter to the people who are involved.
And so my job as a sort of contracted behavior analyst
is to understand what matters to this teacher,
what matters to this student,
what matters to these parents, right,
and how am I going to make my plans relevant
to what matters to them?
This is an ecological perspective.
It takes a humanistic approach first, right,
and it uses our technology of a sort
of objective observation to then start to apply
a good contextual fit to plan develop.
These are interrelated variables, right?
So remember that when we change one thing we change,
we often change a lot of different things
in the environment, right?
Think about an ecological perspective
from a natural point of view.
If we remove an apex predator, for example, right?
That's going to have effects on the food that they eat
in the environment.
If we change one variable here,
we have to consider how it's going to change
the rest of the system.
We're gonna identify a consistent response
to the behavior that doesn't reinforce the behavior.
Now on the flip side of that,
we want to identify a replacement behavior
that fulfills the same function,
that's the key point here, same function.
We wanna ask ourselves,
does this behavior need to be taught and if so,
who will teach it?
How will it be teached, right?
And how will the behavior be reinforced?
What's going to be a meaningful reinforcer
that meets the function and meets the need of the student.
This is the fair pair rule, right?
We're going to reduce the behavior,
we darn well better be sure that we're working
to teach and reinforce a replacement behavior
for that student.
So what to do, for example, with avoidance,
the no fun until it's done.
We can build in breaks non contingently.
And we can certainly permit escape
for a specified amount of time contingent on a behavior
that can be a signal, using a break card,
asking for a break, something like that,
or, you know, getting some work done.
Attention, chronic blurting out,
excessive helplessness, tattling, things like that.
Here's where we wanna be careful
about accidentally reinforcing that behavior
by addressing it, by giving it that undue attention
or redirection.
So we can use a technique called planned ignoring, right?
We know that we're not going to address those call-outs.
And we know also
that we're going to teach a hand raising for example,
and provide lots of attention
when a student engages in that behavior.
We're gonna recognize here,
if a behavior has received reinforcement in the past
and we remove that, we engage in planned ignoring.
It's very likely that that student is gonna try,
sort of double down on the behavior
in order to get that need met, right.
So we need to make sure that we are confident
in our intervention as we go, as we go into it.
And this is just another way to take sort of that,
that simple ABC line that we started with
and think about it.
This is the bulk of our function behavior assessment
and behavior support plan two-day training.
So obviously we don't have the time to go over it here,
but the important piece that I wanna emphasize is that
we're not always going to get right to that end result
of the desired behavior right away
where the maintaining consequences
sort of the natural environmental context.
And so when we're thinking about replacing the behaviors
and more immediate targets,
we really need to think about
how we're going to shape behavior from where we are now,
you know, meeting a student where they're at
and then getting them slowly and incrementally over time
closer and closer to that desired end results.
And we wanna keep the function in mind
at all steps in the way.
So here's a, you know, an example,
if we want math tasks to be the ultimate, we might say,
look, I just need you to look at this sheet
and write your name on the paper.
Let's take our first step, right?
Let's take the first step towards this.
And then we might say, okay, now I want you to go
take a walk, take a drink,
go get a drink of water or something like that
to get some of that escape or avoidance at that point.
We're gonna get there eventually, right,
but we need to start somewhere.
Again, you know,
thinking about our opportunities for intervention.
The big, you know, final wrap up here
is that we want to assess if the plan is working.
So we're gonna continue to collect our data.
We're going to adjust our plan as needed.
And certainly we're going to refer for more help if needed.
And the data that we've collected, right,
our baseline, our fidelity data, our intervention data,
these all help to support the referral.
Remember I said, this should help to increase the efficiency
of any higher, more intensive interventions
if they become necessary.
And so, you know,
our hope here is that using a function-based approach
helps you respond to behavior
in a way that avoids accidentally reinforcing
the challenging behavior,
effectively discourages that challenging behavior.
And then certainly serves to reinforce
an acceptable replacement.
And acceptable remember, has that contextual fit,
that ecological perspective
where you think about what's acceptable for the teachers,
the school and the student family.
And so I, you know,
I just ask you to sort of think as you go back.
I know this was a quick sort of shot in the arm
of function-based thinking, it's a quick hour,
but how do you plan to use this information
shared in the presentation?
I do invite, I saw a few comments come through
that I will check on and read and reflect on
as I wrap myself up here.
But again, if you have any thoughts
for your colleagues or for me about
how you plan to use the information shared here,
feel free to share that in the chat box
and any questions as well
and I can hang out for a few minutes
if folks have anything they want to discuss.
Always remember we have more trainings
as I've mentioned it a number of times,
and certainly we always love to hear from folks
and see what people are doing
and sharing with your colleagues
from other schools out there using some of our networks.
And scan my information here on the screen.
If you're looking for some follow-up here,
please feel free to contact us with any questions.
And I just wanna say thank you to everyone
for being here today,
and always happy to talk about this topic.
- Thank you, Jeremy.
And everybody,
I just wanna let you know that in a little while
you'll get an email from one of us
thanking you for your participation
and asking you to complete a survey.
And within that process,
you can submit for a link to your certificate of attendance
for one hour for today.
Thank you.
If you have questions,
we'll stay on the line
and we appreciate you taking the time today.
It's an important topic.