Section VII: Strategies
for Reducing
Inappropriate Behavior
Section VII: Strategies for Reducing Inappropriate Behavior
A. What are strategies for effectively reducing inappropriate behavior?
• Proactive Strategies
 Having materials organized
 Using pleasant tone of voice
 Clearly communicating rules, goals, and expectations
 Responding to behaviors consistently and predictably
 Being able to anticipate problems and react quickly and calmly
 Provide direct instructions and Precision teaching
 Know your student’s strength and weaknesses
 Supervision: Be visible, active and positive
 Environmental Engineering: Arranging the physical environment
 Structured daily schedule
 Appropriate and motivating curriculum
•
Reductive Techniques
 Reductive techniques are any research-valid techniques that will temporarily
stop or suppress a behavior.
 “Reductive technique” is used in place of the word “punishment”.
 Reductive techniques need to be paired with positive procedures to teach
replacement behaviors in order to be most effective and create a change in
behavior.
 Reductive techniques generally produce a quick change in behavior that
rewards their use and often results in their overuse.
 A teacher’s rate of praise and reinforcement must exceed the rate of reductive
techniques in order for them to be effective.
•
Teaching Replacement Behaviors
 Teach socially appropriate replacement behaviors that achieve the same
function as the problem behavior. i.e. When the target behavior is yells “hey
teacher” with the identify function of gets teacher attention, the replacement
behavior of raise hand and ask for attention or place “Please Help” card on
desk serve the same purpose and will be most effective in reducing the target
behavior.
 Build competencies that transfer to other settings.
 Promote success by appropriately obtaining reinforcers.
 Produce broad, durable behavioral changes for students.
 Replacement skills must be:
o Easy for the student to use
o Result in immediate responses
o Occur in all environments
o Occur when the student is not having problem behavior
o Taught systematically
o Taught by all persons that work with the student
•
Teaching Incompatible Behaviors
 Teach behaviors that are alternatives or incompatible with the undesired
behavior.
Incompatible behavior cannot occur at the same time as the target behavior,
(but does not serve the same purpose). With the above example, work silently
is incompatible with yells, “Hey teacher” because it does NOT get the
teacher’s attention.
Alternative behavior is desired behavior that is acceptable (but does not serve
the same purpose or is incompatible with the target behavior). With the above
example work on assignment is more desirable than yells “Hey teacher” but is
NOT incompatible with yells “Hey teacher” and it DOES NOT get the
teachers attention. The replacement behavior is NEVER the absence of the
target behavior.
B. What makes these strategies effective?
 Reinforcing appropriate behavior
 Reinforcing incompatible behaviors
 Breaking the behavior chain early
 Managing peer attention
 Getting up close and personal
 Talking softly
 Giving eye contact
 Do not get emotional
 Being specific
 Do not ask a question
 Giving them time to respond
 Only giving a request twice, do not nag
 Giving one request at a time
 Giving more DO requests than DON’T requests
C. Developing a Hierarchy of Consequences
 Techniques must be planned out ahead of time
 Techniques must be delivered in a consistent manner
 Techniques must fit the behavior
 The teacher must know what to do next if the student does not respond
 The teacher must have a back up plan
 The teacher must have a plan for serious behaviors
Appendix: Section VII
Make the Right Decision!
What is the problem?
Alternatives
Consequences
++
+
---
-
+
-
Decision
Student: ________________________________________________________
Teacher: ________________________________________________________
Date: ___________________________________________________________
Follow Up Meeting ______________________________________________
Problem Log
Name: _____________________________________
What time did the problem occur? ___Morning
Date: __________________
___Afternoon
Where were you when the problem occurred?
___ Classroom
___ Bathroom
___ Music
___ P.E.
___ Lunchroom
___ Office
___ Off grounds
___ Halls
What happened?
___ Somebody teased me.
___ Somebody took something of mine.
___ Somebody told me to do something.
___ Somebody was doing something I didn’t like.
___ Somebody started fighting with me.
___ I did something wrong.
___ Other: ______________________________________________________________
Who was that somebody?
___ Another student
___ Another adult
___ Teacher
___ Staff member
___ Other: ___________
What did you do?
___ Hit back
___ Told an adult
___ Ran away
___ Walked away calmly
___ Yelled
___ Was restrained
___ Told a peer
___ Talked it out
___ Ignored it
___ Broke something
___ Cried
___ Used anger control
How did you handle yourself? (Circle One)
Poorly
Not so well
OK
Good
Great
Mildly
Angry
Not angry at all
How angry were you? (Circle One)
Burning
Mad
Really
Angry
Moderately
Angry
PROBLEM LOG
Name: _____________________________________
Date: ______________________________________
What is the problem? Describe it.
(Who was involved, where did it happen, and what happened?)
What do you want to happen?
What did you do or say to solve the problem?
How well did it work?
1
poorly
2
not so well
3
4
5
okay
good
great