Positive Behaviour Support
Positive Behaviour Support 
A Positive Behaviour Support Plan for an 11 year old boy with Emotional Disturbed Behaviour
A behavioural plan on how to reduce an eleven year old boy, Peter, from an emotional disorder can be traced back to the area concerned with the Emotional and Behavioural Disorders (EBD). This area holds the responsibility of providing direct effective and efficient measures to lessen such conditions from youth suffering from emotional disturbances. This field can also help in identifying and assessing these disturbances in their early stages within an individual such as Peter, who is emotionally disturbed. After identifying the disorder in its’ early stages, then one can be in a position of applying various alleviating tools available to screen Peter from behavioural disorder. This is followed later by the assessment of the desired behaviour in Peter otherwise known as the post-screening program.
Thus, the basic steps of developing the positive behaviour support plan for the above emotionally disadvantaged boy may include; early detection of the disorder within the child, screening the child out of the disorder. Under this, the school curriculum and instruction process together with the relationship between academic underachievement and externalizing behaviours are taken into consideration. Assessments can further be used to design more effective positive and supportive plans which can be used to continue to help Peter.
Emotional disorder can be disturbing especially in young children who may not have sufficient knowledge on how to manage their feelings and behaviours. Responsible individuals close to the child, such as parents and other relatives; teachers and peers within the school environment and friends generally can help in identifying the discrepancy within the child. This is what we term as early detection of an emotional disorder. The purpose for doing this is to help in designing a strong knowledge base of academic, social, behavioural and contextual risk factors that may be associated with learning and emotional behaviour problems within the young boy’s psychological status.
Parents and close relatives can be a good source of information in identifying the disturbance within Peter. Parents and relatives spend the majority of their time together at home after school and can assist by relating how Peter associates with them while at home. Further, the problem within Peter can be traced back to the family stability in terms of basic needs and the general relationship between the parents themselves or between the parents and the child. Whoever is looking for this information should therefore be able to gather information about the stability of the relationship between the mother and the father in the house.
If the two can wrangle and fight before the boy, he is likely going to suffer psychological stress which can lead to emotional disturbances. Further one should consider the type of family where peter is coming from. In case he comes from a single parent family, peter may be suffering from insufficient parental care and love from both parents. Or peter may be experiencing rough time with the peers when it comes to parental identification. Thus the emotions may arise out of ridicules from friends.
Lack of sufficient basic needs such as food, clothing and the unnecessary punishing of a child can be also another source of deprivation which may also elicit emotional disturbances. Peter is not old enough to provide for himself, thus he must depend on somebody like a parent to supply with the necessary needs until he comes of age. One should investigate from the parents to know whether its basic needs that are a problem to provide, thus making Peter unstable emotionally. Peers can also be used to identify which emotional disturbances Peter may be suffering from. In the process of their interaction Peter mighty say something to a peer in regard to the psychological disturbance he is undergoing, thus peers might help in identifying his problems.
Finally in the process of identifying the kind of psychological distress Peter is suffering from, the school environment and its’ activities can help a lot if proper attention is paid. One should investigate if the school provides conducive environment for studying. For instance, consider if the learning materials are available to facilitate good learning or not, and the school methods of disciplining the pupil in case he has wronged. If harsh methods are used, they can elicit emotional hunger in Peter.
Consider also if there is an academic underachievement and externalizing behaviour in Peter. In case Peter has been scoring lowly in class and all the efforts to improve his performances has failed, then he may develop certain emotional behaviour character so as to avoid facing the reality. Here the relationship between academic underachievement and externalizing behaviour patterns can be easily understood by the following three proposed hypothetical models.
The first model tries to indicate that academic underachievement amongst the pupil can lead to externalizing behaviour. This is to say that, pupils who are experiencing below average academic skills and knowledge may end up engaging themselves in disruptive behaviour so as to avoid participating in activities for which they lack the necessary knowledge and skills. Thus Peter’s emotional problem may be linked with academic underachievement since he is still within the school going age brackets. This will be unveiled by the school performance records in circular and extra-circular activities Peter has been engaging in and how he has been conducting himself within the school.
