Moira Koskey

November 9, 2020
Summary Week 8
Chapter 13

1. IDEA Act of 2004 does not specify the contents to be included in a Be-
havioral Intervention Plan. Case law has provided five themes related to
creating an appropriate BIP. What are they?
2. A BIP must be developed if the student’s behavior is interfering with their
learning. If a student with an IEP is not provided with a BIP when necessary,
the school runs the risk of losing federal IDEA funds.
3. The development of the BIP must be based on recent and meaningful assess-
ments, including an FBA.
4. The BIP must be individually developed for the student. Using school wide or
small group is not sufficient, the individual assessment data must be taken into
account.
5. The BIP must include specific reinforcement strategies and positive behavior
supports, rather than just a list of goals, or listing solely negative conse-
quences for inappropriate behaviors.
6. The BIP must be consistently implemented with fidelity by all staff, and it must
be monitored with frequency. Data acquired by monitoring the implementation
should be used to make adjustments when necessary. Professional develop-
ment and training may be required so that every staff member that comes into
contact with the student is implementing the BIP with consistency.

2. What is differential reinforcement ? What is differential reinforcement of

alternative behaviors (DRA)? What is differential reinforcement of incom-
patible behaviors (DRI)? What is differential reinforcement of higher rates
of behavior (DRH)?
Differential reinforcement can refer to two primary applications of reinforcement-
reinforcing behavior that is exhibited following a discriminative stimulus but not in
other instances, and reinforcing one target behavior while other behaviors are not
enforced. The idea is to increase appropriate behaviors that students already
have in their repertoire with positive reinforcement. DRA is the reinforcement of
an alternative appropriate behavior that replaces a target behavior but serves the
same purpose. DRI is the reinforcement of behaviors that are not able to take
place at the same time as the target behavior, often the opposite behavior. DRH
is reinforcement of increased rates of an appropriate behavior when compared to
the baseline.

3. Take a look at the BIP, for John(15 years old), located on page 313. What
is the DRL and what is the DRA that is included in the plan?
The DRL in John’s plan is that he may select a reinforcer from a menu when he
decreases the target behavior, in this case cursing. This is implemented in four
phases, and John moves to a new phase after three consecutive gym periods
where he achieves his objective. The DRA is that John will receive verbal praise
from his teacher every time he is observed using an alternative behavior, like us-
ing appropriate words.

4. Take a look at the BIP for Julia (6 years old) located on page 314. What
is the DRL and what is the DRO included in this plan?
The DRL is that Julia will select a reinforcer from a reinforcement menu each
time she reduces the number of times that she takes something without permis-
sion from another student, in accordance with the reinforcement schedule. The
DRO is that Julia’s teacher will provide verbal praise at least once an hour when
it is observed that Julia does not have something that does not belong to her.

5. Given the emphasis today on positive behavioral supports, do you think

response cost programs are still appropriate? I do not believe that response
cost programs are the best choice, because they focus only on the negative be-
havior rather than on replacing it with a more appropriate behavior. I also think
the frustration and disappointment that a child feels when a response cost pro-
gram is used in a token economy may very well outweigh any benefits. For ex-
ample, it would be deeply discouraging for a child to earn stars for good behavior
only to see them disappear when an inappropriate behavior is displayed, thereby
essentially erasing the progress. And as is mentioned in the text, once all of the
reinforcers are removed, the next step is unclear.

6. Distinguish between the following behavior reduction strategies: Time-

out, response cost, and extinction. Timeout refers to a method of handling a
target behavior by removing a student from a situation where they are receiving
or have the opportunity to receive reinforcement for a specific amount of time or
until they demonstrate appropriate behavior. Response cost is the removal of a
specific amount of a reinforcer contingent on appropriate behavior- for example,
losing access to a game for a certain amount of minutes, or losing tokens that
have been earned in a token economy. Extinction is systematically reducing the
frequency or intensity of the target behavior by removing its reinforcement. The
teacher must be aware of what is reinforcing the behavior and then work to re-
move that.

