Positive Behavior Support in Early Childhood Settings: Current Issues, Challenges, and Solutions

1. Positive Behavior Support in Early Childhood Settings: Current Issues, Challenges, and Solutions Tim Lewis, Ph.D. University of Missouri OSEP Center on Positive Behavioral Intervention & Supports pbis.org

2. Big Ideas • Program-wide vs. school-wide • Primary focus at classroom level • Data collection challenges • Developmentally appropriate / need for direct instruction of social behavior • Intensity match intensity of challenges across the continuum • Apply basic logic of PBS across • Data, practices, systems

3. Starting Point We cannot “make” students learn or behave We can create environments to increase the likelihood students learn and behave Environments that increase the likelihood of social and academic success are guided by a core curriculum, adapted to reflect student need, and implemented with consistency and fidelity

4. The Challenge • School-wide discipline systems are typically unclear and inconsistently implemented • Educators often rely on reactive and crisis management interventions to solve chronic problem behavior • Educators often lack specialized skills to address severe problem behavior • Resources scarce • Educators under multiple pressures to meet standards • Traditional “discipline” methods simply do not change behavior among the most challenging students • Students with the most challenging behaviors need comprehensive systems of support • Students have limited opportunities to learn school-based social skills and to receive feedback on their use

5. Typical responses to students • Increase monitoring for future problem behavior • Re-review rules& sanctions • Extend continuumof aversive consequences • Improve consistency of use of punishments • Establish “bottom line” • Zero tolerancepolicies • Suspension/expulsion • Exclusionaryoptions (e.g., alternative programs)

6. The Good News… Research reviews indicate that the most effective responses to school violence are (Elliot, Hamburg, & Williams, 1998Gottfredson, 1997; Lipsey, 1991; 1992; Tolan & Guerra, 1994) • Social Skills Training • Academic Restructuring • Behavioral Interventions

7. Toward a Solution The answer is not the invention of new solutions, but the enhancement of the school’s organizational capacity to: • Accurately adopt and efficiently sustain their use of research-validated practices • Provide a Seamless continuum of behavioral and academic support for all students • Be part of a district wide system of behavior support • Increased focus, teacher training, community training, and funding for early intervention

8. School-wide Positive Behavior Support SWPBS is a broad range of systemic and individualized strategies for achieving important social and learning outcomes while preventing problem behavior OSEP Center on PBIS

9. Social Competence & Academic Achievement Positive Behavior Support OUTCOMES Supporting Decision Making Supporting Staff Behavior DATA SYSTEMS PRACTICES Supporting Student Behavior

10. Academic Systems Behavioral Systems • Intensive, Individual Interventions • Individual Students • Assessment-based • High Intensity • Intensive, Individual Interventions • Individual Students • Assessment-based • Intense, durable procedures • Targeted Group Interventions • Some students (at-risk) • High efficiency • Rapid response • Targeted Group Interventions • Some students (at-risk) • High efficiency • Rapid response • Universal Interventions • All students • Preventive, proactive • Universal Interventions • All settings, all students • Preventive, proactive Designing School-Wide Systems for Student Success 1-5% 1-5% 5-10% 5-10% 80-90% 80-90%

11. Continuum of Supports Math Science Spanish Soc skills English Reading Horses

12. Essential Features at the School Level • Teams of educators within the school (administrator) • Data-based decision making • Instructional Focus • Teach & Practice • Acknowledge student mastery of social skills • Positive Feedback

13. Sample Agenda Working Agreements on the Agenda

14. Universal School-Wide Features • Clearly define expected behaviors (Rules) • All Settings • Classrooms • Procedures for teaching & practicing expected behaviors • Procedures for encouraging expected behaviors • Procedures for discouraging problem behaviors • Procedures for data-based decision making • Family Awareness and Involvement

18. Group Contingency for Appropriate Behavior (Beehive)

19. Do You Like to Buzz? (sung to the tune of ‘Do Your Ears Hang Low?’) Do you like to buzz? Are you covered in fuzz? Do you call a hive a home In the garden where you roam? Do you know how to make honey? Are your stripes a little funny? Do you like to buzz? WE FILLED OUR BEE HIVE TODAY! WE ARE: BEING SAFE, KIND AND RESPONSIBLE

