Ep.18: Behavior Management Basics

Listen for some ‘back to basics' behavior management tips- we offer ideas for fine tuning each strategy when you’re not seeing success!

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Transcript

Caitlin Beltran: I think every single person would say with good intentions that they're providing more praise than they actually are.

Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorists Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started. 

Audra Jensen: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists Podcast. We are very happy to have you here. We are having a lot of fun. And if you like what you're watching or listening to, don't forget to subscribe and like and comment and do all those good things so the algorithm likes us, you can see us more. We really appreciate that. And Caitlin, what are we talking about today? 

Caitlin Beltran: So today we are talking about behavior strategies to support our learners kind of going back to basics. I want to talk about three general strategies and then kind of dive in about more specific ways You can tailor each strategy to your learner or setting. And this kind of came to me when I know for me personally, I've thought many times, okay, I've tried it all and nothing's working.

Or I'll hear from staff, we've done it all, we've tried everything you've given us and nothing's gonna work. I don't know, Audra, have you ever felt that way before? 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, I find we, I hear that a lot and a lot of times we go back and You know, let's just go back to the basics and stick to those for a little while and give them time to work. I think that's the biggest thing is give some of these basic concepts time to work. 

Caitlin Beltran: That one's huge. And I guess too, just thinking about yes, I'm doing maybe X, Y, and Z, but have I thought about making, just even this small change to x or this small change to y. So kind of just looking and examining each strategy because we all have great strategies in place hopefully all the time, but it doesn't mean we have to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it's just a small tweak here and there that could be the major difference. 

Audra Jensen: Right. And I think sometimes we get so close to a situation that it's hard for us to get ourselves out of that rut. And so sometimes we need our tribe to help us rethink what we're working on to pull back and kind of go, okay, maybe I just need to rethink what I was doing.

So I think this is a great episode for us to kind of rethink. Maybe something isn't working, but maybe it's something we already know how to do. It's already in our tool belt. 

Caitlin Beltran: Yes. And that's a perfect segue for the first strategy I want to talk about, which is praise. I know, you're like, this is brand new information, nobody's ever told me to praise the learner before, or to catch them being good.

But again, just in kind of fine tuning this strategy, because in every behavior plan I've ever written, it's, I don't even, I just copy and paste, like, praise, catch one being good, or offer some sort of, general strategy like that. And yet, a lot of times, I'll just give you my own example, for example, like when I first started at the Douglas school, we would have our supervisors come in and collect data on how we were implementing the behavior plans.

So for example, if it said, we were supposed to use four times as many positive to corrective statements, which is research based, I think there's a lot of good research like, yes, you can praise a student. But if you're like, Hey, sit down, nice job. Hey, you didn't do that. Okay, you finally did it.

Hey, go do this. Oh, you did a nice job doing this. that kind of gets watered down over the while. So, you've seen those visuals, hopefully, where it's, maybe, do this, you know, time for this. No, thank you. That's corrective. That's giving them feedback. That's giving them something to do.

Whereas praise, nice job sitting down. Nice job, you know, giving me your pen. Thank you for following directions. So if they're equal, it's easy to overlook that praise feels diluted. But if you're giving like, Oh, Hey, sit down. Hey, nice job sitting down. Thanks for looking at me. I love how you got started right away.

All of a sudden you're at like one feedback, one corrective statement and three praise statements. So I think of it almost like you're putting them in the bank, like for a rainy day, right? When you're going to have to say maybe more corrective or more instructional statements. And so one, just thinking about a way to fine tune this, I totally lost the thread of what I was going to say about when I was observed when I first started, so I'm going to go back to that.

They would come in with a clicker and literally count in say a 30 minute observation period how many corrective statements and how many praise statements we use and then they give us our scores. And this is like way back when I first started out, so I, in my head, I'm like, I'm pretty positive. So I'm doing this naturally all the time. And that's why this was so eye opening for me because she was like, yeah, you did a nice job. You were at like 50 percent of each or something. And I was like, what? Like I, you, I think every single person would say with good intentions that they're providing more praise than they actually are.

So one that might be just like a little, trick to try out or a little test yourself kind of thing, literally click or think about how many corrective statements and how many praise statements you're doing during an instructional session. And I think you would actually be surprised. 

Audra Jensen: I think also we need this for our life partners. I mean, you find out such A simple thing is, wow, thanks for doing the dishes for me. That was really nice. It goes so far. Can you imagine, you know, the husband or the wife comes in. It's like, wow, I really appreciate that. Blah, blah, blah. It's huge. I was just, I was in my workout class the other day and the instructors chose a song and it was specifically for me and she said, Hey, this one's for you or whatever.

Call that me out by name. And it was like huge. I was like so much more excited to engage in that because she called me by name. So I mean, not only just praise, but using the student by name. It's huge. Those just little things. And those are so small to do. 

Caitlin Beltran: Thanks for showing up like behavior specific. It's so easy to forget that and it's funny you mentioned in marriages because I'm pretty sure in that research they talk about how marriages that you like unknowingly that maybe they've been to therapy maybe they haven't but marriages, couples, partnerships where this is being used, they're more successful. So you're onto something there. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, I'm almost at 30 years, so something's working. 

