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welcome to this able next ablenet University's webinar the topic today is addressing problem behaviors how do we come up with preventive strategies personalized supports and positive strokes for children to be successful in the educational setting and that the webinar is designed to address the ideal and effective type of paraeducator supports that can be provided that can be delivered in order to advance the learning outcomes for the student my name is Pat McCarthy and I will share a little bit of information about me in the next slide what are we going to be talking about today the focus of this session it's how do we respond to problem behaviors and how do we come up with proactive student specific personalized solutions adhering to the PBIS principles of positive behavior intervention support principles and the way I have labeled them it's called the three piece approach P one is preventive strategies P 2 is the personalized approach ip3 which goes along with the prevention and personalization how do we deliver positive strokes unfortunately most of the time students who exhibit behavioral issues don't always receive the right kind of encouraging feedback and positive strokes I do want to mention the right at the outset this is an introductory session and also all of the material that's presented in this webinar session is taken from the paraeducator training manual it's a multiple unit training program it's a DVD as well as there is a training manual for Peto educators to use and I am the author of this publication the DVD the training unit and the company that publishes it is legal digest and so they want me to make sure that people don't kind of print this out and distribute it this is for your personal use only and before I go on I would about myself I would like to find out who are the people who are participating in today's webinar are you a paraeducator or you a special education teacher or you a district administrator that is getting kind of together the materials for pde session for european educators are or am i missing out anyone who are the other participants today please still go ahead and indicate whether you are a paraeducator a special education teacher administrator or other personnel the poll should be working some reason why the pool is not working maybe it's still working on getting the response I see in the checkbox a lot of people saying their speech pathology assistant special ed teacher a lot of speech pathology such wonderful and special ed teachers there is somebody from the fish parish where I do do some work and there are some counselors I don't know why they anyway I'm sorry unfortunately it looks like the poll is not working maybe we will come back to it and check if it has come as I mentioned I am an author and I'm also an educational consultant and the paraeducator training DVD and the training manual picture that you see it's a trainer of trainer DVD with multiple training units and the material for this session as well as the previous two sessions that I presented were taken from this manual and I have also many other books and products that I have developed and they are published through several companies let me go back and check if the poll has come back now for some reason the poll is not showing [Music] let's move on as I mentioned today's topic is the three piece approach how do we respond to problem behaviors during the first webinar in the series we focused on how do we deliver that support from the paraeducator so that it is not hindering but instead assisting the students to advance his or her learning outcomes so how do we make sure that support is discreet and optimal because one of the things that has emerged from research is that the the presence of the paraeducator almost within three feet of the student can actually have negative outcomes for the show so how do we deliver that support that is really effective but at the same time non intrusive in the second webinars in this series I focused on how do we make sure that that collaboration between the teacher and the student is consistent constant and ongoing so that ultimately our desire is to advance the certain outcome so all of that planning all of that collaboration should be targeting that so in today I am taking on the topic of the behavior issues because frequently peer educators play a very important role in in reducing and eliminating the problem behavior as well as in monitoring the students gathering information and gathering the data to share with the teachers so that an adequate and an effective intervention plan could be prepared so one of the most critical things is the preventive strategy in coming up with a preventive strategy we have to make sure how the adult responses to the problem behavior frequently the adult response to the problem behavior can in itself actually instead of eliminating the behavior may actually increase the occurrence of that behavior and it is not only enough to address that problem behavior in terms of prevention but we also need to teach the students new skills so that the school the tea the student does not repeat that behavior and when the student is actually demonstrating appropriate behavior we need to catch them being good we need to come up with a positive strokes and one of the critical roles that a paraeducator can play before the problem behavior becomes too intense or the student is too agitated and we cannot do anything at that time because the problem behavior has escalated to such an extent is how can we watch for those precursor behaviors that frigid enus that restlessness and so that we can prevent that escalation and coming back to what I mentioned earlier on the positive behavior intervention and support bebe is one of the first thing is how do we defuse that behavior so that it doesn't escalate how do we make sure we have some protective factors which are like environmental supports that the environmental changes that could actually be the factors behind triggering that behavior and one of the other things that frequently happens that may be triggering some of the problem behaviors is because many of these children may have academic skill deficits and they don't know how to communicate saying I don't know how to do this multiplication problem they instead get angry at the person who is presenting the task