A framework for deciding which behaviors actually need intervention. A behavior is a problem only if it blocks learning, risks injury, damages the environment, or isolates the child. Sensory-seeking behaviors that help a child focus shouldn't be eliminated unless they become highly disruptive.
Before you get started on any behavior plan or even any behavior strategy, you have to ask yourself, is this behavior really a problem? And by that I mean, is it really a problem for this child, or is it a problem just for me? If it's a problem just for you, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you to get over it. If it's a problem for the child, then we're gonna target that behavior for decrease. So let's figure out if this behavior is really a problem. Whatever role you are in, whether you're a special ed teacher, a gen ed teacher, a paraprofessional, a clinician, you are often regarded as the expert on behavior. So you may get pulled into that consultant role quite a bit. People might be like, hey, come look at what Johnny's doing in my class. Or like in the lunchroom one day, someone's like, hey, what do you think about a child that's doing this? Or Maybe when you're walking down the hall in the morning, they're like, "You know what? I'm really struggling with Sarah in this class. What would you do?" Because everyone knows you're good at this. So you may get asked to observe. They're like, "Hey, come in my room. See what's going on." So you go observe, and when you're there, you see nothing. You're waiting for this big bad behavior to appear, and it just doesn't. And maybe the child does something that looks a little disruptive, and the teacher's like, "See, that's what I'm talking about." But in your eyes, you don't really view that as a challenging behavior. Now, for me, for something to be considered a challenging behavior, it has to fall into one of four categories. And I'm very particular about this. A challenging behavior needs to interfere with the individual's learning. Because of this behavior, we are not getting to our IEP goals. We are not making academic progress, social progress, communication progress, etc. Because of this behavior, there could be a result of self-injury or injury to others. Obviously, this is period, end of story. If this behavior is causing injury, we know that we have to target this for decrease. A challenging behavior needs to potentially cause damage to the physical environment. This can cause big impacts for our learners. If Mom takes Johnny to the grocery store and he has a hard time and he knocks over an entire shelf of pasta sauce and there's just marinara splattered everywhere, what was supposed to be a quick trip to the grocery store now costs that mom $385. Do you think she's ever taking him to the grocery store again? No, and I don't blame her. But now that child is ostracized from learning environments that happen in the community. He's ostracized from his family. So those behaviors can have really big impacts. And last, for it to be a challenging behavior, it needs to socially isolate the individual. So for something to be considered a challenging behavior, meaning we are going to target that behavior for decrease, It has to either interfere with learning, result in self-injury or injury to others, cause damage to the physical environment, or socially isolate the individual. And guess what? If it doesn't, I don't care. Meaning if it doesn't interfere with learning, cause injury, cause property damage, or socially isolate, I don't care. And I'm saying that pretty bluntly now because I've been put in this situation time and time again where I'm called in to consult or view on a behavior that is one of these gray area behaviors. Where they don't technically fall into one of these four categories, but maybe they're minorly disruptive, annoying, or just honestly non-traditional. And for these gray area behaviors, very often these are my sensory seeking behaviors. These are behaviors that lessen anxiety. These are behaviors that could help with coping, that help a child focus. Why would we want to get rid of a behavior that helps a child cope and focus and decreases anxiety? We wouldn't. We don't ever want to take these behaviors away. Now, if behaviors are extremely disruptive, meaning they interfere with learning, then I want you to collaborate with your occupational therapist to determine some replacements or alternatives, because those could be sensory-seeking behaviors that are coping and self-soothing, but they could just be extremely disrupting, so they are going to fall into our definition of that challenging behavior. Then we want to tweak and adjust, and we really want to pull in our occupational therapist for those types of situations. So next time you are faced with a challenging behavior, whether it's within your own classroom or caseload, or you're pulled into that consultant role, I want you to ask yourself, is this really a problem?
