Positive Behavior Support Plan: Strategies, Implementation, And Evaluation

An Operational Definition of the Target Behavior

Discuss about the Positive Behavior Support Plan.

From the case study, we see that Stephen is more of an outdoor person that an indoor one. This is shown by the fact that he enjoys all physical sports activities with examples of dirty biking and the NRL games in general. He also depicts sensitiveness to social and well-being of others. Sociable depicts a scenario in which a person is able and willing to relate to others despite their economic, religion, tribe and social status. The study case shows that Stephen is quick to offer assistance to the teachers and youngers students whenever the need arises. The theme of sociability is also shown by the fact that he works well with peer partners (Luiselli et al. 2005).

The case study also depicts that despite the fact that he is sociable, this is only limited to the selected few as he has few friend only of whom share his interest. Intelligence has not been one of Stephens strong points. Intelligence can be described as an act of any person to obtain and exercise the skills and knowledge that they have to learn with no apparent difficulties. We are told that Stephen has difficulty in interpretation, selection of relevant details from given information, problem-solving, a problem with creating a sequence of ideas and abstract thinking. This all point to the fact that his intelligence capacity is below average. Brook also has extensive moral decay behavior. A phrase used to describe a fall in the moral behavior of a person. This is depicted by the fact that he engages in serious problematic behaviors such as kicking, hitting and spitting to fellow students. The fact that he swears and yells at other students shows that he is arrogant and can engage in any activity and fold a blind eye on the consequences. This is in fact shown when he recruits other students to refuse to do work and leave the classroom after which he usually leaves the classroom abruptly and wanders around the school grounds (Sarafino, 2001). 

The targeted behavior to be worked in Stephen is moral decay. Stephen has a moral decay by the fact that he fails to uphold virtues in his practices. The fact that he spits, kicks and hits other students shows that he is morally unstable. He also does lack morals when he calls at other students and his teachers and disrupts the normal studying environment. After which he just walks out and wonders about the school grounds. Stephen shows excessive pride and offensive displays of superiority. In cases where he yells and swears to other students, the teaching staff and disrupts learning progress by poking and calling to other students his teachers shows that he doesn't care about the learning process and he is capable of doing worse. Arrogance is also depicted when he prides himself on not doing school work and tries to recruit other students refusing to work with him. After which he leaves the classroom and wanders around the school compound (Carr et al. 2008).

Overview of the strategies to support the implementation of the plan within the School Setting

Overview of the strategies to support the implementation of the plan within the School Setting

To foster the implementation of behavioral change in Stephen, strategies have to be put in place by the teacher to aid in his change. This will help Stephen in behavior modification and also bring peace in harmony and the school and the school setting. The support plan for Stephen's behavior should be carefully selected to suit his particular behavior. There should be the concept of openness in an attempt to make him speak and explain why he does the things he does. Is it peer pressure, lack of interest or just boredom. Several posts of problem-solving technique should be put in place, and the best that suits him should be applied. Then there is the evaluation of the results to see if the solution put in place is bearing any fruits(Abraham, & Michie, 2008).   

These will include steps such as;

• Seeking of information; in this step the I will focus my attention on listening to Stephen. This indeed will give me a clue as to why Stephen behaves the way he does. It will also provide an opportunity for us to bond. And this bonding is important as it creates trust between the two. And whenever there is trust there is openness. Hence the willingness to share. I should be prepared with a set of questions to ask Stephen. This test the understanding of Stephen to such context as good morals behavior, his take on being nice to others, knowing whether inflicting pain to others makes him happy and whether he has a belief in religion and societal, cultural practices that fuel the practice of good behavior (Sugai, & Horner, 2002).
• Actual problem solving; in this step, I will try and devise a means to change his thinking and help him work towards a positive behavior practice. I will understand what makes him behave the way he does, provide him with the possible shot coming he will encounter if he is to get a bad recommendation for his behavior and provide him with a working plan for his behavior that he can use to help him improve.
• Trying out a solution; this is by suggesting the various techniques he sees that would fit with his behavior modification. And encouraging him to practice them so that he can attain the best.
• Evaluation; I would encourage him to continuously evaluate himself by recording daily events in a diary. By so doing he could have a reference to his progress and see where he went wrong and when and try never to do it again in case a similar challenge presents itself to him again (Bambara, & Knoster, 2009).

The support plan should include the following steps;

Seeking information is mainly where we create a rapport with Stephen and try to make him open up. This will help us understand why he does the things that he do from his point of view. That will help me understand the source of the problem and a better way to help him. The following guideline will make me achieve the above. 

