By Sean Mulcrone
Function-Based
Classroom Intervention Ideas
In order to determine the most
appropriate intervention for a target behavior, we must first determine what
the behavior’s function, or purpose, is.
Broadly stated, the function of a behavior is usually to gain or avoid
something. The most common
function for students who look to gain something are gaining attention or
gaining a tangible reward. The
most common function for students who look to avoid something is work avoidance. Another behavioral function that
doesn’t fall into either category is sensory stimulation. Examples of such include a desire to
feel pressure on one part of the body, a desire to be active and/or a desire to
engage in repetitive physical activities (hand flapping, vocalizations, etc). While most commonly seen in students
who are on the Autism Spectrum, they can be seen in students with ADHD or
Emotional Disorders as well.
Class-wide Behavioral Interventions
(To be used when the
Target Behavior is being exhibited by >20% of your students)
Independent Group Contingency Plans
An Independent Group Contingency is a plan where each
student is responsible for his or her behavior, and can earn a reward if they
meet a selected criteria. The only thing that makes this group-oriented is that
everyone participating has access to the reinforcers on the same terms. The
teacher could choose to have all of the students in the class participate or
just the students that need assistance with improving their behavior. No student should be penalized for the
behavior of anyone else.
How to Set-Up:
1.)
Pinpoint behaviors to be changed (Be sure to define and teach the
alternative, desired behavior).
2.)
Decide which behaviors will have to be exhibited, and how often, in
order for the student(s) to earn reinforcement.
3.)
Select reinforcers (can use a reinforcement menu w/students which is
attached). This can also be done
by asking the class what they would like to earn, allowing greater student
ownership over the intervention.
4.)
Prepare class for the intervention by first discussing the problem, how
the problem impacts all of them, how the intervention may be beneficial, and
how it will be implemented in the classroom.
Works Well For:
-Most
all classrooms.
-Best if a majority of students in the
classroom are motivated to earn the reward.
Dependent Group Contingency Plans
A Dependent Group Contingency is a plan where one student,
or small group of students, may earn a reward for the entire class. A agreement would be drawn up that
defines what behaviors will have to be exhibited in order for the student(s) to
earn a reward for the class.
How to Set Up:
1.) Identify a student, or group of students who are appropriate
for this intervention (most appropriate for students who have the skills to
engage in the desired behavior, but do not consistently perform it. Also works best for students who are
social and can withstand some backlash if the class doesn’t receive the award).
2.) Identify the desired behavior that you would like the
student(s) to
engage in (must be clearly defined
and at least initially, be something the student can accomplish with little
difficulty).
-Identify the criteria (how often
the desired behavior will have to be exhibited by the student) in order for the
class to be eligible for the reward.
3.) Prepare class for the intervention by first discussing the
problem, how the problem impacts all of them, and how the intervention will be
helpful, and how it will be implemented in the classroom.
Works Best For:
-Students
who have the skills to engage in the desired behavior.
-Students who are social and can
withstand some backlash if the class
doesn’t receive the reward.
-DO NOT attempt with students who
have anxiety or who may be bullied by the class if they don’t earn the reward.
Interdependent Group Contingency Plans
An Interdependent Group Contingency Plan is one in which all
the students in a defined group must meet the set criteria in order for any of
the group members to earn a reward.
This can be set up where all the students in the entire class must meet
a set criteria, a select group of students must meet that criteria, or one can
even divide the class into teams and the teams that meet the criteria are
eligible for the reward.
How
to Set Up:
1.) Identify behaviors that you would like to see change in your
classroom.
2.) Determine if all the students in the class should have to
meet that criteria or if only a select few should have to.
3.) Determine what rewards should be used (Asking the students
themselves or using a Reward Menu may be most helpful).
4.) Set the behavioral criteria required to earn the reward, it
should be objectively defined and easy for students to understand.
5.) Prepare class for the intervention by first discussing the problem,
how the problem impacts all of them, and how the intervention will be
implemented in the classroom.