to them all they get angry at the task itself because they don't necessarily always know how to seek help so we have to see if there is a skill deficit that is contributing to the problem behavior and the beautiful thing about PBIS it is not a punishment based approach but it is focused on how do we achieve long longer-term outcomes for the children so that the student is academically benefiting and there is a reduction in the behavior and so that we all see also she also knows how to learn new skills to replace that inappropriate behavior most of you may be familiar with the ABC behavior chain so it is important for para educators to be trained in a tool they have to know what triggers the behavior when does the behavior occur there what context does the behavior occur and why why does the problem behavior occur what is contributing to that based on the principles of ABC chain the a stands for the antecedents and it is something that occurs before and undesirable inappropriate behavior let's say the student is presented with a difficult task or at least she perceives it as being difficult or it may be really difficult for her so that is the antecedent and that triggers the behavior the problem behavior it is important that we are able to define we have to guide the para educator who may be observing the behavior to clearly define that behavior in terms of measurable terms and observable terms frequently we may hear words like oh he is non-compliant or she has an attitude attack does not define the behavior we have to say clearly the student when given the multiplication task he rolled up the paper and threw it down on the floor or put a his desk or hid it in his desk so the next C stands for the consequence and that's the response to the behavior the adult response usually and it's that it's something that immediately follows the behavior let's say the student throws that paper the work worksheet under the desk or he engages in some other inappropriate behavior immediately let's say the student is sent to timeout that is the consequence in this particular case by being sent to timeout C's or she is actually escaping working on the task so it is important for us to realize clearly and it's important for the parrot ater to be trained in the ABC model so let's look at some preventive strategy because prevention is the primary and the best intervention to avoid problem behaviors one of the things that concerns me a lot when I go visit programs is we all have a good understanding of what prevention X we know about preventive strategies but somehow there is a gap between that understanding and the implementation we tend to react kind of immediately with the consequence that actually increases the likelihood of that behavior either we give too much tension or we allow the student to escape from that task or we give a negative feedback so that there is nothing positive happening to the child and the child the student just learns to ignore so let's look at some simple effective prevention strategies first of all the physical environment of the classroom it should be calm comfortable and it should not be noisy it should not be over simulating one of the simplest things to do is there are many many classrooms that have better have accumulated a lot of clutter maybe over the years and if the cabinets are all visible and they are kind of overflowing with materials as a simplest thing to do is to cover them with a white sheet or even with newsprint so that that is not distracting and the other simple simple thing to do is to make sure that student especially in an inclusive setting at the student is participating in an inclusive setting is that the suit is not placed close to stimulating windows or placed to a near a kind of a noisy situation or is not or she is not next to a door that keeps opening and closing so that is another thing that's very very important and any kind of sensory overload may lead to stress especially for children with autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder they do get easily distracted that's one thing the other thing is this sensory stimulation will increase overload will increase when there is a lot of environmental noise or distractors and as I mentioned it's important to arrange the seating in such a way that they are not closed open doors or open cabinets or and there is not too much material distracting them and the other thing is it is important for these students especially in an inclusive setting or in any any even in a self-contained setting to make sure that the person appear next to them is competent peer is not one who is easily distracted and so that they can serve as model and another thing that will be helpful is to have classroom rules I know this is kind of more at the elementary level this can be modified and that to a middle school or a high school level is to pair the rules with a picture so because pictures do speak thousand words and the visuals are extremely important for students with autism spectrum disorders and with ADHD and with a lot of them because it immediately communicates what you want your student to do so that's one of the things the other thing of course is structure we have to make sure there is a routine there is a predictability and there is a structure that's continuously followed for students to benefit from instruction and particularly students with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD they do thrive on predictable routines so and they do like sameness so we cannot suddenly have one day a week oh we are going to have fun Fridays or you know what we are going to take a break this afternoon because it's a brain break know this to make sure we follow the same schedule and the same routine so that that sudden changes and the routine can cause problem behaviors and it is also important if there is a sudden change let's say in the schedule because they have a assembly but they have to go to it is important that we provide advance warning and we guide our students to be able to look at their schedule and they them self help to see that there is going to be a change and a new picture if they are using a picture schedule I hope students with autism however verbal they may be are helped with a picture activity schedule so that they themselves are involved in making that change so that they are alert and aware of the impending change to