“PBS: Starring your behaviorally challenged child, not Big Bird and friends”

Does your child exhibit behavior that inhibits his or her ability to succeed in school or other social situations? Have no fear. PBS is here! Nope, not your favorite childhood television network. In this case, PBS stands for Positive Behavior Support, or the process of analyzing behavior and using effective tools to alter it. There is a lot of information on the web regarding the steps for implementing PBS, but we would like to make the process more accessible for parents. The following are the steps to PBS broken down for real-life situations. 

1. Behavior Team: Since consistency is key for behavior modification, it is going to take the work of all those involved in your child’s development for PBS to be true and effective. Open communication and collaboration amongst parents, teachers, service providers, and any other caregivers is ESSENTIAL! 
2. Individualized Planning: What works for one child may not necessarily work for another. Teachers and parents, know your children! The behavior plan developed for the student should be a product of the behavior team’s collaborative work based on their knowledge of the child. 
3. Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA): We know it sounds scary, but it’s really quite simple. Although performed more formally on a school level, parents can conduct an FBA at home. This involves determining the ABCs of your child’s behavior, as described in our last entry. Let’s put this in real-life context by considering young Sarah from our previous post:

You pick up your six year-old, Sarah, from school. She’s excited to get to her room and play with her toys, but you tell her that she needs to do her homework. Sarah throws herself on the floor and starts kicking and screaming. The noise is pulsating and you have a headache. Therefore, in order to get her to stop crying, you give her one of her favorite toys and tell her she can play. 

A. First, you have to take note of what happens before Sarah’s behavior occurs (antecedent). 

You tell her she needs to do her homework. 

      

B. Secondly, you must indicate the behavior that occurs (behavior).

Sarah throws herself on the floor and starts kicking and screaming.

C. Finally, determine what the consequences of the behavior were (consequence).

You give her one of her favorite toys and tell her she can play.

Now think about this, if you someone gave you exactly what you wanted every time you threw a tantrum, wouldn’t you scream and cry all of the time? We thought so. 

So, as part of the behavior plan that you are going to implement, you may want to start thinking about some more effective consequences for your child’s behavior, as discussed in our previous post. It is imperative, however, that your child has just as important role as you do in creating these consequences. By developing the consequences together, you build a partnership with your son/daughter/student and allow him or her to take ownership of these behavioral results. 

4. Hypothesis: After several instances of determining the before, during, and after of your child’s behavior. You have to analyze your findings. Don’t worry, it’s not as technical as it sounds. Your simply taking all of the information you have gathered about the ABCs of your child’s behavior and using it to make an educated guess as to what is causing the behavior. In referring to Sarah’s case, perhaps she is intimidated by the amount of homework she has or is concerned that she is not going to have time to play. The cause of the behavior can be determined not only by the results of the FBA, but also in talking to both Sarah and the other adults involved in her life.

5. Behavioral Support Plan: Once you have hypothesized about the cause of the child’s behavior, it is a lot easier to develop a plan to help him or her. This plan should be created by the behavior team and should include strategies for preventing the behavior, new methods of responding to the behavior, ways of teaching skills to replace the inappropriate behavior, and goals for the child. We’ll have more specific posts about the components of the support plan in future posts. 

6. Monitoring Outcomes: You’re implementing the plan, providing consequences, and teaching new social skills. That’s enough, right? Wrong. Perhaps, one of the most essential parts of PBS is monitoring your child’s progress. This simply means tracking your child’s success –or lack thereof– in acquiring more appropriate social skills and meeting his or her goals. If it becomes apparent that the child is not progressing as needed, the behavior team must reconvene to alter the behavioral support plan. 

Now that you are aware of the specific steps that PBS involves, you may want to read about specific strategies and visual supports that you can use as part of your child’s behavior plan in our next post. Stay tuned! 

ABCs of Behavior

Behavior problems often interfere with children’s academic and social success. Here, I’ll provide a big picture look at the “ABCs” of behavior and offer some strategies to effect positive change in your student.

There are three basic components (ABCs) to any type of behavior: the “antecedent,” which is what prompts a certain behavior; the “behavior” itself; and the “consequence,” which is an action an adult/disciplinarian administers to the child that shapes future behavior. Let’s use the following as an example: “Every time I ask Sarah to do her homework, she breaks down into tears.” In this case, the antecedent would be asking Sarah to do her homework. Sarah’s responding behavior is to cry. The consequence is what she will experience as a result of her behavior—and it will affect how she responds to similar future antecedents. From my observations, both as a professional therapist who works with children and as an uncle to young kids, well-meaning adults often fail to deliver effective consequences—and the child ultimately suffers.

Because my brother doesn’t look at this blog, I’ll use him as a real-life example of how well intentioned consequences can backfire. His five-year-old son (my nephew) has earned a reputation at local restaurants for his meltdowns. My brother, trying to survive the situation, typically responds by giving him the latest digital device or promising a new DVD. Then, everyone gets to enjoy his last few bites of meatloaf. But let’s look at this consequence from my nephew’s perspective: Dad wants me to be quiet, so I’ll throw a tantrum and get my IPAD. Clever little fella!

