Adult attention

Escape/avoidance

Power/control

Peer affiliation

Justice/revenge

Teacher:

Instructional strategies to promote desired alternative behavior

And/or

Instructional strategies to reduce the target behavior

[Note:  when alternate behavior is incompatible with target behavior, the same strategy may work both to promote & to reduce]

-          Teach negotiating, compromising, problem solving ,  conflict resolution

-          Role play

-          Teach respect,

-          Teach about nonverbal communication, personal space, body language, voice volume, etc.

-          Prevent lag time, lots of down time

-          Have clear expectations

-          Charting

-          Remove audience

-          Talk the student down (verbal de-escalation)

-          Peer coaching and modeling

-          Behavior contracts

-          Teach the student the skill that he/she is avoiding

-          Identify anxiety triggers

-          Teach self-esteem

-          Work with the student to develop an appropriate signal for the student to use when he/she needs help

-          Match demands to skills levels

-          Paired play

-          Engineered environment (safe place, safe person)

-          Clear classroom expectations

-          Teach conflict resolution skills

-          Teach empathy, perspective taking

-          Teach tolerance curriculum

-          Teach how  to voice opinions in an appropriate fashion

-          Remain calm

-          Use humor to diffuse

-          Behavior contracts

-          Have student serve as peer coach to others

-          Charting

-          Friendship groups

-          Teach participation skills

-          Teach communication skills

-          Teach how to provide constructive feedback to others

-          Anger management

-          Teach empathy & perspective taking

-          Team building

-          Diversity curriculum

-          TRIBES

-          Group contingencies

-          Conflict resolution

-          Teach empathy, perspective taking

-          Errors in thinking

-          Tolerance

-          Remain calm & use humor

-          Behavior contracting

-          Teach diversity curriculum

-          Teach perspective taking

Student:

Instructional consequences for alternative appropriate behavior

And/or

Instructional consequences for inappropriate target behavior

-          Involvement in leadership activities (mentoring, tutoring)

-          Have the student identify appropriate ways to get adult attention

-          Earned down time

-          Engineered choices

-          Successful involvement in classroom

-          Make up work or missed activity

-          Have the student identify appropriate ways to escape

-          Involvement in leadership activities

-          Engineered choices

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to get power or control

-          More friends

-          Involvement in activities, clubs, etc.

-          Choices of peers or groups to work & socialize with

-          Assigned mentor

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to get peer attention

-          Involvement in leadership activities

-          Token economy

-          Repairing relationships

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to get justice

Avoid the use of

-          Power struggles

-          Yelling or raising voice

-          Ignoring

-          Not following through with consequences

-          Announcing scores publicly

-          Removal of the student

-          Removal of the activity to allow the student to get out of doing it

-          Arguing, power struggles

-          Physical contact

-          Raising voice

-          Cornering the student

-          Ultimatums

-          Empty threats

-          Embarrassing the student

-          Group consequences

-          Problem solving in front of others

-          Drawing attention in front of others

-          Announcing test scores, etc. to whole group

-          Personal bias statements to group

-          Embarrassing

-          Homogeneous groupings

Discussion of topics that are sensitive to student

Special considerations

Does the student realize he/she is talking in this manner – is it habit & so we need to raise their awareness?  Are students motivated to respect each other?  Is adequate supervision provided in areas and at times when problems tend to occur?  Are there medical issues, mental health concerns, medications?  Are there similar patterns at home and in the community?  Are other agencies such as social services or mental health involved?  Is the school culture reinforcing problem behavior?  Is the school environment or classroom a trigger?  Is low level behavior being allowed and then escalating?  Is there a cultural mismatch – does the student know what is acceptable behavior?