Decreasing challenging behavior by establishing prosocial and academic skills: Differential reinforcement, social skills instruction, and self-management.
Format
Individual Presentation
First Presenter's Institution
University of Georgia
First Presenter’s Email Address
tclees@uga.edu
First Presenter's Brief Biography
Dr. Clees teaches undergraduate and graduate students in special education at the University of Georgia. His areas of expertise include applied behavior analysis, self-management, social skills and transition. He holds a BCBA-D
Second Presenter's Institution
University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire
Second Presenter’s Email Address
stephej@uwec.edu
Second Presenter's Brief Biography
Over thirty years working to support individuals with learning and behavioral challenges in the community and schools. Twenty six years in University teacher preparation including leadership positions as past Department Chairperson and present program coordinator for the Intellectual Disabilities licensure program.
Third Presenter's Institution
Behavior Link ABA Therapy, Cumming, GA
Third Presenter’s Email Address
sbabcock1231@gmail.com
Third Presenter's Brief Biography
Dr. Babcock taught elementary special education students with ASD and developmental delays. She earned her doctorate at The University of Georgia, and works with families as a BCBA-D.
Location
Session Nine Breakouts
Strand #1
Heart: Social & Emotional Skills
Strand #2
Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership
Relevance
This proposal is relevant to Strands 1 and 2, Heart and Head, as it focuses on both social and academic challenges. Children and students with or at-risk for social, affective and academic challenges often exhibit excessive, externalizing behaviors such as off-task, noncompliance, and aggression (Kauffman, 2018, Clees and Greene, 2014), and/or internalizing characteristics , e.g., anxiety and withdrawal from or avoidance of others (Green, Drysdale, & Boelema, 2013; Kauffman, 2018). Also, low achievement, behavioral excesses and social skills deficits are predictive of each other (Gresham, 2016; Lane, Carter, Pierson & Glaeser, 2006), and an escalating cycle may lead to further antisocial responses (Gunter, Hummel & Conroy, 1998) and decreasing learning outcomes (Kauffman, 2018). Evidence-based strategies will be presented that address these challenges.
Brief Program Description
Multiple evidence-based strategies have been described that not only establish or increase desirable behavioral/affective outcomes (e.g., pro-social skills) and academic engagement (e.g., on-task, task completion), but have the added benefit of simultaneously decreasing challenging behaviors. This presentation will focus on three such strategies, including (1) Differential Reinforcement, (2) Social Skills Instruction, and (3) Self-Management.
Summary
Children and students with or at-risk for social, affective and academic challenges often exhibit excessive, externalizing behaviors such as off-task, noncompliance, and aggression (Kauffman, 2018, Clees and Greene, 2014), and/or internalizing characteristics , e.g., anxiety and withdrawal from or avoidance of others (Green, Drysdale, & Boelema, 2013; Kauffman, 2018). Also, low achievement, behavioral excesses and social skills deficits are predictive of each other (Gresham, 2016; Lane, Carter, Pierson & Glaeser, 2006), and an escalating cycle may lead to further antisocial responses (Gunter, Hummel & Conroy, 1998) and decreasing learning outcomes (Kauffman, 2018).
Multiple evidence-based strategies have been described that establish or increase desirable behavioral/affective outcomes (e.g., pro-social skills) as well as academic engagement (e.g., on-task, task completion). This presentation will focus on three such strategies, including (1) Differential Reinforcement, (2) Social Skills Instruction, and (3) Self-Management.
The presentation will give the conceptual basis for, and examples of applications of, for three intervention strategies, each of which can establish/improve prosocial and academic skills while decreasing competing challenging behavior. The strategies include (1) Differential Reinforcement (DR), (2) Social Skills Instruction (SSI), and (3) Self-management (SM). Methods and materials for each strategy will be given, and a task analysis of how to conduct the strategies, including target behaviors, data collection, implementation, and evaluation of effects of treatment. Research-based examples will be presented, with an emphasis on pragmatic implementation.
For DR, procedures for implementing reinforcement of appropriate behaviors that compete with inappropriate behaviors (e.g., reinforcing academic engagement to decrease off-task, or reinforcing prosocial verbal behavior to decrease noncompliance) will be demonstrated.
For SSI, a step by step social skills instructional model will be described and exemplified by research in authentic school settings. Video modeling will also be highlighted, including video examples.
For SM, step by step process for teaching learners to self-record their own academic engagement and success, as well as their prosocial skills (e.g., giving compliments, asking for help) will be exemplified with research-based implementations.
Attendees own experiences will be solicited to exemplify the application of the strategies.
Evidence
The 3 intervention strategies included in the presentation are all evidence-based. Differential Reinforcement schedules (DRO, DRA, DRI) have been used to decrease challenging behaviors (noncompliance, aggression, off-task) that compete with prosocial and academic skills (Alberto and Troutman, 2022; Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2020).
Social Skills Instruction (SSI) teaches new skills (e.g., greetings, compliance) or improves existing skills, e.g., establishes generalization of the greetings across people and settings (Clees & Greene, 2014; Gresham, 2016; Kauffman, 2018).
Self-management (e.g., self-recording of one's own behavior) has been shown to increase academic engagement (Alberto and Troutman, 2022; Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2020; Clees and Green, 2014).
Learning Objective 1
Participants will be able to describe the steps for designing and implementing (1) differential reinforcement, (2) Social Skills Instruction, and (3) Self-Management procedures.
Learning Objective 2
Participants will be able to measure target behaviors associated with the procedures
Learning Objective 3
Participants will be able to evaluate he effectiveness of the strategies.
Keyword Descriptors
Differential-Reinforcement, Social Skills Instruction, Self-Management, Prosocial Skills, Academic Engagement, Video-Modeling
Presentation Year
2022
Start Date
3-9-2022 11:15 AM
End Date
3-9-2022 12:30 PM
Recommended Citation
Clees, Tom; Stephens, Todd PhD; and Babcock, Sarah PhD, "Decreasing challenging behavior by establishing prosocial and academic skills: Differential reinforcement, social skills instruction, and self-management." (2022). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 88.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2022/2022/88
Decreasing challenging behavior by establishing prosocial and academic skills: Differential reinforcement, social skills instruction, and self-management.
Session Nine Breakouts
Multiple evidence-based strategies have been described that not only establish or increase desirable behavioral/affective outcomes (e.g., pro-social skills) and academic engagement (e.g., on-task, task completion), but have the added benefit of simultaneously decreasing challenging behaviors. This presentation will focus on three such strategies, including (1) Differential Reinforcement, (2) Social Skills Instruction, and (3) Self-Management.
