So far, we have discussed many behavioral-based strategies that you can use at home and in other settings. For example, behavior-specific praise, shaping, and token economy. These strategies are helpful when you are with your child. However, what if your child is at school and the teacher reports that the child displays unwanted behavior such as disrupting in class, problems with transitions from one task to another? What can you do when you are not around? Teachers are usually extremely busy and have many children in one class to monitor and many lessons to plan. Thus, it is recommended not to rely on the teachers solely. Home-based reinforcement program (HBRP) could be beneficial.
HBRP is a method for effective behavior change in which your child’s behavior in school is reported to his or her parents who then reward the behavior. Here are the steps for an HBRP:
Be specific with the behavior: What is the behavior that the teacher and you are concern about in school? When defining the behavior make sure to be specific and both you and the teacher have the same definition in terms of what the behavior might look like.
Creating a system: There should be a system set up for the teacher to use when measuring your child’s behavior. Such as a Likert scale of 0 to 2. 0 means there is no change and unwanted behavior is still there and 2 means there is a drastic change in behavior and great improvement is observed by the teacher. At the end of the day, an index card with a point will be handed to you indicating how many points your child earned on that day.
Reward program or token economy: In a separate blog post we discussed the token economy. Similarly, your child earns the points based on the points that she received on that day in exchange for the predetermined rewards. Also, make sure there are various small and big rewards so your child can get smaller rewards immediately or save up tokens for bigger rewards.
To ensure that HBRP will be successful in changing unwanted behavior.
- Working with the teacher to focus on one behavior at a time.
- Your reactions to your child’s score are important to the success of the program.
- Make sure to celebrate small improvement, one of the pitfalls for the program is demanding perfection.
- When score is
- 0 – your response should be calm and do not complain or ask what happened because it might hinder the willingness of the child to participate in the program. For example, you can say “You did not get any points today but you can try again tomorrow.”
- 1 – Praise the slight improvement.
- 2 – Praise the perfect score enthusiastically.
HBRP is a useful strategy to address behavior issues in school and other settings. Most teachers are more than willing to participate as it does not demand a lot of effort and also helps change unwanted behavior.
For next week, we will discuss a behavioral strategy used for sleep problems with children called “bedtime pass”.
Strategies such as planned ignoring and behavior-specific praise are consequence-based interventions. In other words, those strategies come after the behavior has happened. What if we can address the behavior on the front end? This is when Antecedent interventions come into play. Antecedent interventions are designed to change the environment or setting events before a particular behavior occurs to increase the likelihood of positive behavior. Board-certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) often manipulate antecedents to set up opportunities to prompt more positive behavior.
There are many common types of antecedent strategies:
Using clear and specific instructions: It is important to keep in mind that when you ask your child to do something, be as specific as you can. For example, instead of saying “Go clean up your room.”, “Pick up 3 pieces of clothing on your bedroom floor.” Having clear and specific instructions is not only easier for your child to comply but also your child knows what is being expected. Of course, you do not need to always be so specific with your instructions, but it is helpful when you start developing positive behavior.
Visuals: Research has shown that individuals who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder tend to process visual cues better than auditory ones. Using visual schedules to present clear expectations. They are similar to planners we use for school or work but instead of listing all the tasks for the day.
Offer choices: Giving choices is a powerful tool to increase compliance. Using clear and specific instructions might be enough for your child. However, if you have any problems with compliance, by adding choice, you will increase the impact. For example, you could say to your child “Please put on your green gloves or brown gloves, we are going outside.” By offering a choice, it will greatly increase the chance that your child puts something on right away.
The three antecedent strategies mentioned above are helpful tools to increase compliance and decrease unwanted behavior. It is more effective if you combine them with reinforcement strategies (e.g., behavior-specific praise, token economy).
Next week, we will discuss an effective tool: Home-based reinforcement program (HBRP) to manage your child’s behavior in school settings.
Last week, we introduced planned ignoring to guide your child’s behavior. The idea of planned ignoring is that you deliberately withhold your attention when unwanted behaviors occur. Attention is a powerful reinforcer that you might not realize. Sometimes, even reprimands or negative attention could serve as a reinforcer for children. The questions are how to make planned ignoring more effective and if it is suitable for you and your child.
One of the most difficult aspects is ignoring. As sometimes, it is extremely difficult to not give in from time to time. Here are some tips when using planned ignoring:
- Plan ways to distract yourself: You should always be proactive and find things or ways to distract yourself from attending to the behavior. You could put on some music, breathe deeply, or think of something irrelevant such as planning your shopping list.
- Start withholding your attention when the behavior starts and provide attention right away when the behavior stops.
- Always give your child positive attention and praise for positive behavior or the alternative behavior. In other words, the behavior you want to see instead.
As not every strategy is suitable for every situation. Here are questions that help you to answer whether planned ignoring is right for you and your child:
Can I ignore the behavior if it gets worse?
We talked about extinction burst in which you would see an expected increase in unwanted behavior. For example, if the unwanted behavior is tapping the table and once you start withholding your attention, they start slamming the table. If you feel that you cannot deal with and simply ignore the behavior, it is better to stick to reinforcement-based strategies.
Should you ignore the behavior?
Some behavior cannot be ignored for obvious reasons. You cannot ignore behaviors that might harm themselves, others.
Is the behavior also reinforced by other’s attention?
The unwanted behaviors could also be maintained by other’s attention. For example, another caregiver, siblings, friends. Therefore, it is difficult to see the desired results when only you are withholding attention for the behavior.
Planned ignoring is not suitable for everyone and every situation. Therefore, you should ask your board-certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) for suggestions.
We will switch gears next week and discuss antecedent strategies that could address unwanted behaviors before they happen.