Caitlin Beltran: You're practicing what you preach. so right, those are just the fine tuning, right? Are we doing it enough? Are we doing it at that four to one ratio? Are we varying it? if you told me like, thanks for doing the dishes every single day in the same monotone voice, I'd be like enough. Shut up. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, 

Caitlin Beltran: That doesn't count anymore. Are we making it really specific and really meaningful? Are we setting a timer? We talked about last episode that non contingent reinforcement and maybe again, I thought I was praising, I thought I was flooding them with reinforcement and positive feedback, but Oops, that timer stopped, the battery died, and I totally forgot because there were a thousand other things that happened since then.

Are you asking your learner, hey, what kind of, if you have a learner, of course, that can have that conversation, and I don't, definitely have a lot who can, but I do have some learners who are maybe in a more inclusive setting. Where I've been like, Hey, when I come in, do you want me to talk to you or do you just want to be like one of the guys here? Like you're in love that I think about that. Um, and that's when sometimes they'll open up and say, Oh no, yeah, it's great. Or no, I don't really want to talk to you. But yeah, I love that. That would be cool. so that brings me to my second strategy, which is something a little more visual.

Now, I wrote punch card, but this could be a token board, a behavior chart, a punch card, some type of immediate feedback to catch that learner being good in the moment with whatever they're doing. And again, I think we all hopefully have some element of this in our classroom for each learner, whether they have a sticker chart or a token board or a punch card but some of those ways to fine tune it to me when people say, Oh, I've tried a punch card, but it's not working. Oh, I've tried a token board, but it's not working. But what's not working about it? So first is the rate of reward matching the rate of the behavior or the task? So that age old example, like if you have a learner who's getting like a punch on their card every period, you know, and at the end of the day they can cash in their punches for an ice cream, but they can't go five minutes without engaging in the behavior, your timing is just way off, like it doesn't match your student at all.

Audra Jensen: I love also the large contingencies, so the good behavior game and variations of that. So doing a group contingency, so, you know, putting up on the board, Hey, every time I see somebody doing something great, we're going to put a sticker up here or a star up here.

And then at the end, We're going to see how many are, I love the game of beat the teacher, which I create that love. You know, you're just like, I'm going to get a point every time I see you off task, anybody off task and everybody else is going to get a point when anybody in, you know, and just having this sort of positive feel within the classroom. so yeah, I love doing all of those types of things. 

Caitlin Beltran: And that's a great example of, it's the same concept, right, but you're varying it to suit the environment or the students. So before you say, wait, we did this and it didn't work, did you change it to fit the behavior? Did you change it to fit the student?

Did you change it to fit the environment? Right, because, in an ABA classroom, maybe I'm using a token board with three stars, but in an inclusion setting, maybe I'm using, A punch card that every kid has, but there's just looks like a little different or it's like a little more of a dense schedule.

Audra Jensen: Have you used coupons before? 

Caitlin Beltran: Yes, I love that. 

Audra Jensen: I love the coupons where, you know, you have a student who calls out or something, but you give them five coupons, so they have five times that they're allowed to call out. I love to use that 

Caitlin Beltran: one. Break passes, yeah. Yeah, break passes. That was making, designing their own break pass.

It got kind of, you know, it went a little haywire. We need a spot for the teacher's signature and then if I, that means I, nobody can forge it and I'm like, okay. But it was very personal to him. So I felt like he'd be more motivated to use it and it was like gold with a yellow background. I'm, I love it a lot of that, you know, so that kind of was on my list as well.

Are you making it individualized and motivating? Like my thought was like I have this I had a generic pass or break board or something and he was like, he's very creative and he's like, well, can I make it? All of a sudden it turned into this golden ticket and he called it a pause pass and it had a Wonka ticket thing.

And I was like, I never would have thought of that. So mine would not be as motivating as yours. Clearly, because you had such a great idea in your head. And I wanted to reflect you and your personality. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, I love that. 

Caitlin Beltran: You can't always do that with your learners. But even if they're not able to have that conversation, do they have a favorite show or a favorite movie?

And then you're putting like the puppy dog pal on the board or on the coupon instead of just a random smiley face. 

Audra Jensen: We are also bringing back in that concept of choice. You know that we talk about all the time. It's like it's you don't just hand them a generic thing. It's bring them into the discussion. Have them be a part of that discussion. Have them have ownership of it. 

Caitlin Beltran: 100%. I think in my, ABA classrooms, we tend to like, we'll have this template and then we'll just individualize it, but it's like the same template. And whereas in my, more of my mainstream console in my school, like if I'm doing RTI or what we used to call INRS, I used to approach that very differently.

And I would say Oh, here's a behavior chart. Do you want to start this one or this one to the teacher? And now I'm almost always, you know, rare exception saying can I pull the student, even though it's not somebody like I'm going to work with every day, I'm like, let me take this off your plate, but also have the time.

