ADHD and Social Skills by Esta M. Rapoport

Author:Esta M. Rapoport
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Special Education, 9781607092803, Student Life & Student Affairs, Educational Psychology, Learning Disabilities, Education
ISBN: 9781607092803
Publisher: R&L Education
Published: 2009-05-14T21:00:00+00:00

7

SUPPORTING SKILL

DEVELOPMENT

WHAT IS POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT?

Just as children with ADHD need to learn to plan and to execute, teachers and parents need to do so as well, in terms of developing a regimen for social skills training. This plan must begin with an assessment of the child’s socially inappropriate behavior in question. The assessment should delineate the antecedent events, which are the events that happened before the child behaved inappropriately. Also included in the assessment is the behavior itself, as well as the consequences of the behavior.

This information is typically called ABC: antecedent, behavior, and consequence. It is important to “determine under what conditions a behavior is most likely to occur (antecedents) and what happens in the environment as a result of the behavior 2 0 9

C H A P T E R 7

and maintains that behavior (consequences)” (Steege & Watson, 2003, p. 34).

Who gathers all of this information? Who makes hypotheses about the child’s behavior on the basis of the information that was collected? Who develops social skills intervention plans for the child? A team has to be chosen to do all of the above.

Among others who should be on the team are all of the child’s teachers (art, gym, music, etc.); speech therapists; occupational therapists; social workers; and psychologists who work with this child. I also would ask the school nurse and the bus driver to be on the team. It may sound overwhelming to manage all of the individuals on the team, but believe me, it is all for the child’s welfare as well as for the sake of your classroom running smoothly.

If the team is able to find out why the child is exhibiting this behavior, it is easier for them to eliminate it. One way to determine the reasons for the child’s socially inappropriate behavior is through positive behavior support.

Positive behavior support (PBS) is a “problem-solving approach to understanding the reasons for problem behavior and designing comprehensive interventions that are matched to hypotheses about why problem behavior is occurring and to the individual’s unique social, environmental, and cultural milieu” (Bambara & Kern, 2005, p. 3). As I alluded to before, PBS

is a team approach to investigate what occurs before a child exhibits a socially inappropriate behavior, what the function of that behavior is, and what the consequence of that behavior is. PBS has been found to be effective with children of all ages and all disabilities (Conroy, Dunlap, Clarke, & Alter, 2005).

The goal of PBS is not to punish the child for his behavior, but instead to prevent and teach. Additionally, by using PBS, teachers can tailor interventions to the individual needs of each child. How can teachers find out why a student is exhibiting a specific behavior? PBS depends on functional behavior assessment to evaluate the relationship between the events in the environment, the child’s response to those events, and the 2 1 0

S U P P O R T I N G S K I L L D E V E L O P M E N T

function that the socially inappropriate behavior provides for the child with ADHD.

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