Student Self-Management

I have often used rubrics to help students develop projects and guide their academic work. The same principles can be applied when assisting students in managing their own behavior. The text differentiates between self-recording (simply keeping a record of their behavior) and self-evaluation (actually evaluating that performance). Studies have shown that students often keep records that are quite accurate when compared to records kept by teachers. Furthermore, experts agree that self-recording forces students to monitor their own behavior more closely.

When people diet, they often keep food journals. Simply knowing that one has to record what has been eaten often serves as a deterrent for eating junk. In the same way, if a student knows that he or she will have to record (and therefore admit to) certain behaviors, he or she may be less likely to engage in problematic behaviors. Additionally, my sense is that in maintaining their own records, students gain more ownership over their behavior. As a result, they may gain more intrinsic satisfaction/motivation from performing more acceptable behaviors.

Can anyone else think of a reason why self-recording and/or self-evaluation might be an effective tool for behavior management?

Help with this behavior?

Alright, so here's a problem behavior that has the whole staff baffled. A new teenage student who along with her learning disabilities suffers from epilepsy was admitted into one of the programs where I work. Within the first two weeks of her coming to school she became assaultive towards the staff at least twice which resulted emergency interventions. During each of these restraints the student faked a seizure. This behavior immediately resulted in the end of the restraint and calling the paramedics. This is an amazing behavior that will always result in the same conclusion and reinforcement for the student.
So, if anybody has any ideas, please let me know how to shape this behavior. And the students case manager would be so excited.
Kevin

Natural Maintaining Contingencies

One of the most important aspects of generalization and maintainence is to help the student learn skills that they will receive reinforcement for in their natural environment. Over time, our students cannot (and should not) have someone behind them ready to reinforce them for demonstration of a skill. The skill itself has to be rewarding to them within their environment. For example, teaching a student how to socialize with his peers becomes reinforcing when performed correctly because he/she will get positive attention within that interaction. Alberto & Troutman (2006) state that "if behaviors can be generated that result in increased peer reinforcement, they are particularly likely to be maintained in the natural environment" (348). I still see this behavior principle in effect through my everyday actions, i.e. I buy clothes that I think flatter me so that people will think that I look nice. If I get a compliment for my efforts then I have been reinforced for making an effort in my clothing choices and will probably wear that particular item of clothing more frequently. Therefore, for our students, it is very important to work on behaviors that will receive reinforcement in their natural environment. This means getting to know the student's culture, lifestyle, home life, etc is vital so that you will know what behaviors those students' environments will maintain. It also means that it might be more useful for our student's with severe disabilities to be working on more functional skills, i.e. riding the bus, buying/paying for an item in a store, so that they will be able to interact more fluently in their environment.

Generalization & Maintenance

The main goal of a behavior modification is that when the intervention ends that the behavior change occurs outside of the environment. This refers to maintenance and generalization and the importance of programming these in a child’s BIP.

Generalization is the degree in which a change in a behavior will transfer to another setting or situation. Generalization does not happen spontaneously it must be planned.

Here are some important points to incorporate into the goals to encourage maintenance and generalization;
1. Teach behaviors in a natural setting.
2. Have many people train with the student.
3. Train in many settings.
4. Move from artificial controls (prompts, reinforcers) to natural reinforcers (praise, better grades).
5. Move from continuous to intermittent and from fixed to variable schedules.
6. Reinforce students when they are maintaining and generalizing the behavior.

Final Project Rubric Posted

Hello Class,

The final project rubric has been posted on the Homework Documents side banner.

Also, the drawing for the tote bag was held with Shelley and Kendra present...and the winner is......Kevin.

Dr. A

self-reinforcement

As I read the chapter I became amused with myself at the ways I practice self-reinforcement. Even as I sat down to write this I fed myself a piece of chocolate. Through this skill I have encouraged myself to do many things that I had to do for my own good. I honestly used to say to myself' "ok, if you go to work, I 'll buy you a latte". That was very motivating to me and I figured that the price of a latte is better than losing a day's wages. I often tell myself that if I finish my homework then I can watch TV. I guess it is sort of pathetic that I pretty much only reinforce myself with candy, coffee and TV. Although, last year I used to buy myself a plant at Target every time I got through a particularly rough day at school. I had an enormous garden.

I guess we are teaching our students to self-reinforce by reinforcing their bahavior. Are there more effective ways to teach this. Is it worth while to teach self- reinforcement? What are some ways that you practice self-reinforcement?

Modified Self-Recording

As I was reading the information covered in Chapter 11 about teaching students how to manage their own behavior I initially did not think most of the students that I work with would be able to do this very effectively. A couple of my high school students can not write well and tallying on any kind of chart would be a very challenging feat. However, I was thinking that if I really wanted my students to self record, as opposed to keeping tallies in a chart I could use small buckets or velcro boards. For example, if during a period the period of time the student was on task, they could put a block into the "on task bucket" or onto the "on task board" and vice versa for off task behavior. This would eliminate some of the fine motor problems that I was initially thinking about.