And I have been really surprised by how many kids get so into it when I frame it as like a goal setting and something positive, but also how specific they get. So like the example today, or I'll say, you know, some kids I use points, some kids thumbs up, and I've had so many kids like, yeah, I want to do thumbs up, but definitely a thumbs middle too, or a smile face and a sad face and a straight face, or they get so creative with it. And then all of a sudden it's theirs. Like it's not mine.

Audra Jensen: It's great. I love it. 

Caitlin Beltran: So I think that ties in nicely with my third strategy, which again, none of these are brand new shocking information, but things that we can think about and tweak and make sure we are continuing to use or continuing to try.

And that's the longer term reward. And I think the caveat with this one is it's definitely not something that every student can cognitively understand yet. So I have a lot of learners that it's just, it has to be quick. It has to be immediate. And that's really where they're at right now. But I do have some learners maybe in the inclusion settings or, like I said, some of the general ed students that I do consult with where they're still having their short term rewards, right?

Like they still have the punch card. And if they earn the punch card for the day, they get whatever it is, their extra recess or their snack or their, break time or something. But if maybe on Friday, if they've earned four out of five days that week, they get an additional reward or they get their certificate sent home or something like that.

So I have learned along the way, I have some students that this mixing of short and long term rewards has been like game changer for us. And the short term rewards help because you're catching them good in the moment, But those they can get satiated with like it's pretty easy to get sick of even if you have a basket of fidgets or a basket of snacks.

But that Friday reward of 20 minutes in the gym playing softball with Miss Beltran, that's pretty big. And that's been like a nice combination to motivate them with. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, I've helped a number of especially behavior classrooms have they have fun Friday. They have, throughout the week, they have coupons, whatever that they build up, in addition to the short term rewards throughout the week, but then they are able to buy at the Friday store certain things, you know, dumb little things, but also time and stuff, and that is really good. I like that pairing of both the short and the long term work really well together. 

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, and sometimes we tie that into home too, or the parents on their own will do that and start saying, Oh, you know, every time I see a certificate home, I'm gonna, you know, add five minutes of screen time or whatever. 

Audra Jensen: I did this, I did this when Isaac was little.

He had a really rough patch and he was probably six or eight years old. And, we created a behavior ladder. So we created a ladder and put all of his favorite things on the ladder. And we started the day where he had to start at the bottom. So he lost all of his privileges to start. Now he was on board with it because he loved the idea of earning them all back.

But this was a long term reward. And I think there were 10 rungs. So the very first one was like Goldfish Crackers. So the first day he earned back his Goldfish Crackers, and the next day he earned back, you know, his Pokemon cards or whatever. And so he earned all of these things back until he got Xbox back or whatever.

But it was a long term, he had such a blast. And we would not have done it had he been at all, you know, a negative thing. But he thought it was hilarious. But it totally turned his behavior around completely. It was amazing. We did it a couple of times too. It was great. 

Caitlin Beltran: He was really bought into it. This is giving me ideas for myself. I need your ladder.so yeah, I mean, I think that's about it. I know this seems like maybe kind of like we said, back to basics, but for me, it's just always a reminder, not just to reinvent the wheel, not just to find this new strategy, find this new card, find this new visual, but to look at what I'm using, look at the verbal praise, the visuals, both short and long term, see how they're being used, hopefully with fidelity and consistency, goes without saying that's the first run. But after that, you know, is the rate of behavior matching the rate of rewards? Is the praise specific enough? Is it individualized to your learner? Is the visual motivating to the learner? Did they have buy in? there's so many questions that you could ask about each piece of your intervention, each piece of your plan, that it becomes really hard to say, no, nothing's working.

We did it all. Because there's a thousand different ways you could make one little punch card or run a little token board. So it's really, endless possibilities. 

Audra Jensen: And I think this is great just because I think we do all get in a rut and we sort of forget that the things we already know are things that work.

We just sort of need to tweak them or try them again or give them a little bit of time. And sometimes we just need those reminders to kind of freshen up that toolbox. I think this is great. 

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah. And you had mentioned, I think, earlier, just like having, join the Facebook group, join the Misfit Behaviorists group.

Not only are we dropping freebies and doing things like that, but post, hey, I have a reward system and I have three coupons and the behavior's this and it's not working. And you'll get responses, not just from me and Audra, but other people as well. And sometimes it just takes that fresh lens to be like, hey, ever try this? Ever look at it this way?

And all of a sudden it's like, Oh, I don't have to print some huge new thing. I can just try this a slightly different way. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah. Let us be your tribe. Yeah. 

Caitlin Beltran: So with that being said, definitely join that Facebook group.

Audra Jensen: remember to subscribe on YouTube at The Misfit Behaviorists. Find us on Facebook. That group is where we share those freebies. Podcasts wherever you listen to it. Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and next week I just want to mention we are going to do a two part series about summer services. So I'm going to talk about, uh, parents keeping students engaged over the summer when there are no services going on, maybe no school going on, and Caitlin, what are you going to talk about? 

Caitlin Beltran: I'm going to talk about prepping for extended school year, ESY, what that looks like for data, materials, all that fun stuff.

Audra Jensen: So tune back in next week and the week after and we will be talking about summer prep. See you then. Bye. Bye. Bye. 

Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists. And be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.