The second model explaining the same suggests that externalizing behaviours in Peter may result in academic underachievement. The boy’s externalized behaviour may bar him from participating in constructive instructional activities and with time he will experience academic underachievement. This might elicit further emotional disturbance in him. The above information has been designed to help one to understand the type of emotional disturbance which the boy might be suffering from as well the source of this disturbance.
Screening procedures and the appropriate tools based on this information on emotional behaviour disorder can be used to help the boy to identify the presence or absence of risk factors that are mostly associated with learning and emotional behaviour disorders. The choice of the type of screening process will depend entirely on the source of the emotional disturbance. For instance if the cause of the emotional disturbance is as a result of school environment and the associated academic underachievement, then the following will apply;
A number of empirically evaluated experiments can be done to assess the early literacy level and social skills concerning the boy. If the emotional disturbance is emanating from the academic point of view, then it will be possible for the responsible authority within the school set-up to accurately and efficiently identify if the boy do or do not have risks associated with the positive literacy outcomes. This tools and procedures can help the practioneers pursuing the boy’s problem to know whether; the boy is at risk of academic failure, antisocial behaviour problem, to know the magnitude of the boy’s learning and behaviour problems and the level of intervention that will be most appropriate to apply on this emotionally disturbed boy.
An emotional academically disturbed child can be helped through interactions with the responsible teachers in the school environment. This interaction can be done in self-contained classrooms specifically meant for the emotional/ behaviour disordered conditions. Here the teacher can provides appropriate instructions to the pupils that are tailored towards addressing the problem involving academic achievements.
The teacher needs to be well trained in emotional disorder alleviation procedures and must be equipped with appropriate experience on the same. Competence in these areas is vital to assist in providing a sound educational knowledge and skills for the emotionally disturbed boy. Socio-behavioural matter is just another component of the broader curricular responsibilities that the teacher should assist the boy to know how to interact with others either in school or outside the school environment. Various resources such as books, journals, articles for academic instruction on emotional disturbances and its alleviations procedures must be used so as to cover all the necessary steps for instruction processes.
Beyond segregated classrooms instructions which is destined to provide emotional disturbance alleviation process only, there is need also to incorporate it with the core curriculum activities. The core curriculum instructions include instructions in reading, mathematics, social studies and sciences. The incorporation is necessary to help the boy may make a substantial progress in achieving the objectives of emotional disorder alleviation program as well as the required academic achievement progresses. It will be difficult for him to resume to his general educational curriculum activities if this is not incorporated within the intervention program. Without the incorporation of the core curriculum activities, the boy may end up experiencing academic deficiencies in basic skills and content knowledge.
Essentially, if boy does not receive a balanced curriculum during the process to address both the socio-behavioural and academic needs, these students may become further academically handicapped.Therefore the boy has to be involved in the curriculum core value matters so that his knowledge and skills is relative to the general educational level of the classmates or age mates at the end of the alleviation process. If the gap is bound to exist, this will influence the successful transition from self-contained classroom environments to the general and normal educating settings. This is aimed at providing all the pupils including the reformed one the same and equal educational opportunities.
The teacher handling the boy in the segregated room should design a transactional relationship between academic underachievement and externalizing behaviour in the boy. This model suggests that intervention efforts should be put into place to address both areas for the success of the transition process. Another proposal suggests the possibility of some other variables within or outside the boy’s environment. These variables include; attention problems and the cognitive abilities of the boy. These may help in passing the necessary information to the boy concerning achievements thus influencing the proposed models’ effectiveness. The teacher should address the behaviour of the boy and how it may be linked with the academic performances in school. He should also define for him the best course of behaviour that he should portray in order to have success in academics.
Another interventional way of helping the boy to get out of the emotional disorder in school environment involves primary interventions. This is an intervention which focuses on all pupils in the school with the aim of eliminating the conditions that are likely to create and increase the pupil’s propensity for developing learning and emotional behaviours.In case the boy finds it save and gets out of the disorder, it will be inappropriate for him to come out restored only to find his colleagues in the similar conditions as before. This is most likely going to influence the re-restoration of the emotional disturbance problems in him. The problem will not have been solved by then.
