TL;DR:
- Write effective behavior plans by involving the student in making decisions.
- Understand the plans are for the adults, consider the skills to be learned by the student, find the function, and consider fading the plan as a top priority.
- Behavior plans are more effective when educators understand these points.
As a behavior specialist, I am involved in the writing of a lot of plans. Whether it be behavior support plans, behavior intervention plans, elopement plans, safety plans, or crisis management plans, it seems each new school year brings about a new plan to write. And after serving in this role to some degree for the past 15 years, I started to notice some key factors that were being left out of plans being written. I’ve learned that the more these five points are understood by educators, the more effective the plans being written truly are for the students we are serving!
Involve your students!
Simply stated, teachers: write the plan with the student as much as possible! When I was in 5th grade, I had a behavior support plan to help me speak out in class more often. This plan was presented to me. I walked into class one day and was handed this index card and told what to do. And I did it because I was a rule follower. And I see the same thing happening today in school. To the best that the student can be involved, involve the student in their plans! Ask them! And be ready for the answers that follow. Listen. Truly listen. In silence and then listen some more.
- For students who are verbal, it starts with a conversation and highlighting strengths and areas of growth. A lot of times I use surveys to guide this conversation.
- For students who are nonverbal, I use the same concept and incorporate the use of pictures. I will create different forced choices (choice of 2 pictures) for the student to pick from and will have them circle or point to their responses. Then I would save the questions and ask them different times during the day or week, or just ongoing throughout the year as a way to continue checking in with the student. Get creative!
The plans are for the adults, not the students.
Until we have this mindset, effective change isn’t likely to happen. If it does, it often takes a lot longer to happen. The best behavior management tool is YOU! Yes, YOU! It’s not always a strategy from a book, but it’s your relationship with the student and the mindset we hold that signals behavior change. If we write a plan thinking that plan will change the student, guess what? We don’t see the change. Why? It’s simple. We can’t control the actions of anyone other than ourselves. We control our effort and our attitude. This is the mindset that will increase our confidence in following the steps on the plan.
For every behavior you are aiming to help reduce, aim to increase at least 3 skills with the student.
For every behavior we see, there is an even larger collection of unmet needs and skills to grow within the student. Think of an iceberg. The iceberg is one of the most frequent analogies made with behavior as the iceberg represents the behaviors on top, and the needs, feelings, and skills to grow under the water. When you think about what we know to be true about an iceberg:
- We often identify that the bottom is always bigger than the top.
- Environmental factors affect the size of the iceberg.
- You often “hit” the unseen part first.
All of this is so important when it comes to behavior reduction. If we aim to simply stop the behavior, we are missing the bottom of the iceberg. Instead, by focusing our attention on skill growth and gains, we naturally help to reduce challenging behavior by increasing behavior that is more predictable, more efficient, and easier for the student to solve.
Finding the function is just the beginning.
Often as teachers, we can place so much emphasis on finding the function. While that is crucial to long-lasting behavior change, it’s not enough. Let me repeat it. Function isn’t enough. We have to dig deeper. There are four main functions of behavior. We do the things we do to either:
- Escape or avoid something.
- Seek attention.
- Gain access to a tangible item.
- Because it feels good to us internally (sensory stimulation).
But that isn’t enough. I want to know:
- Why are they escaping?
- What type of attention are they lacking?
- What does that item they want give to them?
- What’s going on in the environment that the student needs to self-soothe in that way?
See, the function is our starting off point, not the final destination. So if you have a function hypothesized, that is great! But keep going!
Ask questions such as:
- Why might the student be wanting to escape math each day?
- Is it too hard? Too easy?
- Is math at the end of the day and the student is exhausted from the day?
Find the function, absolutely! But recognize the function is your starting off point. Then keep digging deeper!
Always keep fading the plan as a top priority.
With any type of added intervention for a student, the goal is to remove that added support within a short time frame by replacing the behavior with a more efficient, more expected response.
Our students won’t graduate with a behavior plan. As adults, we don’t generally have behavior plans written for us. This means for every plan created, fading becomes the top priority. And fading starts with teaching the underlying skill deficits!
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After All
When we think of behavior, we know that behavior is purposeful. It has meaning. It is communication.
We can even say behavior isn’t a problem for the person engaging in it. It’s the solution for their problems.
If you have a student that has required the tiered levels of support in school, and the next step is an individual behavior plan, keep these 5 tips in mind the next time you write one and feel the difference in the plan.
And above all else, always remember, plans stay plans until we put them into action. I read a quote by Bob Goff that brings this all together, “no one is remembered for what they just planned to do.” Plans only work when we take aligned action to make sustained change.
Always remember that we can only control our own effort and attitude that we bring to the situation. We cannot change another person’s behavior, no matter how hard we try. We can change our reactions or responses, and that is crucial to our relationships. Our reactions and responses either enrage or engage our students. Let’s join together in engaging our students, digging deeper, and staying focused on igniting our legacy as well as the legacy of our students every single day.
About Lindsay Titus
Lindsay Titus is a K-12 Behavior Specialist with a license in behavior analyst. As a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Lindsay coaches and trains educators on the study of behavior and how to implement evidence based behavior principles in simple and easy ways! With experience as a classroom special education teacher, and behavior specialist in public schools, residential placement, and private settings, Lindsay enjoys working with all educators looking to reignite their passion for education, connect with all students, and conquer challenging behavior in any classroom setting.