20. Social Skills Lesson Plan Classroom • Skill: Be Safe – Use Walking Feet  • Steps: • Introduce Skill • A way to be safe is to use walking feet in the classroom • Teach the Expected Behavior • Discuss with students why it is safe to use walking feet instead of running in the classroom. • Ask students: When do we need to use our walking feet? (possible answers: when we are inside, when going to the playground, going to the bus, going home, etc…) • Demonstrate • Show the children what using your walking feet looks like (thumbs up) • Show the children what using your running feet looks like (thumbs down) • Show the children what using your walking feet looks like (thumbs up) • Model walking, marching, stomping -e.g., “walking feet go 1and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5” • Practice • Different opportunities through out the day • Have students practice walking softly, loudly, quickly, slowly, forward, backward • “We walk, we walk, we walk, and we stop” (repeat) • Review/Re-teach • Use pre-corrects before “walking” activities begin—“We are getting ready to go outside for recess. What do we need to do with our feet?” • Re-teach the skill as needed • Reinforce • Specific praise—“You are using your walking feet while walking to recess! Good job!” • Other reinforcers

23. Effective Teaching Plan Circle Time • Teachers encourage children to sit on circle nametags • Teacher begins singing the Good Morning song • Students sign in (match pictures to nametags) • Supporting teachers assist students with this • Teacher reviews calendar • Sing 2 to 3 songs, finger-plays, or a story  • When children have a good listening body with hand raised and quiet mouth let them take turns sharing and listening • Review helpers of the day, rules, and work time areas • Share any special news • Supporting teachers model appropriate behavior (sitting on floor, looking at teacher, participating in songs, keeping hands in lap) • Supporting teachers provide positive feedback in a quiet, non-disruptive way (thumbs up, pat on back, quiet “nice job sitting!”) to students acting appropriately in Circle

24. Reinforcement System

25. Social Stories I can sit nicely and look at the teacher. Everyone can go to circle and sit on their seat. I can also listen with my ears and try to do what the teacher says.

26. Visual Prompts

36. Demonstrate the Labeling and Expression of Emotions • Model the use of emotion language through real life scenarios: “How do you feel when…?” • Publicly acknowledge your own mistakes and emotions. • Expect, accept, and acknowledge all emotions. Express that the issue is how we manage those feelings. • Teach facial expressions and body language: “When do people smile?”

37. Demonstrate the Labeling and Expression of Emotions • Photos of people in various emotional states. • Provide storybooks on feelings. • Place a mirror in the classroom. • Sing songs about emotions. • Make feelings collages. • Label a child’s feelings, tone, and body language.

38. Mood Thermometer MAD!! Upset Okay Happy

40. Teach Friendship Building Skills • Target behaviors and role-play and practice during area play. • Model phrases to initiate and encourage interactions. • Peer modeling, peer buddies • Create opportunities for working together (e.g., plan by drawing play partners, assign clean-up buddies). • Utilize activities that require turn-taking and sharing. • Provide cooperative toys: puppets, 2 phones, board games). • Provide storybooks on friends.

41. Assessment Tools PBIS.org • Pre-School-wide Evaluation Tool (SET) • Pre- Self Assessment Survey (SAS) • Benchmarks Of Quality • Team Implementation Checklist Other • Teaching Pyramid Observation Tool • Inventory of Practices for Promoting Social Emotional Competence

42. Classroom Supports

43. Essential • Classroom expectations & rules defined and taught (all use school-wide, create classroom examples) • Procedures & routines defined and taught • Continuum of strategies to acknowledge appropriate behavior in place and used with high frequency (4:1) • Continuum of strategies to respond to inappropriate behavior in place and used per established school-wide procedure • Students are actively supervised (pre-corrects and positive feedback) • Students are given multiple opportunities to respond (OTR) to promote high rates of academic engagement • Activity sequence promotes optimal instruction time and student engaged time • Instruction is differentiated based on student need

44. Systems Teach Brief in-service, single topic focus Practice (performance feedback) Peer coaching Principal “walk throughs” pbismissouri.org

47. Needs Assessment Pre-school SAS Pre-school SET

48. Pre-school SAS

50. PRE-SET(Horner, Benedict, & Todd, 2005) • Adaptation of an assessment tool called the School-wide Evaluation Tool (SET) used in K-12 educational settings to measure critical features of school-wide PBS. • The Pre-SET assesses classroom and program-wide variables across 9 categories: A. Expectations Defined B. Behavioral Expectations Taught C. Appropriate Behavior Acknowledged D. Organized and Predictable Environment E. Additional Supports F. Family Involvement G. Monitoring & Decision-Making H. Management I. Program & District-Wide Support