Individual Support

Key characteristics of Individual Support (Tertiary Interventions) include the following approaches, strategies, and procedures that are used with those few students with serious problem behaviors who require intensive, individualized, function-based behavioral interventions and supports, and for whom universal supports and group/classroom supports have not been completely effective in teaching expected social behaviors:

• Referral and identification process is in place in building to identify students in need of tertiary interventions, including those who may need wraparound supports, using data on student behaviors
• Team-based individualized support/tertiary intervention planning (including at least one member with behavioral expertise), problem-solving, continuous progress monitoring, and data-based decision making
• Comprehensive person-centered planning approaches
• Function-based behavioral interventions and supports based on testable hypotheses for problem behaviors  
• Multi-component Behavior Intervention Plans identify interventions and supports designed to prevent, teach, and reinforce/correct behaviors
• Targeted social skills training and self-management instruction emphasized
• Individualized instructional and curricular accommodations made to address problem behavior
• Single domain (i.e., school-only) Behavior Intervention Plans, or multi-domain plans (i.e., school, home and community), based on the student's needs
• Wraparound process for the 1-2% of students who require even more intensive individualized planning across multiple settings; i.e., school, home, community
• Community resources identified and collaborative relationships developed with agencies (e.g., meeting with teams, serving as referral sources to access services)

Individual support is the most intensive intervention component within a school-wide PBS system and is specifically designed for those few students (1% to 5% of all students) who display chronic/severe challenging behavior.  Individual-level support is also called tertiary-level support.  This level of PBS uses the most comprehensive assessment and intensive intervention strategies to reduce the likelihood of chronic/severe challenging behavior in students. The individual support process starts by convening a school team (with at least one educator with expertise in behavioral strategies) to begin to conduct a Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) in order to determine the function of the problem behavior, ascertain what events seem to be more (or less) likely to trigger the behavior, and find out what seem to be reinforcing (maintaining) the behavior.

Once information has been gathered by conducting a thorough FBA, the team can then begin to design an effective, multi-component Behavior Support Plan (BSP)—also called a Behavior Intervention Plan for school-age students—that is based on the FBA results and the hypothesis statements.

Function of Challenging Behavior.  The function of behavior is really the reason or purpose that the individual engages in the behavior; that is, all behavior is purposeful—people do things (i.e., engage in specific behaviors) in order either to: (1) obtain/get or (2) avoid/escape activities, events, items, attention, or physiological stimulation.   It is critically important to determine the function of a challenging behavior before trying to develop an array of behavioral interventions and supports to address the problem behavior.  It is important to remember that any particular behavior, such as screaming, can sometimes function to obtain things (like attention), while at other times function to avoid things (like doing a non-preferred task).

Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA).  The function of a challenging behavior can be determined by conducting a functional behavioral assessment (FBA), which is the process of collecting information in order to develop summary statements (hypotheses or "best guesses") regarding the probable triggers of problem behavior (antecedents), the conditions or circumstances under which the problem behavior occurs (setting events), as well as the reinforcing consequences that are maintaining the problem behavior. Together, this information leads to formulating an initial testable explanation (hypothesis) about the probable function of the challenging behavior. 

Functional assessment includes direct assessment methods (observations) and indirect assessment methods (record reviews, interviews, quality of life measures, checklists, rating scales), and may also involve testing your hypothesis (functional analysis).  Gathering information about setting events, antecedents, and consequences of the challenging behavior helps the school team develop a hypothesis about why and how the challenging behavior occurs. Summarizing information about antecedents, behavior, and consequences is specifically called an A-B-C analysis. A brief example of an A-B-C analysis, hypothesis statement, and some possible intervention strategies designed to address the probable function of the challenging behavior is provided below.

Definitions

• Setting event: Conditions or circumstances that either increase or decrease the likelihood of challenging behavior occurring at some later point in time.  Setting events can be viewed as setting the stage for behavior to occur (or not occur).  They may also be viewed as potential slow triggers for problem behavior.  Sickness, lack of sleep, medication changes, or stressful experiences can be examples of setting events.
• Antecedent: An event that happens immediately before a challenging behavior which can trigger the behavior.
• Behavior: An observable response that an individual makes.
• Consequence: An event that immediately happens after the challenging behavior occurs which can either increase (reinforcing consequence) or decrease (punishing consequence)  the future likelihood of the behavior happening.

Behavior Support Plan (BSP)/Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP).  Multi-component behavior intervention plans, with multiple layers of support, are in fact the best way to establish effective and comprehensive strategies for addressing challenging behavior.  A good, multi-layered BSP or BIP should include one or more interventions and supports from each of the following categories.  All interventions should be selected based on the results of the Functional Behavioral Assessment and well-matched to address the hypothesis regarding the function of the behavior.  .

Setting Event Interventions

• Physical activity
• Changes in schedule
• Temporarily change expectations
• Physiological Interventions (eating, sleeping, illness, others)

Antecedent Interventions

• Pre-teach
• Choice-making
• Reword or reduce instructions
• Adjust/modify schedule
• Intersperse easy requests with more difficult ones
• Make smooth transitions
• Modify prompting style
• Intervene with precursors to problem behavior

Teaching New Skills and Replacement Behaviors

• Teaching a student how to get what he/she wants by using a positive, acceptable and appropriate behavior. 

Consequence Interventions

• Prevent (withhold) the student from obtaining attention/items/activities, or prevent (terminate) the student's attempts to escape from non-preferred tasks/activities, or withhold/terminate either obtaining or escaping from sensory stimulation that maintains problem behavior (extinction)
• Teach and reinforce new skills (replacement behavior)
• Reinforce the student for engaging in other appropriate behaviors, but not the  problem behavior
• Use redirection strategies to correct inappropriate whenever it occurs

Monitoring and Evaluating the Plan.  After the school team selects an initial set of interventions strategies to begin implementing, it is important to establish expectations and agreements among team members for monitoring student progress on the plan. The BSP/BIP should also note specific detailed information about the data to be collected, procedures for data collection, persons responsible for specific interventions, a timeline, and a follow-up BSP/BIP review date.

In conclusion, effective teachers view discipline problems as instructional problems, as "errors in learning."  Effective teachers also recognize that the only behavior they can directly control is their own.  The very first thing that a good teacher does when he/she encounters a student with problem behavior is NOT focusing on changing the student's problem behavior but rather on changing their own teaching behaviors.  When thinking about specific strategies to pursue in order to address a problem behavior, teachers should ask themselves the following questions:

• Can I change the classroom environment or specific daily routine, or make a change in the schedule to change this problem behavior?
• Can I reward or acknowledge the student for engaging in a positive behavior instead?
• Can I teach the student a new skill to replace this problem behavior?
• Can I think of more than one way to address this behavior in a positive way?
• What can I do to prevent this behavior in the future?