Teachers, parents: We all live in a fast-paced world where, like my brother, we get caught up in trying to survive the moment—and giving in a little can seem helpful in the present moment. But for your child’s sake (and yours!), I suggest that you look at what the “consequence” is actually teaching him or her. 

Now back to Sarah’s situation, which I’m sure all parents and teachers are familiar with. The expectations here aren’t going to change. Sarah, like every other kid, has to do her homework. How we encourage her to do it is what will make the difference between a session filled with tears and one characterized by productivity. When Sarah starts crying, our first instinct might be to impose our will and set the rules by saying something like, “Sarah, this is unacceptable. If you don’t do your homework, then [fill in the blank, e.g., no TV, computer, etc.].” Yet, imposing our will in this way can often create resentment between us and the child, thus creating a negative feedback loop wherein both sides push back until the kid’s behavior spirals out of control.

An often overlooked aspect of behavior is the role that the child can play in developing a strategy to address the behavior. (In his book Lost at School, Dr. Ross Greene talks extensively about this.) In other words, give her a voice. For example, we might say, “Sarah, we both know that you need to do your homework. How can we develop a plan together that ensures that this happens?” If Sarah is like most kids I know, she will use every bit of leverage to minimize the time she spends on homework. As a parent or teacher, however, you can negotiate and develop a strategy that meets the expectation (completing homework) while also providing Sarah a role in the decision-making process. Note that I’m not suggesting that we allow our kids to make their own rules, but rather include them as a partner in developing a strategy to address their behavior. 

So, instead of surviving the moment, step back and look at your kid’s behavior and develop a strategy together for dealing with it. Identify what the expectations are, and work collaboratively with your child so that everybody can enjoy their meatloaf in peace!  

Behavior comes in many shapes and sizes, just like our kids, and I understand this strategy isn’t effective in all situations. But remember—it's a process, one that takes effort, time, and compromise.

Behavior will be an ongoing discussion, and we will continue to review different situations and strategies. Our next post will look at using visual strategies and positive supports to help kids with behavior.   

Check it out!

As a follow-up to our previous post about using technology to enhance learning, here is another website that offers tons of downloadable books for children of all ages. The website was designed to offer a variety of book options to kids who do not have access to a multitude of books. What a great cause!
Happy reading :)

http://www.wegivebooks.org/books

iLearn: Using Tablets to Facilitate Child Development

Would you be more interested in reading these words if they were moving, flashing, or making noise? Even if you wouldn’t be, your child probably would. This is the result of being a product of the 21^st century, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Along with the technological revolution of this age, comes new, innovative ways for kids to learn important skills that they need across developmental domains.  One important tool that be used to improve cognitive, academic, linguistic, social, and fine motor development is the tablet, including the ever-so-popular Apple iPad.

Have you noticed the startling amount of toddlers able to manipulate touch-screen icons before they can even zip their own jacket? You’re not the only one. Couse and Chen (2010) found that young children were able to easily learn how to draw on a tablet device after adult instruction and peer modeling. Not only are the kids able to use tablets, they want to use them! This is confirmed by Couse and Chen (2010) as they reported on a study in which children between the ages of three and six were found to more readily be able to represent their ideas by drawing on a tablet computer as they were highly motivated by the tool. Because young students are often very interested in using tablet computers and, thus, are eager to take advantage of them, they have more opportunities to work on their fine motor skills and increase their prewriting abilities. So teachers, the best part of using a tablet in the classroom is that you don’t have to sing, dance, or put on any Oscar-worthy performances to get kids motivated because simply breaking out the exciting piece of technology is motivation enough to gain students’ attention.

Now that we know kids want to use tablets, how can we get our children to reap the most benefits of them?

Here is a list of ways the tablet can aide your child’s development:

Drawing: In the early childhood years, children express their thoughts and knowledge through drawing. Students will be more motivated to record these ideas by drawing on a tablet because there are more colors and design features for them to utilize.  Using a tablet instead of a computer with a mouse allows students to have better control over their paintings and allows them to add expressive action by creating dashes, blobs, dots, and spots with ease. These works of art can serve as an outlet for you to know what your child or student is thinking and, thus, may aide kids in communicating ideas and feelings that they may not otherwise be able to relay. Additionally, manipulating the tools to draw on a tablet can aid the development of fine motor skills.

Audio and Video: Students can watch educational videos and listen to child-friendly songs, which will allow them to build early literacy skills like vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and oral fluency. They can even record themselves, which will further develop these skills. A great website for educational videos and audio files is schooltube.com. Teachers can also download audio formats of textbooks for visually impaired students or English language learners.

Why don’t we just download these features on our computers? You may get a few stares while looking for an outlet to plug in your desktop at the latest WiFi hotspot in the subway!

