Module 7: Lesson 10

In our previous lessons, we?ve looked at various examples of antecedent interventions, direct interventions, skills teaching interventions and reactive strategies. These are all components of a behaviour support plan.

When you develop a behaviour support plan, the underlying logic is that we make behaviours that challenge,  irrelevant), inefficient or ineffective (the challenging behaviour no longer work to produce the desired outcome).

By irrelevant, we mean that there is no need to engage in them.


By inefficient, we mean that there is an easier and more reliable way of achieving the same outcome.


By ineffective, we mean that the behaviour that challenge no longer produces the desired outcome.


When your supervisor writes a behaviour support plan, they often use something called the Competing Behavior Model. This involves 5 steps:

  1. Review the Summary Statement that resulted from the Functional Assessment which should identify the setting events and motivation operations, the antecedents to challenging behaviour and the consequences hypothesised to reinforce it.
  2. Identify a functionally equivalent behaviour that can replace the behaviour that challenges and obtain the same reinforcer as the behaviour that challenges
  3. Identify a desired alternative behaviour
  4. Identify a reinforcer for the desired alternative behavior
  5. Based on hypothesised antecedents, motivating operations and setting events, alter the client?s physical and social environment

In short, the behaviour support plan should identify changes to be to the person?s physical environment, how people interact with them, FERBS, desired alternatives and appropriate reinforcers for the desired alternative behaviour. Where some related skills are not currently within a client?s repertoire, we may seek to teach these skills. We might also seek to teach other skills that help people to learn better, or that otherwise improve their autonomy and quality of life.

Looking at this in more detail, If somebody is having poor sleep or has nutritional issues, efforts should be made to address these. If a medical need was identified during functional assessment, this needs to be addressed first.

A review of setting events and antecedents, should allow for the identification of any social or physical environmental alterations that could be made to make the target behaviour less likely to occur or irrelevant. This might involve the use of techniques such as non-contingent reinforcement, behavioural momentum or the Premack Principle. It might also involve the use of visual schedules or communication aids.

We can make the behaviour that challenges inefficient by teaching or enhancing reinforcement for a functionally equivalent replacement behaviour. For example, a communication response that results in access to the same reinforcer, but with less effort and more reliability.

When we reinforce the desired behaviour, we make it more likely to occur in the future. If the motivation for the reinforcer we are using for the desired behaviour is stronger than the motivation for the challenging behaviour, the challenging behaviour will decrease.

Placing the behaviour that challenges on extinction, also makes it less likely to occur. Where extinction is not possible, techniques such as strategic capitulation, minimising reinforcement and diversion may also be useful.
As ever, where a skill that would benefit a learner is missing, we teach those skills. These skills may be related to the antecedents and setting events we identified during the functional assessment, the functionally equivalent or related replacement behaviours, or the desired alternative behaviours. In later modules, we will look at some ABA skills training formats in greater detail.If the hypothesis presented in the Summary Statement of the Functional Assessment is correct, and the strategies outlined in the behaviour support plan are linked to the function and implemented with fidelity, then the behaviour that challenges should reduce and may no longer occur.? In the event that it is not successful, continued data collection will allow for the modification of the hypothesis and the modification of the strategies employed in the behaviour support plan.



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