My first step in problem solving will aim at winning Stephen's trust in me. I will engage him in conversation. Inform him of his strong personality of helping the younger students and the teachers when the need arises. This will act as a pacesetter for Stephen's problem-solving process. I will develop his mind and psychologically people who have trust in their psychologist are more willing to open up to the compared to when there are fear and enmity between them. An incidence of just dropping a bombshell on them of their bad behavior will make them shy away from confidence as opposed to softly speaking and understanding the causal agent.

In this step, I will mainly focus on listening to Stephen's point of view when it comes to the behavior he has been displaying. Helped by a set of questions I had prepared I will determine his take on his behavior and compare the will good quality behavior. I will also compare his behavior to one of his fellow students and determine what he thinks about his/her character and whether it is possible for him to enumerate the same.

Completed Positive Behaviour Support Plan

In the actual problem-solving step process would be efficient for Stephen to help him solve his problems. These are;

Here I will encourage Stephen to explain to me why he is doing all that he does. I will try and figure out what is his point of view when it comes to discipline and following of the school rules and regulations. I will want to see what are his interest and because he is so much into outdoor activities how can I incorporate the two to make classroom environment more appealing to his as the field experience.  I will also let Stephen describe the problem in his words and since I have experience in problem-solving some factors leads to this kind of behavior like peer pressure, unsettled issues in the family, media influence among others (Sugai et al. 2000).

In this stage, I will inform Stephen that despite the fact that he is so good in outdoors activities his behavior may be a hindrance to his success in future. I could introduce an example of a hindrance such as a bad recommendation letter from the headteacher stating his poor relationship with fellow students and teachers. This could kill his dream as a player and may lead to loss of a potential job in any sporting club. I will encourage Stephen to verbalize these impediments because it acts as a major stepping stone to behavioral change for the best (Metzler et al. 2001).

Upon initializing the problem itself and the various causes and effect its can have to him in future, I would let him name some solution he can come up with to solve his problem. I could also introduce several problems solving techniques and let him choose what best suits him (Hetzroni, 2003).

After Stephen has selected a working solution that he thinks will work better for him, I will encourage him to keep a record of his progress. This should be kept up to date with the challenges he faced and the solutions he made either good or bad. He should practice honesty while doing this and keep precise documentation on his progress. I would also encourage him to work through a certain selected strategy until he can see a change in his behavior (McAtee et al. 2004).

To measure the progress in his behavioral change, he should look back at the decisions he made over certain stimuli. He should have a close look at the diary he had been keeping for clarity as it contains all events he has been through. He should assess whether he is making any progress with the process or just none. He should also devise a means to scale his outcome based on the decision he made to represent it graphically and see whether he is making progress or not. He should get the data in his diary as below.

Seeking of Information

The graphical representation of his progress should be based on whether there is an improvement a deterioration or just nothing is happening. The following graph represents an example of a positive behavioral change (Miltenberger, 2011).

In this incidence, he should keep up and continue using the behavioral modification strategy as it is bearing good results. He could also modify it when need arises in case he is faced upon by a stimulus that requires his undivided attention towards making a choice regarding the ethical beliefs (Sanetti et al. 2007).

A negative behavioral change represents no change in the original behavior of a subject. In the case of the diary score the graph produced does not show an improvement of his behavior towards the best then he should totally abandon the technique and adopt another that will bear more fruits. A negative behavioral graph shown below shows that there is little or no progress whatsoever and the little high score that Stephen scored is from his initial good behavior of helping younger students and teachers when the need arises (Martin, & Pear, 2015). 

Conclusion

Stephen is a good student. The fact that he helps his fellow students and pupils shows that he still has some good in himself. And the fact that he is a good team player and loves outdoor activities proves that he is a social person. With proper implementation of the behavior modification support plan such as the understanding why he does the bad things and the adoption of a practical behavioral change plan will make him have a positive improvement in his behaviors, and this will have a positive impact not only on the outdoor activities nut also in class and in relation to his fellow students who really don't share his interests (Kraemer et al. 2008).

Reference

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Martin, G., & Pear, J. J. (2015). Behavior modification: What it is and how to do it. Psychology Press.

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Miltenberger, R. G. (2011). Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures. Cengage Learning.

Sanetti, L. M. H., Luiselli, J. K., & Handler, M. W. (2007). Effects of verbal and graphic performance feedback on behavior support plan implementation in a public elementary school. Behavior Modification, 31(4), 454-465.

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