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Behavior Change Project

Samuel A. Banks

SPED 411

Old Dominion University

Operational definition:

This document will include a small child named Darin that has autism and severe

intellectual disabilities, which could be the current causations of his fundamental issues

with communication. He is also age 9 and enrolled in 3 rd class in his school. Sometimes

Darin demonstrates self-harmful behavior (i.e., he smacks himself a lot) and tantrum

related conduct (i.e., he kicks and screams when frustrated), and this interrupts his

lesson activities and classmates. The collected data on Darin shows that he tends to

exhibit this adverse behavior when he does not know the distinct activities that he needs

to do, when he needs to communicate in front of his classmates, and when he needs to

write about a matter. However, the data collection approach utilized did not include the

duration of his misbehavior or the rate of reoccurrence. Darin’s teacher and team made

the decision that it would be beneficial to alternate the environment of the classroom to

decrease the certain activities that caused Darin to exhibit the adverse behavior. His

teachers and team also decided that it would be useful to offer him instruction on how to

ask for a break as a replacement behavior, rather than use their earlier approach that

would involve his forced removal from the situation. This should decrease his tantrum

related conduct and self-harmful behavior that resulted in his removal from the class,

and allow him to build his basic communicational skills and receive helpful

reinforcement.

Data collection:

The team interviewed Darin’s teachers and observed his behavior over a certain

amount of time in order to collect data on his conduct and find some causations of his

harmful behavior. This was useful because interviews and observation are reliable and
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valid tools for data collection across various academic matters. Anecdotal recording is a

kind of observational tool that is a detailed account written after a certain behavior or

interaction arises. This will allow educators to examine how well Darin handles a

situation and exhibits approaches (i.e., if he asks for a break or communicates his

emotions) that he has been instructed on how to use. This will be done each class over

the course of 3 weeks in order to collect data on his conduct and to decide whether his

instruction needs to have modifications made. Duration recording is another kind of

observation tool that documents the extent of a certain behavior that a child exhibits;

and it is wonderful for conduct that has an abnormal reoccurrence rate and definite start

and end to it. This will allow teachers to measure how often Darin demonstrates tantrum

related conduct and self-harmful behavior as well as measure the duration of these

adverse behaviors. This can be done with a stopwatch to measure the duration of his

misconduct, and a charted record can document how often this behavior occurs. This

measure can be done over the course of 4 weeks in order to collect date on how much

his bad behavior decreases.

Antecedents:

An antecedent is a stimulus that occasion before a certain subsequent behavior

happens. The team of individuals that interviewed Darin’s teachers and observed his

conduct identified the antecedents that led to his harmful behavior and tantrum related

misconduct. The team observed that Darin started to misbehave when he did not know

what to do, when he had to talk in front of his classmates, and when he had to write.

Consequence:
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Children with autism and severe intellectual disabilities often demonstrate deficits

in their abilities to communicate in an effective manner that allow other individuals to

understand them can exhibit frustration when misunderstood. A student that lacks the

essential communicational skills to articulate their frustration sometimes communicate

this sentiment via misbehavior (Scheuermann & Hall, 2015). Darin seems to exhibit his

frustration via misbehavior in various situations. He often hits and kicks himself and

screams when he is in situations that cause him to feel frustrated (i.e., when he is ideal

because he does not know what his teachers want him to do or when he is required to

write in order to express himself in written form). It seems that the situations that he is in

continue to maintain his misbehavior; because his attempts to communicate sentiments

towards them demonstrate that he feels anxious and frustrated about the situations.

This issues is a clear indicator that a replacement behavior needs to be added into his

intervention plan in order to offer Darin an alternative behavior and/or action to articulate

his frustration, rather than misbehave and disrupt class. Helpful reinforcement such as

teacher acclamation and reasonable rewards will be offered to Darin when he

articulates his frustration and does not exhibit misbehavior in the class that is self-

harmful or disruptive to students (this would be a correct behavior), and his self-harmful

behavior should be addressed and stopped, but it will not be rewarded.

Supposition:

In the classroom, Darin exhibits self-harmful and tantrum related misconduct to

demonstrate his frustration, because he does not have the communicational skills to

articulate his emotions in an effective manner.

Deficit:
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Target behavior that Darin exhibits is a skill deficit. Darin does not have the

needed communicational skills to communicate in a suitable manner in the classroom;

therefore he would misbehave.

Evidence-based interventions:

Evidence-based interventions are reliable methods to utilize in order to intervene

and alternate behavior of schoolchildren that is unfavorable. There were two evidence-

based interventions that seem suitable to implement in this case in order to assist Darin:

Peer-mediated instruction and interventions (PMII) and differential reinforcement of

alternative behaviors (DRA). The initial intervention method (PMII) is an evidence-based

method used to address the social communication needs of children with various forms

of autism in order to enhance their communication skills with different classmates in the

school (Zagona & Mastergeorge, 2016). The intervention can teach Darin the needed

communication skills he needs to communicate his frustration and uneasiness in

various situations, because it will allow him to receive more social exercise with his

different classmates, which will also help him learn how to better express himself in

common language that students his age use and let him observe social norms. In short,

this will help him reduce his tantrum related conduct that occurs due to his frustration.

The second intervention (DRA) is also an evidence-based method that attempts to

reduce unfavorable behavior via reinforcement of alternative behaviors that should

become its substitution (Scheuermann & Hall, 2012). Darin exhibits self-harmful

behavior that needs a substitute behavior, because it is hazardous to him. The

substitute behavior will be for him to ask for a break and tell teachers that he feels

frustrated, rather than start to hit and kick himself over and over.
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References:

Scheuermann, B. K., & Hall, J. A. (2015). Positive behavioral supports

       for the classroom, Loose-Leaf Version (3rd Edition) (3rd ed.).

Zagona, A., & Mastergeorge, A. (2018). An Empirical Review of Peer-Mediated

      Interventions: Implications for Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders.

      Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 33(3), 131-141.