their schedule for that case that will also help prevent problem behaviors one of the other important things we need to do especially adults who are working with students who may or may not you know in any situation where they may likely to exhibit problem behavior is to avoid reactive responses let's look at this example this is something that I did observe in a classroom Andrew starts kind of rolling on the floor during a group activity this was circle time and fellow educator supporting him reacted in in a kind of a common way that we I do see in a lot of the classroom she tells Andrew to stop that immediately stop it's Andrew and she wants him that he will be taken to the office if he doesn't stop rolling on the floor or sometimes they do respond saying you know what you're going to get timeout and what we teach is okay the child doesn't want to sit on the circle time and she is rolling because he is getting a little distracted then we send him or her to timeout and actually he gets to do goes to time off and he is escaping from paying attention he escaping from that group circle time he is escaping from rakaat being required to sit on the mat so we have to make sure that our responses are tactful responses to solve the problem rather than a reactive response and so now I can imagine you're asking what do you do if a child is rolling on the floor during circle time maybe we can show a picture of the child the photo of the child sitting very nicely on the mat and remind the child see dress and you don't have to even use any word so that it doesn't distract the other children we can just show a picture of that child sitting nicely on the mat and sometimes you may have to do it several times but that's simple mind ER of what is expected will get the child to sit up at least for a few minutes and we may have to do that and when the child is sitting nicely oh I like the way you were sitting a positive stroke to come immediately always the child maybe earns a kind of a pity or a token for every five minutes that he's sitting nicely so that's what I call queuing them to the rules so in other words you prepare these cards with appropriate behaviors and you'll and laminate those cards you can just use half an index card and you put that picture on that and you hole punches hole punch it and put them on a ring and you cue them to the rules at different settings maybe you're walking down the hallway you are in another place in the cafeteria for lunch so you use the picture rule cue cards in other words these rule cards cue to the to the children these are visual cues and they remind the students of the rules of what they should be doing in that particular situation I do say here the next slide shows a picture and it is not the next slide it's kind of several slides down but I have explained it what picture rule cue cards are so you can kind of visualize that the student can be gradually trained after the adult begins to use these cue cards then you give a you know you give one set to the student and you point and gesture to the rule cue cards and the child starts using the cue cards okay one of the major major challenges many children particularly with autism or ADHD or sometimes even students who may have a cognitive difficulty experience is with transition transition when it involves people little transition particularly when it and was a change of activity or a transition that inverse even more so in the case of a start setting so if the environment has changed you know they have to go to the cafeteria they are in the playground and they have to come back to the classroom or when they are in the gym and they have to come back to the classroom or they have to go to the gym so it is extremely important in this situation to use visual cue it's an effective strategy and it is better to provide advance warning of the change that's going to come in terms of the environment or in terms of the activity and it will increase the compliance with the transition that the demands of the transition process in addition you may want to use verbal cue but visuals at work very effectively and let us say you want the Starchild's to kind of move from one activity to another within the classroom setting then you can even set up a time for example the child is working on preferred activity and you want the child to move to a somewhat of a less preferred activity it is important to use a timer you can even use an hourglass timer so that it doesn't attract any attention and does not distract other students but it is important that the child is warned a few minutes before the end of the activity then the shop comes when the activity is actually ending or you can also use a kind of a musical instrument that can be used with several students together as a transition signal and the other important thing is it is important to have kind of a close supervision and monitoring that is where I believe the parent educators play a very very important role because in many classrooms they are there to assess students to make the transition or to be able to work on the academic tasks that they have been assigned so that close supervision can be provided by the taro educator noting down in triggering behaviors how is the saloon responding to different types of setting what is happening during recess or on the way to the gym or on the way to an assembly school assembly so it is important that the pair of educators help provide that kind of data in terms of closed-loop evasion and monitoring so that we can come up with the appropriate intervention so so I would suggest that the teach the teacher and the parent educator partnered together to strategically monitor and supervise situations like provides zone maunder monitoring and scan and more frequently so that the para educator is not just sitting behind or sitting next to or sitting within three feet of the student as a matter of fact I was in a classroom a couple of weeks ago what kind of bothered me was there was this to me who does have a tendency to wander within the classroom doesn't go outside but within the classroom and he does have some significant cognitive difficulties too what they did was they kind of put him in a in a kind of a situation where the table was kind of blocking him and there were two fellow educators kind of sitting on either side so that he would not leave that area but that is not what I