The Study Of A Positive Behavior Supportplan On Intervening In Behavior Problemsfor Students With Moderate Intellectualdisability

Children with intellectual disability are generally restricted in the development of cognition and communication skills.They have varying difficulties in the study and life,and are prone to behavior problems of different types and forms.This will not only hinder their own learning and life,but also bring trouble to parents,teachers or peers.Behavior problem intervention has always been an important issue in the field of special education.As the latest achievements of behavior intervention theory,positive behavior support plays an important role in dealing with behavior problem and has great application potential.The existing researches related to positive behavior support mainly focused on behavior problems of school-age exceptional children.A small amount of research focused on preschoolers.However,there was no empirical study on0-3 years old children.So,this study selected a child in early preschool period and a child at the preliminary stage of primary school as the research subjects.On the basis of functional behavior assessment,the study developed and implemented diverse and individualized positive behavior support plans to reduce behavior problems and increase positive behaviors.The study used a single subject study of A1-B1-A2-B2 to withdraw the experimental design,and performed a track research.The independent variables of this study are the positive behavior support plan.The dependent variables are numbers of behavioral problems and positive behaviors.Target behaviors of two cases were the scratching behaviors and the out-of-seat behaviors.The intervention procedures included the baseline phase(A1),intervention phase I(B1),withdrawal phase(A2),intervention phase II(B2)and maintenance phase.At the end of the experimental intervention,the researchers used visual analysis to analyze the data of the dependent variables in eachphase,and collected the qualitative data by means of interview.In this study,the intervention group composed of researchers,teachers and parents was formed.Team members discussed,developed and implemented the positive behavior support plans.The researchers collected the relevant data by the behavioral functional interview,behavioral motivation assessment and direct observation,in order to understand the function of behavior problems.A case scratched others to attract the attention of adults(teachers or parents),and another case often left his seat for obtaining items,activities,and assistance,or avoiding the task of dislikes,relatively difficult tasks,and relatively long time tasks.Based on the function of behavior problems,the intervention team developed a diverse and individualized intervention packages for the students.The plans included regulating implicit and distant antecedents,controlling immediate antecedents and premonitory events,teaching positive behaviors,and intervening behavior consequence.After three months of intervention,the scratching behaviors of a case had been significantly reduced in the intervention phase,and the replacement behaviors had increased.But after removing some intervention strategies(behavior teaching strategies),the short-term(in a month)maintain effect was not very good.This suggested the behavior teaching strategies were effective,but should be performed for a longer period of time until the behaviors was more stable.The intervention program for out-of-seat behaviors and replacement behaviors of another case had the immediate and short-term(in a month)maintained effectiveness.In addition,the parents and teachers of two cases recognized effectiveness of intervention.This study drew the main following conclusions:(1)The functional behavioral assessment can effectively diagnose function of target behaviors;(2)The multiple and individualized intervention programs should be developed on the basis of function of behavior problems;(3)The positive behavior support plans can reduce behavior problems and increase positive behaviors;(4)The positive behavior support plans have good social validity.According to the development,implementation and effect of positive behavior support plans,the researchers suggested that behavior intervention should pay attention to function of behavior problems,prevention and education,team cooperation and social validity.Future research should pay attention to long-term maintenance effect,generalization effect,cases with different disability category and age,and different types of target behaviors.