"They should never be in the dark." How to read your child's behavior plan, and what to ask.

A free article for families, derived from Special Learning's course "Strategies to Increase Beginner Classroom Participation Skills: Decreasing Problem Behavior Using an FBA, Part 2," presented by Christine Austin.

The assessment is done. Now someone has handed you a behavior plan, or told you one is coming. It may be several pages long, full of words you've never been taught, and you may be asked to sign it.

This session was recorded for professionals. It's the second of two on problem behavior. The first covered the assessment. This one covers what goes into the plan afterward. Almost all of it is useful to the parent holding that plan.

The plan has to answer what the behavior is for

The session starts by tying the plan back to the assessment. The presenter describes a boy whose refusals looked, from watching alone, like they were about getting attention. A fuller analysis showed they were about attention and about getting out of work.

That difference changes everything. "If I would have put him in timeout during this time," she says, "I actually would have been reinforcing that behavior because I would have taught him how to get out of doing work."

A time-out takes a child away from the task. For a child who wants out of the task, that's a reward. So the first thing to look for in any plan is simple: does it say what the behavior is for, and does every strategy in it answer that?

Who's on the team

The presenter names the team: "parents, physicians, neurologists, psychologists, behavior analysts and teachers." Parents come first on her list.

Her reason for the whole team is practical. Everyone who works with the child "might play a different part, but consistency is important and communication is important, so that everybody knows when variables do change." A plan only works if the people carrying it out are doing the same thing.

What a good plan says before any strategy

Before the plan gets to what anyone will do, the session lists what it should already contain:

• A clear definition of the behavior, in words anyone could read and recognize.
• Baseline data. A measurement of how often, or how long, the behavior happens before anything changes. "You can't start a behavior support plan without baseline data." Without it, nobody can tell you whether the plan is working.
• What's been tried before. The plan should have "previous interventions listed, so what worked, what didn't work."
• Your child's medical and safety picture. Medication, pain, sensory needs, anything that makes an approach unsafe.

The presenter gives an example of why that last one matters. A student she worked with had been restrained at a previous school placement by "up to five or six people." Because the team knew, the plan said from the start: do not use physical prompts.

If your child has a history like that, it belongs in the plan. You may be the only one who knows it.

Stopping it before it starts

The biggest part of the session is prevention, and it's the part you'll recognize from home. The presenter's first question is always whether the behavior can be stopped before it begins. The plan might include:

• Changing what happens at the hard times of day, if the behavior clusters there.
• Asking for less on a hard day, when your child slept badly, is hungry, in pain, or changing medication.
• Backing off at the early warning signs, before the peak, not after.
• Giving attention freely, often enough that your child doesn't have to earn it the hard way.
• Keeping their way of communicating within reach. In her words, "keep the communication device next to the child."
• A schedule your child can see, with the good parts on it. It gives them "a predictable future, and they know what's coming up next."
• Breaking work into small pieces, and offering breaks before your child would take one by force.

What replaces the behavior

A plan shouldn't only try to stop something. It should teach something that does the same job. Asking for a break instead of dropping to the floor. Asking for attention instead of hitting. Asking for the thing instead of grabbing it.

The presenter is clear that the new skill has to work at home too. In one case the team taught sign language because "both of the parents were trained in American Sign Language," and that's how the family already talked with him. A different system would never have been used in that house.

So ask: what will my child be taught to do instead, and can we use it at home?

Two words you'll hear

Extinction. "Everybody thinks extinction is just ignoring," the presenter says. "It's not ignoring. It's no longer delivering that reinforcer." The adult stays present and watching, especially if a child could get hurt. She's honest about the hard part. The behavior "tends to get worse before it gets better," and "extinction is hard. It's very difficult to be consistent with." That's why it should never be the whole plan.

If you're asked to use it at home, it's for behavior that seems to be about getting your attention, or getting out of something you asked. Use it only the way your team has shown you, and never by physically forcing your child through a task. If your child seems upset, in pain or overwhelmed, help them first. Stay close, keep things quiet and calm, and ask the team about it. And if the behavior could hurt your child or someone else, keep everyone safe first. If your team hasn't given you a safety plan, ask for one.

Differential reinforcement. This means rewarding the right behavior on a schedule set from the baseline. Her example: "if it happens every 20 minutes, then you want to reinforce him every 15 minutes for not engaging in the problem behavior." As your child succeeds, the gap stretches. This is one reason the baseline matters so much.

Two plans that worked

The presenter shares two cases.

In the first, a boy's plan used prevention, a way to ask for help and then for a break, and calm redirection. His difficult minutes went from about 25 a day down to zero, and the reward schedule stretched to 100 minutes. "The great thing about this," she says, "is that we never had to put in an aversive plan."

In the second, an older student's plan used a written schedule with breaks built in. From across the room, his aide would give him a thumbs up "or even pass him a note saying you're doing an awesome job." His refusals dropped quickly. The team also tracked the new skills he was learning, because "it's also very important to graph your replacement behaviors."

The harder procedures, and your say in them

The last part of the session covers what the presenter calls punishment procedures. Her rules are the part to remember:

• They need your approval. "You need to make sure that your agency and your guardians approve."
• They come after positive plans have been tried and measured.
• Time-out has limits. It's only for "behavior that is maintained by attention or access to items." Used for behavior that's about escape, "you're actually reinforcing the behavior." Her program didn't use time-out that shuts a child away alone.
• Restraint is never part of the plan. "A physical restraint is never an intervention." It's only a response to immediate danger.
• Check the plan was followed. Before anyone decides a plan has failed, someone should check it was actually carried out as written.

You should never be in the dark

This may be the most important line in the session for a parent. "They should never be in the dark about what you are doing."

At the presenter's program, the team met with parents before starting anything and asked for approval. "If they say no, we stop from there." They also reviewed the data with families regularly.

You should understand every part of your child's plan before you agree to it. If something isn't clear, ask.

Questions to take to the meeting

• What does this plan say my child's behavior is for?
• What's the baseline, and how will you show me whether it's working?
• What will my child be taught to do instead, and can we use it at home?
• Does the plan include what's been tried before, and my child's medical and safety history?
• Are any of these punishment procedures? If so, why, and what was tried first?
• How often will I see the data, and who do I call if something changes at home?

If you are reading this outside the United States

The session was recorded in the United States, and the review bodies and rules it mentions are local ones. Where you live, plans may have different names, and different people may approve them.

What transfers is what a good plan tells you. It should say what the behavior is for, what your child will learn instead, how progress will be measured, and what you agreed to, in words you can read. You can ask for every one of those, wherever you are.

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This article is drawn from a recorded Special Learning course. It is general information for families, not clinical advice, and not a treatment recommendation for any individual. It does not describe the rules of any particular school district or country.

Special Learning is a BACB Authorized Continuing Education (ACE) Provider (OP-14-2437). Authorization as an ACE Provider does not imply endorsement or approval of the ACE event content by the BACB.