mean by close supervision and monitoring because what needs to happen is those parent educators should not be sitting so close to the student he is getting all the attention and he except even born to get even more attention because now he has an audience so it is important that the taro educator is kind of circulate around the room if it's an inclusive setting or in a small self-contained setting small room they have to be moving around or keep themselves busy but at the same time keep an eye on the student and they have to make sure that is a kind of purposeful the interaction between the adults under students and between the para educator and the teacher in the other thing that helps in in a preventive strategy is many many of these students will benefit from a kind of relaxation corner you might have heard me say this when I present at the session on students with autism spectrum disorder I call it the safe space these safe spaces help to reduce the anxiety especially if the student is feeling agitated or restless maybe he can take his safe space card or a break cord and take a five-minute break to relax and to calm down and I think this is not time out so this is not a punishment area but this is a relaxation safe space in order for the student to calm down and moving on from preventive strategy so what kind of personalized supports can we provide to meet kind of the specific needs of a specific student how do we personalize that support to reduce the problem behavior this is what I call the p2 I'll give you an example Robert he is a first grader he high-functioning and he has difficulty engaging in any activity that he thinks is not his preferred activity he would rather be always sitting in front of the computer and working on the computer and he perceives all of the other activities even though he has the capability to do it he perceives them as demanding so when whenever he is asked to move to a teacher directed activity it kind of triggers Tantrums and and then kind of response to the tantrum response to the tantrum ends up in a major meltdown so he kind of screams drops to the floor shots Kiki and it lasts about 5-10 minutes and kind of disrupts the classroom instruction so what can we do one of the things that would help him is he has a first then approach that's used with him he has to do his math work or whatever work that the teacher requires first and then he gets to do the computer in the beginning because we have to build the students tolerance for the non-preferred activity we have to make sure that we don't demand 20 minutes of work from the student from Robert in the beginning it may even be as little as five minutes and then we gradually increase it to seven and ten and go on and then we initially they may be equally matched five minutes of work that the teacher requires and then maybe five minutes of preferred and it is important that we use a timer that goes with that and we can gradually trained as a modify in the case of Robert because he's a high functioning even even he can even set up the timer and gradually then we can increase the time I know the preferred non-preferred activity like it may become the preferred after gradually he's trained to focus more time on it and preferred activity like the computer the time on that is gradually reduced so that and at the same time we also make sure that we because Robert is high-functioning it is also paired with some kind of a token system so that for every five minutes or every seven minutes that he is working he earns a certain amount of reward and then later on he can exchange it maybe at the end of the morning or at the end of the afternoon for some kind of a reward that he finds enjoyable and the other thing of course is Robert would benefit from visual supports it is important even though Robert is high-functioning there is a picture schedule that is used and that chase reading time or math time with built-in brakes and then in addition to that he may need for that activity that he's working on you know like a card that says go you can begin this almost done like a few minutes before and a stop picture world cards paired with pictures to assist Robert and gradually he can learn to self-monitor himself and this is a picture of a visual schedule and all students particularly the I am talking about students with autism spectrum disorder even if they are high functioning it is important for them to have a kind of an activity schedule this is like a folder and for a student in the upper elementary middle school and high school the folder can be inserted inside a binder so that it is with them all the time wherever they go they have their schedule with them and this word the text is paired with the visuals and they get to move the picture and the text as the activity is finished from the activities to do to the activities done other activities finished some of the other personalized support is to kind of ignore some of the minor whining for getting the work done and as soon as he shows an inclination towards getting started with the world making an encouraging positive feedback not the typical oh good job but oh I like to be sitting you you are starting your work good so you work for five minutes so this kind of an encouraging feedback or even showing a happy face to him you know because he is just a first-grade and so you know they can even show an a happy face or a token reward and so it is helpful to use kind of limited amount of verbal reminders and verbal directions and use as much as possible visuals and certainly we have to make sure we refrain from using the time art because robot is only going to take advantage of it and escape work soul and also it is important not to threaten the student with consequences that we cannot really carry out because if we say oh you're going to spend your time and time out today if you just behave like this that is not a response that we want or say no computer for you or no resource for you these are not such that we can carry out so it is important for that adult for that fellow educator to be trained in making sure that the response or the response the words that we used is kind of something that we can truly carry out and will benefit the student okay some pictures of the visual cue cards that I was talking about earlier on let's say Alex Alex it's kind of a minor behavior but it is quite disruptive what he