Thus, the primary interventions such as school-wide social skills, literacy and discipline programs need to be instilled to the remaining part of the school population. A good proportion of the entire pupils’ population will benefit from this universal program for all.
Secondary interventions may be directed towards remediating certain specific skill or performance that may miss in a smaller group of children. This involves the inclusion of class-wide contingency plans, social skills groups, anger management plans and literacy groups focus on a common set of objectives. Another small portion of the pupils may require more intensive interventions in order to help them. The best examples of such more ideographic interventions required may include functional assessment based interventions and one-to-one literacy interventions.
After mentioning the ways in which the school environment can be used to help the boy out of the problem, it’s now the turn of the parents and close relatives to help. If diagnosed in the identification stage that the disturbance emanates from the parents negligence, it will be appropriate to aptly involve them. Parents should be advised to extend the necessary parental care and love to the boy. They should be encouraged to provide the basic needs if they it is the cause of the emotional disturbance.
Now the best method of interventional practices on this boy will be through the support of the parents. It’s unfortunate that the some of the contributory factors to emotional disorders are the parentally generated. The issue in which they handle their children however young may have an impact in their future psychological developments. Wrangles in the house between the parents or between parents and children decide the psychological set-up of the child. Mistreatment and failure to efficiently provide for the basic and necessary needs such as food by parents, may elicit hunger and anger in the child which is a pre-requisite to emotional disturbances.
Care should be taken when dividing the basic needs among the other children so that it may not be seen as being partial in favour of any. Parents should also be advised to improve their relationship with their children in order to welcome any problem the children mighty be facing with easiness. This will be possible through the improved and encouraged dialogue between the parents and the child. As a result the boy may find a fertile ground and avenue to air his psychological problems either in school, home or in the playing field with friends.
The degree of parental involvement in the up bringing of the child needs to be taken into account and be given first priority. This is because parents are the first and best source of socialization in the entire life of the child. Beside that the child spends majority of his entire life with his parents. Hence parents must be consulted when handling this emotionally disturbed boy. But schools may not need any parental involvement since they are charged with the responsibility of determining the degree to which the school interventions can be used to prevent the behaviour.
Next let us consider the assessment and post-screening exercises. All the parties that have already been involved should be included to monitor the boy on how he behaves afterwards. Teachers should continue supporting him in academics so that he can be able to successfully compete with the rest, but they should draw closer attention to him than there before. He should be encouraged to mix and integrate freely with the rest of the pupils and share experiences they have in common. The teacher should also learn to subject the boy to tasks that is a mixture of hard and easy ones so that in the process of class work the boy can enjoy some bit of success and failure at the same time. He should also be treated as amongst the special cases when dealing with the whole class. This should be done throughout the course work period and by the end the boy will be ok.
Parents on the other hand should continue giving him material support wherever necessary. They should also extend further concern and care on the boy besides showing their parental love. They should also encourage good dialogue with the boy so that in case another problem arises the boy will be able and free to communicate to them. We can assess the desired behaviour that the boy mighty has gained through functional behavioural assessment method (FBA).
When using functional behavioural assessment method, both indirect and direct methods of assessment are designed and used to assess the emotional behaviour. The difference between the two is the place and time of occurrence of the actual behaviour. The observations of the behaviour in its natural setting is what constitute the direct method while assessing the school records, interviews with school staff and parents, ratings of behaviour are among the indirect methods used.
Finally this field of Emotional behaviour disorder should be appreciated for its advances in the areas of identifying and assessing pupils with and at risk for Emotional behaviour disability. They should also be encouraged to move on assisting the needy members of the society such as these eleven years old boy. In order to effectively deliver its role we need to move forward with school-site implementation of the empirically validated, cost effective screening procedures that are now available for use to alleviate the disorders in pupils. Secondly, more work needs to be done so as to obtain a more detailed picture of the curriculum and instruction presently used in the classrooms to teach pupils categorized as emotionally disordered.
Last but not least, children at their tender ages are easily affected by small incidence that they may encounter on the way. Issues involving basic necessary needs and parental treatments are vital in determining the emotional stability status of the child. The professionals in the area of Emotional disordered behaviour should look for more ways to refine the development of valid and accurate functional behavioural assessments.