7. Explain what is meant by extinction burst and spontaneous recovery.

Extinction burst means that when negative behavior that has previously received
reinforcement starts to be ignored, the frequency, intensity, and duration of the
behavior may temporarily increase. This can sometimes cause teachers to pre-
maturely determine that the strategy is ineffective, but usually consistency and
patience will help push past the extinction burst period. Spontaneous recovery is
the recurrence of a behavior that was decreasing during extinction. This is usu-
ally not as intense as the behavior displayed during the extinction burst, and it’s
important that the behavior not receive any reinforcement.
8. Several variations of nonexclusion timeout are possible. List the three
most common variations and include a brief example of each.
7. Planned ignoring is when a teacher removes attention or reinforcement for a
short time when an inappropriate behavior takes place. For example, when a
student yells out in class, the teacher would look away and ignore them for a
period of sixty seconds. This removes the reinforcement of teacher attention
that the student otherwise would have gained.
8. The time out ribbon is a technique where students wear a signifier such as a
ribbon or wristband that indicated they are using appropriate behavior, and
when they are wearing this they can receive reinforcers. However, when inap-
propriate behavior takes place, the signifier is removed for a period of time. For
example, if a student were wearing the time out ribbon and yelled out in class,
the ribbon would be removed for three minutes and reinforcers would not be
earned.
9. Contingent observation involves removing a student from a reinforcing activity
when inappropriate behavior takes place and having them observe the other
students from the periphery of the group. For example, if a child yells inappro-
priately at another child during a game, the child would be removed from the
game and sit on the sidelines observing the other children continue to play.

9. Give an example of how you would use restitution in behavior manage-

ment.
I would use restitution to handle inappropriate behavior like throwing items or lit-
ter in the classroom or playground- the child would need to clean up and restore
the area.

10. Read the following case study and then answer the questions that fol-
low.
Carla, a 13-year-old seventh grader, is repeatedly truant from school. When
asked what she does when she does not attend school, Carla replies that
she has a tough time getting out of bed in the morning. She figures that
since she will be late for her first class and will get a tardy slip she may as
well just blow off the entire school day. Her teachers and counselor have
tried to talk to her about this and maintain that it is in fact better to be late
for the first hour than to miss the whole day. Her school counselor has
even tried to help Carla by calling her in the morning to get her out of bed.
Carla answers the phone, says "thanks for calling," replies that she will get
up, and then goes back to sleep. Punishing Carla with detention and failing
grades has not been effective in helping her to change her behavior.

10.1 What do you suppose is the main behavior problem demonstrated by

Carla? What category of behavior problem does this behavior fall under?
Carla’s main behavior is avoiding school by being truant. This is an externalizing
behavior, but her sleeping patterns may speak to an internalized issue such as
depression, as sleeping too much can be a symptom.
10.2 If you were to conduct a functional assessment of Carla's behavior,
what might the hypothesis statement look like? The function of Carla’s be-
havior is escape, as she is escaping attending school and completing school-
work. She would benefit from a Curriculum Based Assessment since a large part
of this behavior is the avoidance of academic tasks. A secondary function of the
behavior is the individual attention she is receiving from the school counselor.

10.3 Develop a list of possible interventions that you would predict to be ef-
fective in helping Carla develop replacement behaviors for her truant be-
havior.
Carla can benefit from DRH where the target behavior is truancy and the replace-
ment behavior is attendance. The reinforcement schedule should be phased, and
it should start with Carla attending any of her classes. The next phase would be
for her to attend a day of school even if she misses the first hour. The next would
be for her to attend her first class even if she is tardy. And finally she will be rein-
forced for attending the entire day.
Carla’s family also needs to be involved in correcting this behavior since it begins
at home. I would also recommend she be screened for depression and anxiety
symptoms because this behavior may be consistent with symptoms of those is-
sues.