A Case Study Of The Behavioral Problem Of Severely Mentally Handicapped Students With A Positive Behavioral Support Program

Practice and research of special education reveal that severely retarded students with multiple disabilities suffer inner deficiency in a number of aspects.Due to difficulty in expression and demands being satisfied,they are at more likely to see behavior problems than retarded students without disabilities.On the other hand,they are very poor at learning,and some commonly-used functional substitutive behaviors like spoken language,communication board,picture,and gesture language could not be easily learned.In handling behavior problems of such students,how to select proper substitutive behavior is a topic worth thinking.Positive behavior support advocates to prevent and reduce behavior problems through "enhancing ability by instruction" and "constructing support system".Some scholars believe that by assessing existing ability of severely retarded students and utilizing positive behavior support plan can help them to establish expressive behaviors accepted by others.Guided by this idea,this paper studies a severely retarded student suffering cerebral palsy and no-verbal communication.By withdrawal design for single-case study,this paper builds on the functional assessment of behaviors,and measures seven major abilities.Along with IEP aim of the subject,a positive behavior support plan is proposed to help handle the subject's crying and screaming behaviors.In selecting and designing behavior processing tactics,this paper takes full consideration the general development,differentiated development,and special development for above seven major abilities.Also,it actively absorbs from prior control tactics,eco-environment improving tactics,post processing tactics,and behavior instruction tactics.With respect to instruction tactics design,in particular,this paper starts with the current advantageous "postural control" for the subject's lifelong development."Stand-up" is designed as a positive functional communication behavior to replace crying and screaming.By executing,adjusting and assessing the positive behavior support plan on a continuous basis,the following conclusions are drawn:1.Positive behavior support plan has immediate and continuing effects on reducing crying and screaming of the subject;2.Positive behavior support plan has immediate and continuing effects on improving the level of positive functional communication behavior of the subject;3.The execution of positive behavior support plan has good social validity;4.The execution of positive behavior support plan facilitates the development of seven major abilities for the subject.