Works
Best For:
-Most
classrooms
-Classrooms where a majority of students
will be interested in earning the reward.
-If there is students sabotage the
intervention in order to get negative attention, you may consider taking those
students out of that group to avoid conflict.
Individualized Behavioral Interventions
(To be used when the
Target Behavior is being exhibited by <20% of your students.)
Suggested Interventions when
Gaining Attention is the Function
Praise Schedule
The main goal of this intervention is to provide them more
praise/recognition/attention for engaging in desired behaviors, as opposed to inadvertently
providing them with this attention when they engage in the target behavior. More formal versions of this
intervention may look like a teacher keeping a private tally of positive
recognitions, putting objects in a jar/box/container each time positive
recognition is given, or having a student record the number of times they have
heard a positive recognition.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) The ideal ratio for praise to redirection comments is 3:1,
which for some of our students may seem extremely difficult.
2.) With this being said, first identify how you would like to
keep track of praise statements (tallies, paper clips, stickers, etc). Make sure this method is easy to do and
one that you will have access to throughout the day.
3.) Once you have a tracking method set up, you should set a
soft goal on how many positive praise/recognition statements you’d like to
give. This number should be as
close to the 3:1 ratio mentioned earlier, or, at least a 25% increase from the
number of positive praise/recognition statements the student currently
receives.
Works
Best For
-All
students, especially those who seek attention from adults.
Self-Monitoring
Self-Monitoring is one of the most well researched and
effective interventions for changing behavior. The goal of the intervention is to increase the student’s
self-awareness with respect to their behavior, as they keep track of how often
they engage in a behavior. Most
commonly, these behaviors are tracked in relation to a mutually agreed upon
goal. If the student(s) are
motivated to change a behavior (do better on tests, learn more, etc) then the
increase in self-awareness alone should go a long way towards changing a target
behavior. If the student(s) are
not initially motivated, then providing a reward upon the successful completion
of the self-monitoring form and/or providing a reward after a certain criteria
have been met, may be helpful in changing the target behavior. Examples may include a student rating
themselves on how much of the material they understand; a student tracking how
often they engage in a particular desired behavior; and/or a student who tracks
how often their mind wanders in class.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) Together with the student(s), come up with a mutually agreed
upon goal. It is important that
the student be motivated to complete
the goal, so having their input is
crucial.
2.) Develop a way that progress towards that goal can be
measured. Is it daily points for
effort? A checklist where tasks
can be crossed off? A calendar
where one can mark down their daily progress (with weight, grades, a particular
behavior, etc).
3.) Agree upon a time and procedure to
record one’s progress. Most
commonly, this is done at the end
of the period. If the student(s)
motivation to reach their goal is low and they need assistance, having a
teacher review their rating and/or recognize their progress towards their goal
may be very helpful.
4.) Reviewing progress towards that goal frequently can be very
helpful. Most commonly, this is
done at the end of each week, but it can be longer or shorter depending on the
student’s level on interest/motivation.
Works
Well For:
-Almost all students in many
different situations. The more
motivated the student is to succeed, the better it will go. If the student is unmotivated, it may
be very important to show them they can be successful at first, through either
positive recognition or tangible rewards early on.
Talk Ticket
This is an intervention for students who too frequently seek
attention from others, especially teachers. In this intervention, students and staff member agree on how
many times they can seek attention from a specific person or persons. This number is then represented by a
physical object, most commonly a ticket, punch-card or tally. Each time the student seeks attention
from that specific person or persons, they hand over one of their items and, in
effect, use up one of their limited chances at gaining their attention.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) Get a baseline of how often the student requests attention
from a specific person or persons (works best if the student is trying to gain
the attention from a teacher/staff member).
2.) Once the baseline is determined, reduce that number by
20-25% and that will be the number of times a student can request attention
from that specific person(s).
