With its origins and conceptual underpinnings in the applied
behavior analysis arm of psychology, positive behavior support
(PBS) emerged during the 1980s as a comprehensive approach to
addressing the need for community support for persons with
disabilities who engage in challenging behavior. As a field of
endeavor, PBS has experienced phenomenal growth over a span of 25
years and is now an integral component of public education in many
schools in practically every state in the United States.
As an applied science of human behavior, PBS brings together the
precision of a careful, analytical examination of the functions of
problem behavior and relies on a broader framework of
person-centered values to guide support through teaching
alternative skill repetoires. Therefore, PBS involves a conceptual
shift in addressing challenges presented by difficult behavior
associated with disabilities this shift is away from a direct and
focused effort to simply reduce the occurrence of such behavior
(sometimes with the use of punishing consequences) to a
comprehensive values-based approach that eschews highly aversive
consequences in favor of a teaching model focused on both the
person and the person s total life span or ecology.
Currently, the field of positive behavior support offers a
significant and expanding scientific basis for the functional
analysis of problem behavior that is, behavior that impedes
learning and development and that, if not addressed, may result in
a seriously diminished quality of life for those affected. PBS is
now conceptualized as a risk-prevention system applicable at three
levels of intervention:
-Universal, or primary applications, directed to all members of a
specialized social ecology (e.g., a school).
- Universal, or primary applications, directed to all members of
a specialized social ecology (e.g., a school).
- Group, or secondary intervention, directed to a specific group
or aspect of the total ecology, (e.g., a classroom).
- Individual, or tertiary interventions, directed to individual
supports.
At all three levels, the process begins with a systematic
examination of the total context in which behavior of interest is
manifest and addresses interventions that are concerned with each
individual s well-being and overall quality of life rather than
directing efforts to make individuals "fit in" to existing systems.
At teritary levels of intervention, the process begins with a
systematic examination of the total context in which problem
behavior occurs, including preceding "setting events," biological
factors, antecedent occurrences, environmental arrangements,
learning styles and histories, and immediate as well as long-range
consequences for problem behavior. The science of delineating
functions of behavior is called functional behaviorial assessment
(FBA).
Results of FBA are then directed to a set of teaching interventions
with a system focus which may include multiple persons in a variety
of settings, and which are carefully delineated in a document
called a positive behavior support plan. Progress on implementation
of the plan is carefully monitored and the resultant data
periodically reviewed for progress and for any needed
modifications. Tertiary interventions are considered to be
terminated when an individual has successfully replaced aberrant
and antisocial behavior with newly learned skills that are life
affirming and socially desirable.
The sum of the three-level system of intervention of positive
behavior support affords a comprehensive approach to preventing the
emergence of life-restricting behavior through increasing degrees
of support, as needed, to build a positive behavioral repetoire
with entire social systems. As such, PBS respresents a
scientifically validated, applied body of knowledge that spans all
ages from early childhood through adulthood. It enables educational
and other service providers to fully integrate a technology of
sociobehavioral development with other pedagogical efforts to
enhance the quality of life of recipients. It does so within a
framework of expressed values that emphasize positive interactions
directed to sustained lifestyle changes that enable recipients to
participate fully in day-to-day community life.
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