Using Positive Behavior Support in the Home for Positive Change
Positive Behavior Support (PBS) is an area that has received a lot of attention in recent years. This type of program has become popular for many reasons including the strong research support that documents its efficacy in supporting positive change in children both in school, home, and other environments. These programs can be helpful as well since they can be utilized with a particular child, but also with a whole program such as for an entire school or district.
Positive Behavior Support has been defined as:
an empirically validated, function-based approach to eliminate challenging behaviors and replace them with prosocial skills. Use of PBS decreases the need for more intrusive or aversive interventions (i.e., punishment or suspension) and can lead to both systemic as well as individualized change.
PBS can target an individual student or an entire school, as it does not focus exclusively on the student, but also includes changing environmental variables such as the physical setting, task demands, curriculum, instructional pace and individualized reinforcement. Thus it is successful with a wide range of students, in a wide range of contexts, with a wide range of behaviors.
PBS is based on behavioral theory; problem behavior continues to occur because it is consistently followed by the child getting something positive or escaping something negative. By focusing on the contexts and outcomes of the behavior, it is possible to determine the functions of the behavior, make the problem behavior less effective and efficient, and make the desired behavior more functional. This often involves changing systems, altering environments and teaching new skills, as well as focusing on the problem behavior. [1]
Laura Riffel presented a list of questions and examples of how these same PBS theories and strategies can be used in the home. She notes that PBS is:
1. Deciding what behavior you want to change
2. Deciding how you want that behavior to change
3. Using behavior science to change that behavior
a. Develop a theory about why you think the behavior is occurring
b. Test your theory
4. Using supports that have been tested and proven to work
a. Teach new skills to get the same results
b. Change environments and daily routines
c. Reward positive behaviors
Positive behavior support does not mean changing the child; rather, it means creating a new environment that supports the positive behavior you want to achieve. It means creating a plan that determines who will help and what you will do differently. [2]
Next, I will provide an example to illustrate how a person can use these PBS strategies within a family context. One difficult time for families can be car rides with their children. A parent might decide that he or she wants car rides to change due to negative acting behaviors such as children arguing in the car, being too loud, not asking appropriately for things such as changing the radio station, etc. A parent might decide that instead he or she wants the children to get along in the car (or at a minimum keep to themselves), use good manners when asking for something, use inside voices, etc. This parent may guess that this is happening in the car for several reasons such as the children don't know what is expected in the car, they are bored, yelling or misbehaving has worked in the past (I yell and the radio station changes or I get the front seat), etc. This parent can then provide skill teaching such as role playing to show how he or she expects the child to act in the car. This often can be fun for the parent to act out both appropriate (sitting quietly, making requests appropriately) and inappropriate (demonstrating yelling, banging on the seat, being wild) ways to act in the car. If boredom is thought to be a potential trigger the parent can then also structure car rides to address this with activities that he or she deems as acceptable, such as allowing children to listen to Ipods, having travel games in the car, and other possibilities based on individual child interest. One parent I know had a child who would often misbehave in the car when he was thirsty so she found that when she made a point to always have water available in the car this negative behavior was greatly decreased by good planning and altering the environment to better meet her child's unique needs.
The next step involves repetition and consistency as the parent works to reinforce through praise and rewards every positive behavior witnessed and not reward negative behaviors. While this is definitely a process to shape behavior the more consistent a parent is for acknowledging and rewarding behaviors again and again, while also not reinforcing negatives such as changing the radio station despite a child asking in an unacceptable way, significant progress will be made. Evaluating this type of plan can also be critical for its success to test out theories and make improvements. While these types of PBS interventions can be challenging for parents to implement (especially at first) these systematic options can greatly reduce stress for parents as they help children to use more prosocial skills.
[1] Cohen. A. 2001. Positive Behavior Support: Information for Educators. National Association of School Psychologists-4340 East West Highway, #402, Bethesda, MD 20814. Found at: www.nasponline.org/resources/factsheets/pbs_fs.aspx
[2] Riffel, L. Turnbull, A. Getting Behavior in Shape at Home. Found at www.pbis.org/spanish/files/behaviorshape.doc