3.) Decide how one would like to keep track of that number,
whether it through physical “tickets”, tallies, signatures, etc.
4.) Discuss the importance of being independent and/or making
limited requests for attention with the student and introduce the intervention.
5.) Go over the steps of the intervention, mainly that the
student will be given so many “talk tickets” (or however you are keeping track
of the requests for attention), and each time they make a request for attention
from that person, they lose one “talk ticket” and only have so many left.
Suggested Interventions when
Gaining Tangible Item is the Function.
Token Economy
When the function of a behavior is to obtain a tangible
object, the basic rule of thumb is to allow them to earn that object, but only
after they’ve met some mutually agreed upon goals or accomplished specific
tasks. One way this is done is
through a “Token Economy”. In this
intervention, each time the student engages in a desired behavior they earn a “token”,
which can be physical objects (like coins, stamps, stickers, etc) or
points. As the student accumulates
points, they can choose to “spend” the “tokens” on certain rewards. Ideally, the student and staff member
would agree on a few potential rewards before the intervention, with some
rewards being worth more tokens and some being less. This variety in price allows for both easily accessible short
term rewards and more gratifying long term rewards. Examples of this intervention include: a student who earns
time listening to music after they’ve earned a certain number of participation
points, a student who earns a positive phone call home after earning so many
gold cards, or a student who gets points each time they engage in a particular
desired behavior and chooses their reward from a list at the end of each week.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) Understand what rewards/reinforcements the student may want
to work towards. This can be done
using a “Reward Menu” so the students can choose from a list of potential
rewards.
2.) Once they have identified a reward, or several potential
rewards, you must decide how “valuable” they are, meaning, how many “tokens”
the student must earn to receive that reward.
3.) Tokens can be any physical object that represents “value”
that can be put towards the “purchase” of a reward. Pieces of paper, gold cards, wooden tokens or points can all
be used as tokens.
4.) Once a potential reward(s) have been
chosen, tokens decided
upon, the next
step is to determine how tokens will be earned.
5.) With the student(s), decide which behaviors will be worthy
of earning tokens. Weight can also
be modified to reflect the importance of the desired behavior(s). For instance, finishing one’s in class
assignment may be worth 1 token, but helping someone else finish theirs may be
worth 2.
6.) Lastly, decide on who will hold onto the tokens (student or
teacher) and how the accumulation of tokens will be tracked.
*DO NOT take away tokens that the
student has earned. If the student
does not engage in the desired behavior, they will not earn more tokens.
May
be Best For:
-Many students may benefit from
this intervention. Works best for
students who have difficulty delaying gratification or who have difficulty
sustaining their motivation.
Suggested Interventions when
Avoiding/Escaping Work is the Function.
Schedule Breaks
If the function of the behavior is to avoid/escape work, one
of the most common interventions is to allow the student to take a temporary
break from the work, but only after they’ve completed a predetermined amount of
work first. How much work they
will be expected to do before they earn a break is wholly dependent on how much
work they’re currently completing.
Ideally, students should be asked to do 15-25% more work then their current
rate in order to be granted a break.
Over time, the amount of work required before a break is granted should
be gradually increased.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) Get a baseline of how much work a student typically
completes.
2.) Meet with the student to discuss the importance of work
(practice leads to mastery, convey what you’ve learned, passing the class,
etc), then make an agreement whereby if they complete 10-20% more work than the
baseline, they are awarded with a small break.
3.) This can be set-up as a class-wide contingency, whereby all
the students in class are awarded a break if all complete a certain amount of
work.
Works Best For:
-Students who are not interested
in completing academic tasks and those with ADHD.
Pre-Rating Difficulty
This is a preventative approach that asks students to rate
the difficulty of a task that they are about to complete. Many times, this can be from a 0-10
point scale, with 0 being very easy and 10 being very hard. By doing this, students are already
engaging themselves in the task, understanding which problems maybe easier to
start with, and letting the staff members know which problems they find
difficult.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) Instruct student(s) that you would like them to rate the
difficulty of the task.
