Behavioral Support Plans

Behavioral Support Plans

ECE 201: Intro to Early Childhood Behavior Management

Behavioral Support Plans

The purpose of behavior management in early childhood education setting is for the teachers to have order within their classrooms. It allows the teachers to provide safety, behavioral management supports and provide environment that will enables a child’s learning. Behavioral management is very important to early childhood setting because it provide safety to the teachers and students or caregivers.

Children that has challenging behavior not only have an negative effect on their self but also have an negative effect on other children and their teachers. Children with challenging behavior have other issues down line sure as social problem and have learning problems. Challenging behavior can interfere with a child cognitive and emotional development as well. If a teacher stops the lesson during class to attend to a child that has challenging behavior, then not only do it effect that child, but it effects the whole classroom. Why do it effect the entire classroom? Because that teacher must stop the lesson that they are teaching just to deal with that child with the challenging behavior.

Thinking proactively regarding behavioral management is important because it reduces the chance of a problem behavior from even getting started. Setting the classroom up with necessary materials and eliminating unnecessary items can prevent children from wanting items and throwing tantrums for things they cannot have while a lesson is being taught. A problem behavior should not escalate throughout the entire classroom from a smart aleck comment that a child may make. A child should also not become defiant and disruptive when they are called upon by the teacher to answer a question or read a page during class.

Thinking proactively may keep these behaviors from even starting or if they do begin, dealing with them directly before the behavior becomes a problem. In this paper I will discuss a few strategies that a teacher could use to determine the functions of behavior. I will also design individual support plans for a few examples of challenging behaviors that are common for a teacher to encounter in the classroom.

Teachers must first be able to identify the challenging behavior of a student and then find the purpose of the behavior. There are a lot of strategies that teachers can take to decide the purpose of the challenging behavior. The first strategies I think the teachers should start with would be to observe that student and try to figure out what is causing the behavior and how often the behavior is taking place. According to Kaiser & Sklar Rasminsky (2012) you must observe that child with the behavior and it should be recorded on a chart marked with days of the week running across the top and times f the school day down along the side (Chap. 10). This will allow the teachers to say when the behavior happens and if it happen at a specific of the day and to see what that child is during is it a lesson or and activity. Once the teacher has observed the child after a week or a month then the teacher can give a report and a bar graph on the behavior. That way they can see when and what time the behavior happens. It will give the teacher a visual to the behavior that is taking place as well the time it happens.

The second strategy is for the teacher to make a team. This team should be people that are aware of the child behavior or issues. This team could be the parents, social worker, school administrators and other teachers. Everyone in this team plays a big part with the child because everyone can tell something about that child. Such as the child background and his environment. All this will be done once they have a interview with everyone that on the team. According to Park, Alber-Morgan, & Fleming (2011) the parents can explain everything about their child behavior and their environment. The team should get together at least one or twice a month to discuss the patterns of the child behavior and identify when the challenging behavior may occur.

Another strategy should be to achieve a useful behavior assessment which will involve looking at the assessment in A-B-C analysis. By using the A-B-C analysis they will be able to identify the behavior and consequences will be well known and recognize. After using the A-B-C analysis the teachers will be able to spot the function of the challenging behavior and when it occurs. Here are few example of antecedents being bullied, nothing being rule out, being make fun of, being a target, or change. The consequences of the behavior is the movement of where it take place following the behavior to discontinue, grow, or stop the problem behavior.

According to Hartwig, Heathfield, and Jenson (2004) noted that a functional behavior assessment makes it possible to generate a hypothesis for a student with challenging behavior which allows teacher to modify environment events to prevent such behavior (Pg. 3). By using A-B-C analysis and the sequence of it this will allow the teacher to identify the purpose of the behavior. According to Dunlap & Fox (2011), information obtained through a functional assessment can influence an intervention plan that is largely based on making adjustment to consequences of the behavior (Para. 7). By being specific and maintaining the outcome of the challenging behavior will be useful and rearrange to stop the difficult behavior.

A challenging behavior for a teacher is for a child to always interrupt your class, and not give the other children a change to answer. The target behavior is that child blaring out the answer and the other child don’t get a change to answer. I would say that the purpose of this behavior is that he is seeking attention or always want to be notice. I think that child is trying to get a reaction from the teacher and the other children.

The teacher could have it where the student that is always answering the question before anyone else. The teacher could have that student answer part of the question and have him call on another student to answer the other part of the question. That way they will feel like they are helping each other out but it is really giving everyone a change to have a turn.

Another common challenging behavior is when a child is spitting out of his mouth and on other children. The target behavior is that the child is spitting on other children. It appears that the child who is going the spitting want to get a reaction out of the other children or he do not know how to make friends. It seems the child spit to get the child to try to play with them. The goal for this student is to get that student to start asking the other student can he play with them or can I help you with that, that way he is make friends.

The last behavior to discuss is a common challenging behavior for a teacher is for a child to have a biting problem. The target behavior is the biting and biting other children. The child is screaming that the toy is mine when he took the toy from the other child that he is biting because the child will not give it back. I would say that the purpose of this behavior is the object that he wants from the other child. The child thinks if he bites the child, that child will give him the toy that he wants.

As I continue to be an early childhood educator I have noticed every child well show a challenging behavior sometime during their life. I find that the way we collect information is very important to how we can help that child to overcome their challenging behaviors. I have described three example of common behaviors I have had in my classroom with my students. The three example I describe happen to me with my 4 years old students.

The teacher’s role (me being the teacher) will have to put in place a behavior plan. The teacher will make the plan and make sure that the teacher follows that plan that he or she put in place. Teacher must make sure that they tell the student the rules and they are following the rules as well, the consequences and expectations of the rules in the classroom to all the students who has the challenging behavior. The teacher has a huge job to design and put in effect a behavior plan for the classrooms.

During this final assignment it has help me a lot on the understanding of challenging and behavior management in early childhood education settings, the teacher need to make strategies to control the task of the behavior and put together a behavior plan. When it come to behavior management I have decided to act and control the situation, as well as, discussing some strategies that some teachers may use to determine functions of the behavior. I must make daily notice and at the end of the day and plan for the next day.

Reference

Kaiser B. & Rasminsky, J.S. (2012).  Challenging behavior in young children: Understanding, preventing, and responding effectively.  Upper Saddle River, N.J. Pearson Education, Inc.

Dunlap, G., & Fox, L. (2011). Function-based interventions for children with challenging behavior. Journal of Early Intervention, 33(4), 333-343. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/921333604?accountid=32521. Retrieved June 16, 2014, from ProQuest database.

Park, J., Alber-Morgan, S. R., & Fleming, C. (2011). Collaborating with Parents to Implement Behavioral Interventions for Children with Challenging Behaviors. Teaching Exceptional Children, 43(3), 22-30. Retrieved June 16, 2014, from EBSCOhost database.

Dunlap, G., & Fox, L. (2011). Function-based interventions for children with challenging behavior. Journal of Early Intervention, 33(4), 333-343. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/921333604?accountid=32521. Retrieved June 16, 2014, from ProQuest database.