Wondering how to help a student who does not seem to enjoy school?
Wondering how to help a student who does not seem to enjoy school?
Wondering how to interest a too cool student in developing his
talents?
Positive behavioral support (PBS) at school can help students with a wide range of needs and at all age levels.
This site is a collection of different types of information about PBS at school and related topics, including after-school and summer programs that use PBS.
Working in cooperation with the University of
Oregon and Northwest Family Services, three school districts in the
Portland (Oregon) area are participating in the Northwest Youth
Empowerment Demonstration
Grant Program (Project YED). Undergraduate college students assist with after-school
and summer programs for Latino middle school youth, serving as role
models, tutors, mentors, and youth leaders.
Parent support is an important part of Project YED. This demonstration project is funded by the federal Office of Minority Health (OMH) as a part of their Youth Empowerment Programs. (No official endorsement of Project YED by OMH should be assumed.)
Systems of Individual Support: The Functional Interventions in Versatile Environments Project's Pilot Study of Evaluation Tools. A comparison of measures of a school's capacity to provide positive, function-based support for individual students.
Positive Behavior Support Systems: Value Added from Use of School Wide Information Systems A study of changes over time for schools using Positive Behavior Support with and without also using the School Wide Information System (SWIS) to monitor discipline referrals.
Use of the Team Implementation Checklist in Regular and Alternative High Schools This is a report on a descriptive study of office discipline referrals, suspensions, and positive methods of behavior management in different types of high schools. A slide presentation also is available as a pdf file called "Regular and Alternative" and it illustrates the efforts some alternative schools are making to implement PBS even though also typically using relatively high rates of out-of-school suspensions.
See the Winter 2007 issue of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions for an interesting article on a project that involved teaching school teams to use FBA: Crone, Hawken, & Bergstrom (2007).
PBS may be able to reduce suspensions and expulsion from school. For research ideas on this, see (a) What Do School Records Reveal about Events Leading Up to Expulsion from School? (Tobin & Flannery, 2006), (b) new text version of the Sugai-Tobin Archival Review-Revised (STAR-R), and
(c) the spreadsheet that goes with the STAR-R.
The next two items are links to pdf files from presentations at the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Conference in Salt Lake City in April of 2006. The first is a questionnaire that school behavior support teams can use to track progress. The second is a PowerPoint presentation:
Functional Interventions in Versatile Environments Questionnaire (FIVE-Q)
A Systemic Approach to Including Key Individuals in the Function-Based Suppport Process
At the CEC conference in 2005, a PowerPoint presentation on systems level implementation of PBS for individual students was given and a list of related references provided.
For more specific information on classroom methods, see Comprehensive Positive Behavior Supports (CPBS) Pre-Service Training Program, a paper presented by Emma Martin and Tary Tobin in San Diego at the annual conference of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children in 2006.
Brief Summaries of Five Examples of Individualized Positive Behavior Support: Problem, Function, Intervention, Outcome
Journal of Early Intensive Behavior Intervention For information on effects of different types of interventions, see:
"Preventing Problem Behaviors: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Level Prevention Interventions for Young Children" by Tobin & Sugai in Vol. 2(3), pages 115-124.
Are you interested in individualized support for elementary students? Scroll down and try the first link in the "Links Related to Function-Based Support" section.
For some students, especially special education students whose behavior problems place then at risk for a change in placement, a positive behavior intervention based on a functional assessment is essential. If you are interested in behavior plans based on functional assessments, try the Case Book below. For more recent examples, click on the link to the PBIS website, listed below in the Links section.
For examples of functional support resulting in a reduction in discipline referral rates, try "Seven Out of Eight" below. If you are interested in helping families, try the PARENTS and the FINDING HELP links.
Case Book The Case Book contains examples of successful function-based support and links to more information on the use of functional assessment in developing interventions to enable at risk students to be successful.
Seven Out of Eight Examples of functional support resulting in a reduction in discipline referral rates for 7 out of 8 students whose teachers took a class in functional assessment.
For best results, use Version 5 or higher of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PARENTS file.
Go to free download of Acrobat, Version 5 or higher
PARENTS Parents' Guide to Functional Assessment, 3rd edition.
Original version of the Parents' Guide to Functional Assessment and Support.
FINDING HELP How to Find Help and Make It Work for Your Child.
Introduction to Individualized Support This PowerPoint presentation includes information on (a) Positive and effective behavior support for school-wide discipline; (b) information on how rewards can increase intrinsic motivation, and (c) basic information on functional assessment.
LINKS RELATED TO FUNCTION-BASED SUPPORT and MORE:
Dixie Jordan's "Functional Behavioral Assessment and Positive Intervention: What Parents Need to Know" is an excellent introduction for all parents and includes information that would be particularly useful for parents of students with disabilities who may benefit from special education.
"Using Electronic and Other New Ways to Help Students Improve Their Behavior: Functional Behavioral Assessment at Work" by Kim Condon & Tary Tobin was published in Vol. 3, No. 1 of TEACHING EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN in 2001 and is available online. This article describes in detail two ways to help elementary school students with behavior problems learn to self-recruit the positive teacher attention they need to do their best work and be on their best behavior. It includes information on how to use the "Mr. Attention" device to help students who may be hyperactive or easily distracted and an example of the use of points and frequent feedback in a systematic way.
"Facilitator's Guide, Positive Behavioral Support" is a free, very complete, and easy to use guide for educators, family members, and other support providers to understanding functional assessment and positive interventions. It can be found under "Publications and Products" as a pdf file on this interesting and informative site.
An IEP Teams' Guide to Functional Assessment Practical and free information on behavior support, including a booklet written for parents, teachers, and others on an Individualized Education Plan team.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED PBIS WEB SITE: Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Keep up-to-date with the latest in all aspects of positive methods of behavior support! Topics include legal issues; school-wide, classroom, and individual support; and more. View PowerPoint presentations, download or order materials, and find out about conferences. RECENTLY UP-DATED! Now has an online library. Whether you are looking for evidence or examples, or just trying to find something quickly, try to links in the Research/Literature section.
Dr. Mac's "Behavior Advisor" Page This page has something for every teacher.
Positive Behavior Supports: Surveys Go to this Web page to find out about research projects of Educational and Community Supports at the University of Oregon.
Research Report "Behavior Analyst Today" -- An electronic journal that has a research report (page 51) on school-wide discipline combined with inservice training for teachers in the use of individualized, function-based, positive behavior support by Tary Tobin, Teri Lewis-Palmer, and George Sugai; and an article by Maura Roberts on using functional assessment to understand behavior problems related to academic problems.
For more information, to give feedback, ask questions, or share information, please contact:
June 19, 2008