2.) This can be done in some different ways, but the most common
are a likert scale (with 1 being very easy and 10 being very difficult) or with
a percentage (0% being not understanding anything and 100% being understanding everything).
3.) Decide how the students will display their rating, this is
most commonly done on the top left or right hand corner of the paper. It can also be done on the I-Pad or
verbally.
Works
Best For:
-A
preventative approach that can help all students.
Building Behavioral Momentum
For students who have difficulty starting their work, they
may benefit from an initial reduction in the amount of work they are presented
with. This may take the form of
only doing even or odd numbered problems or being presented with only 1 task to
do at a time. The basic premise is
that if students are presented with fewer tasks, they’ll be less “overwhelmed”,
and will be more likely to start on a task. Once they start on a task, it will build momentum to keep
working.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) Analyze the student’s work habits. Do they take a long-time to get started? Do they give up after a few
problems? Do they rush through
their work? Are they perfectionistic?
2.) The option for gradually increasing the difficulty of work
will largely depend on the student(s) work habits.
3.) If they take a long time to get started, have the students
work on very simple problems/steps first, to build momentum.
4.) If they give up after a few problems, have the student(s)
circle problems they think they can solve easily, then underline the problems
they are a little less confident in.
At first, consider allowing the student to complete just the circled
items, but over time, gradually have them complete more and more of the circled
items.
5.) If the students rush through their work, then setting a
rule, whereby they only be done if they complete a certain number of problems
correctly may be helpful. Either
this, or having them re-do the tasks they rush through each time (if feasible).
6.) There are probably other habits of work that do not fall
into any of these categories. If
so, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Sean Mulcrone or anyone within
Student Services.
Works Best For:
-Students who have the academic
skills to complete academic tasks, but underperform and complete less work than
they are capable of doing.
Suggested Interventions when
Sensory Stimulation is the Function
Sensory Breaks
When the function of the target behavior is to satisfy a
sensory need, then the most common approach is to allow them to meet that need
more appropriately, whether that’s through more appropriate behavior or at a
more appropriate time. In these
cases, taking preventative approaches in most ideal. Some examples of preventative approaches are allowing a
student with ADHD pass out papers or become a classroom helper in order to meet
the physical desire for hyperactivity.
Another preventative approach might be to grant a student a stress ball
should they need to feel the sense of pressure in their hands. If a preventative approach cannot be
taken, allowing the student to excuse themselves while they engage the target
behavior may be necessary, with a follow-up conversation on what other
alternatives may have been more appropriate.
How
to Set-Up:
1.) Ensure that sensory stimulation is the primary function of
the behavior. Evidence of this may
be that it often occurs randomly (unless it’s stress related, in which case
there will be a pattern), will not change regardless of what happens after the
behavior (if rewards or punishments are implemented) and it appears as thought
the student has no control over when they engage in the behavior.
2.) Together with the student, agree upon a signal (can be
verbal or non-verbal) that the student will give to you when they notice that
they have the urge to engage in the target behavior. Some common signals may include raising ones hand,
requesting to go to the bathroom, handing the teacher a card, etc.
3.) Once the signal has been agreed upon, then the student will
be allowed to engage in the replacement behavior, or more socially appropriate
alternative behavior. Depending on
the alternative behavior, this may be done inside the or outside of the
classroom. Examples of some
alternative behaviors done outside of the classroom include clearing ones
throat loud for those students who need vocal cord stimulation or walking
around for hyperactive student.
Some examples of alternative behaviors done inside the classroom include
utilizing a stress-ball for students who need tactile stimulation or a rubber
band on the skin for students who have self-injury urges.
4.) Over time, as the student(s) becomes more self-aware, they
may engage in the target behavior without the signal or prompt, especially if
it’s something they can do within the classroom setting.
Works
Best For:
-Students
who have sensory needs that require stimulation.
