Antecedent Modification

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/psyc/rileytillmant/Behavior-Interventions.cfm

Brief Description:

Student wants to escape nonpreferred activity, so antecedents are altered to increase task engagement. Antecedent-based procedures can be used to decrease inappropriate behaviors or increase appropriate behaviors.
What "Common Problems" Does This Address?
Child acts inappropriately when he/she is given tasks. This intervention can also be applied to children who are given tasks that are too hard/punishing who have engaged in an escape pattern to avoid the task when the task stimulus was presented.

Procedures:

1. Teacher provides activity with an operationally similar task requirement
2. Teacher introduces activity that is more preferred and meaningful to student
3. Teacher provides activity that could be bridged into more functional and educational activities
4. Teacher provides praise and attention when student engages in activity
5. There is differential reinforcement at a fixed interval of 5 minutes when child does not exhibit problem behaviors
6. The child received the reinforcement (teacher attention) contingent on task engagement
7. When the child exhibits inappropriate behaviors, the teacher does not provide attention.
8. There is a fixed interval of 15 minutes to show appropriate behaviors
9. If the student does not comply, he/she is sent to time out for disruptive behavior

Critical Components that must be implemented for intervention to be successful:

Give student praise for engaging in activity. Reinforce appropriate behavior at short intervals. Response cost system during task engagement. Time-out for disruptive behavior
Critical Assumptions/Problem-Solving Questions to be Asked:

Assumptions: There is the assumption that teacher attention and antecedent changes are reinforcing enough to have child engage in task and decrease escape behaviors. In addition, there is the assumption that the child finds environment reinforcing and that time-out is punishing.

Limitations: The intervention was conducted in which two of the children were monitored for their medication during the entire intervention, which may have increased compliance with intervention. In addition, this intervention was developed for children in the Tier III level because teachers need to know what activities the child will engage in and will not engage in. There is initial validation for Tier III intervention with low-incidence of child. The effectiveness of the two components of lowering task difficulty and positive reinforcement are validated by literature but this intervention was not tried as a package. This has a substantial literature base for individual subjects. Subcomponents of lowering task difficulty and positive reinforcement have a substantial literature base.

Materials

Materials for new activities

References

Dunlap, G., Kern-Dunlap, L., Clarke, S., & Robbins, F.R. (1991). Functional assessment, curricular revision, and severe behavior problems. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 24, 387-397.
Ervin, R.A., Kern, L., Clarke, S., DuPaul, G.J., Dunlap, G., & Friman, P.C. (2000). Evaluating assessment-based intervention strategies for students with ADHD and comorbid disorders within the natural classroom context. Behavioral Disorders, 25, 4.
Clarke, S., Worchester, W., Dunlap, G., Murray, M., & Bradley-Klug, K. (2002). Using multiple measures to evaluate positive behavioral support: A case example. Journal of Positive Behavioral Interventions, 3, 131-145.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Antecedent
• Modification