does is he likes to tap on his desk with his pencil and he knows that it attracts attention so he continues with this annoying sound whenever he is sitting at his desk and so the teacher wants him the paraeducator comes next to him and say stop it don't do that but it doesn't help so what we use instead is a picture cue card you can see that picture no noise and the pencil are not happening I couldn't get a picture that shows tapping so I wanted the picture kind of flat on the desk and you can add a picture of the deaf and no noise the text and the thing is you can get actually a photo of that and paraeducator uses the picture route cue card depicting this no noise to encourage Alex to work quietly and to remind Alex and that's all that is dead and then the para educators concept with additional replacement behavior after discussion with the teacher and that is whenever he feels like tapping maybe he can clasp his hands together or if he feels kind of restless he can use a Koosh ball and squeeze on the Koosh ball because it may provide him that sensory stimulation that he is seeking maybe with that pencil and always it is a question of trial and error maybe there is one particular strategy particular technique that will work with a specific student that's why we call it the personalized support and the other thing is preparing student in advance for example in the case of cigarette another shouldn't this could it be another girl - I seem to have too many boy names there and Cedric has difficulty whenever he has to move into a large area like that he finds to be overstimulating like the gym or in the lunchroom or if they have to go to an assembly it is important for him to be reminded before he goes into that setting with a kind of a schedule that will show where he will be going and along with the picture rule cue cards and let's say he has to sit for some time after he finishes his lunch it is important for Cedric to have something to do so it is important that the para educators who may be taking these students to the lunch room take something additional materials for someone like Cedric I'm gradually Cedric can be trained to also take the materials himself to use that time after lunch to work on it so that he doesn't become fidgety and restless it is important for these students to have some kind of fidgety toys like tangled toy or Koosh balls something that they can squeeze to get rid of some of that education restlessness and stress and if you should run into a stressful crisis situation maybe during a fire drill or maybe a tornado drill and the student starts making a lot of noise or starts whining it is important if after you know of course you can do it while you're having the fire drill or the tornado drill that they have opportunity to relax when they come back inside and they are still agitated to go to a safe space and calm down thing also if for some other reason they should have a situation where they're getting very upset or meltdown it is important for them to have kind of lonesome breathing techniques and calming down during after the crisis of course it's not possible to do it during the crisis but during the crisis you have to make sure you have some additional support available and the paraeducator has arranged with someone else to help when they are making that transition and moving on to the last one which is p3 which is the positive strokes it is important for us to encourage students when they are behaving appropriately even if it is exhibited for less than a second because praise is a powerful and it has a powerful positive impact and we have to constantly be practicing things like oh I like the way you are listening to the show I like the way you're sitting on your mat Oh Robert and after that you're working on your math work you seem to be focusing a lot of attention and Conroy recommends that we use four to five positive statements to every corrective statement I think that's a good principle to follow the other thing that helps a lot is also giving choices okay for example something do you want to do the first pie problems and the last five problems if the student has difficulty completing let's say 20 problems you give a choice of ten but they get to make the choice of first five and last five they can also get to choose the kind of a reinforcer that they would like what they have found that these things not only decrease the disruptive behavior when you give choices but it actually increases the accuracy of the attempted problems and the really long term outcome for all students they have to learn to self monitor themselves self-management is really truly the longer term outcome for students so we have to teach self-talk strategies for students to learn the condom one of the techniques is the total technique and you will find it in the website that's listed in d it's called the csefel WW csefel it gives the pictures of the total technique how a young child learns the problem so when he or she is faced with a problem solution and tries to find the solution himself or herself and we can teach breathing techniques and one of the things that helps is using music especially during transitions you might have heard me say in one of the previous webinars seven webinars is that magical musical transition is a music CD that a music therapist and I have put together helps a lot for the student to come down and to use during transitions and I have a list of resources listed here and the website that I just mentioned where you can find the total technique the csefel Vandevelde edu is also less listed here and some of the other resources that I that I mentioned and also the Faro educator profit reining guide the training manual the DVD is also listed there and while this particular para educator series is over I will be presenting next year focusing a paraeducator session on how do we provide adequate effective and optimal support to help advance help self dependence of students with severe and multiple disabilities and then sometime in April I'm doing a session for federal educators who support in the provide support in the early childhood setting and thank you very much for participating in this ablenet University webinar and I want to thank again ablenet University for hosting the webinar and I want to thank each and every one of you for joining the session thank you and have a wonderful day [Music]