Hi, I'm Courtney Peters and welcome to Into the Spectrum!
It's time for Into the Spectrum's fun minute tip!
Today we're gonna be answering a question from one of our awesome subscribers. Hi Judy, hope you're doing okay!
Judy asked, might you do a video sometime about walking through how you create a behavior plan in general? Thank you again.
So I'm gonna show you how I go through and write a behavior plan. And Phil was asking me a question earlier.
Why is this even important? Why do people have to know this?
Well, I'll tell you it actually. What you get to see so if we go through this you're gonna see our thought process of how
we tackle these problems behaviors, and what goes into it.
And then also you guys can actually start to write behavior plans to yourself. If you have a team with a BCBA,
the BCBA is usually in charge of writing that behavior plan and some schools the teachers are writing it
but they might have certain rules to where there's the psychiatrist on staff who's writing it.
So different places have different rules on who's gonna write the behavior plan.
But you can look this up and be able to write your own, so let's check it out.
All right, so let's go over how I write my behavior plans. There are six major components to a behavior plan.
Number one is just,
identifying the behavior that you want to decrease. A lot of times I call it the target behavior so what target behavior do you want
to decrease?
I'm gonna just stick with tantrums as an example of a problem behavior that you might want to decrease.
Step number two is defining that behavior.
So when you're looking at this you make it clear and concise so everybody knows what you're talking about. So if you're talking about
tantrum behavior, what does a tantrum look like because it looks different for each kid so that's why these behavior plans are so individualized.
So is it the child throwing things?
Crying, falling to the floor?
Running to a different area? Those would be included in the definition.
So step number three is,
writing down the function of the problem behavior. And we talked about the four functions
and this is the why in our 4 A series. So check out the 4 A Series if you haven't already.
And so it either falls into access,
avoidance,
attention, and automatic so it's one of those four. So you're figuring that out.
And that's a huge part of this behavior plan because you need to know that in order to do the rest of the steps.
Number four. Find the replacement behaviors. So when you're finding the replacement papers
this is something always that matches the function so what are they gonna get the same
input or the same reason why as the
function. So that's always that's key so if
their reason is because they want to get something. So if they're tantruming because they want to get a cookie.
Well, then we have to match something that gets them that cookie, so what can we give them?
What can be the replacement for that? So it could be using their words and asking for a cookie.
So that's it, so we're matching that function. So replacing it with something appropriate.
Number five. Is writing down what can you do
before these problem behaviors or interfering behaviors happen? So I call them
Antecedent manipulation. So what can you do before it happens? With the cookie example you would be teaching
how to ask for a cookie.
You can also do a thing like set a timer.
This is when you can get a cookie.
So those are examples of what to do before the problem behavior happens.
The last one, number six. Is, consequence.
So what are you going to do after
the behavior happens? So after it happens write that
step-by-step guide of how you're going to respond to it.
So if they're asking for a cookie and instead of asking, they throw a tantrum. Ah man!
So what are you gonna do?
Are you going to do planned ignoring? Or are you going to set a timer until they have to ask again?
What steps are you going to put in
once that happens? So it's again, so the point of this is so everybody stays on the same page.
So everybody's following the same plan and the child is not getting confused by somebody's doing something different.
And you know that's the point of it. So everybody gets on the same page and follows that plan.
Alright, so I hope this helps let me know. Judy, let me know.
If you liked it thumbs up don't forget to subscribe and also,
don't forget that there's that video for you. That's picked out for you, so make sure to click on that.
Thank you so much for watching. Bye!
Thanks for watching Into the Spectrum's fun minute tip! Don't forget to like and subscribe!
Everything that is discussed on the show is a generalization and the suggestions should not be in any way construed as child specific advice.
Everyone is encouraged to seek out a BCBA or appropriate clinician for consultation before starting any behavioral intervention. Any choices you make concerning your child's
treatment are completely at your own discretion.