Online Storybooks:  Teachers and parents can download storybooks to tablets to make them as easily transportable as paper books. Online storybooks give students the opportunity to listen the storybooks repeatedly while visualizing the words as they are read on the computer screen. This process essentially builds the child’s ability to automatically recognize sight word vocabulary. Additionally, this digital storybooks exhibit readers who model appropriate tone and oral expression including, using the correct intonation and punctuation while reading, which young readers often have difficulty doing. By providing students with online storybooks, we are giving students the tools they need to engage in the multiple readings that are necessary to develop fluency. Because digital storybooks allot for the same book to be read in different voices, students are often interested in repeated readings.

Here are some links for digital storybooks:

http://kids.aol.com/KOL/1/KOLJrStories

http://www.storylineonline.net

http://www.lil-fingers.com/storybooks/index.php

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/online-storytime-books-toys/379003588/

Digital Storytelling:  Storytelling with the use of an iPad or other tablet can be much more engaging for students than developing a hand-cramp with a dull No. 2 pencil accompanied by the crinkled pages of a marble notebook. Students may also be more motivated to write as digital storytelling provides the opportunity to for kids to include media, images, videos and audio files, which often make text more appealing.

In addition to motivating kids and building fine motor skills, technology-assisted writing can have a positive influence on all elements of the writing process for elementary students. The use of technology has made it more efficient for students to revise their writing. Students now have the ability to save their work electronically and then revisit it to make necessary changes. Additionally, technology has opened the doors to finding information via the Internet and electronic encyclopedias to contribute to students’ writing (Peterson-Karlan, 2011).  

Check it out for yourself:

https://sites.google.com/site/digitalstorytellingwiththeipad/home

Applications: Ah yes, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Perhaps, the most beneficial element of owning a tablet is the access to thousands of applications. Beyond the world of Bejeweled and Words with Friends, exists a ton of great educational apps that your child can take advantage of in order to help them reinforce skills that have been taught in school. These apps include activities across all developmental domains and academic areas.

http://imaginationsoup.net/2012/05/favorite-educational-ipad-apps-for-kids-reading-writing/

http://repinly.machsrichtig.com/2012/10/list-of-free-educational-apps/#rssowlmlink

Our favorite applications are those used to help students with autism or communication disorders in developing the necessary language skills that they need to be successful academically and socially. These apps use social stories, games, and pictures from the students’ own lives to teach kids important linguistic elements including social language, vocabulary, and fluency. A popular communication App exclusively for Apple products is called i-Lexis Pro and it has nothing to do with overpriced cars! See for yourself in the Apple App Store.

Know of any great educational apps for kids? Feel free to post! Our blog is your blog J

References

Couse, L.J. & Chen, D.W. (2010). A tablet computer for young children?   Exploring its viability or early childhood education. Journal of     Research on Technology in Education, 43 (1), 75-98.

Peterson-Karlan, G.R. (2011). Technology to support writing by students with learning and academic disabilities: Recent research trends and findings. Assistive Technology Outcomes and Benefits, 7(1), 39-

Picture This! Using Visuals to Facilitate Independence for Children with Autism

As evidenced by some recent articles in the New York Times regarding autism, the condition is heavily researched and often misunderstood. Although we aren’t sure about the exact pathology, there are best practices in terms of treatment. Among these, using pictures to facilitate language and overall education and understanding is essential in any program for students with autism. Researchers agree that one hallmark of those on the autism spectrum is that they better understand the world in pictures. While verbal communication is often subject to interpretation, clear, objective pictures can be used to easily convey intended meaning. To help understand this, let’s take the following sentence: “You stole the cookies from the jar!” Say that out loud and put the emphasis on different words. One simple sentence can have five different meanings, whereas a picture of a person grabbing a cookie from the cookie jar has more direct meaning.  

A picture activity schedule is a visual display of sequenced events that are expected to occur or be completed. Picture schedules can be used to present the steps required to complete an activity or outline the events of an entire day.  They generally include visual prompts like photographs and picture symbols.  Some teachers and parents use visual schedules in order to allow children to complete tasks more independently. These tasks may include: getting dressed, going to the bathroom, washing hands, and transitioning from one activity to another throughout the school day. Research indicates that using picture schedules allow for a more structured teaching environment where student-expectations are clear and adult prompting is minimized (Bryan & Gast, 2000).

Let’s take a look at how this might look for your student.

“Getting six-year-old Joseph ready for bed is such a struggle. I tell him to go get ready for bed, and he just looks at me. “Getting ready for bed” is an abstract concept that has a lot of different meanings for people—and it’s exactly the type of scenario that a student with autism struggles with. Below is a chart using pictures that will explain in an objective, sequential way how bedtime occurs.

Here is another example of a visual schedule. This one is perfect for building student independence during mealtime at school: 

Pictures can be used in a variety of situations, both at home and at school. Any time someone has difficulty understanding a scenario or expectations, best practice suggests using a multi-sensory approach to learning, which will allow for greater understanding. Our next post will be on using visuals to help men properly load the dishwasher!

References

Bryan, L.C. & Gast, D.L. (2000).  Teaching on-task and on-schedule behaviors to high-functioning children with autism via picture activity schedules. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30 (6), 553-567.