Angela Kulcsar explains how to reduce challenging behaviors by removing their reinforcement while teaching a replacement behavior that meets the same need. The key is treating the replacement as a skill to practice repeatedly, not just telling a child to stop the unwanted behavior.
Welcome back to the 10 Quick Wins for Behavior Change. Video 8: Starve the Negative Behavior and Replace It with a Positive Behavior. The Starve It, Replace It model— this is the framework for your behavior plan. Now, there's a lot of detail we can go into what this really looks like, but I want to give you a quick overview of how to implement this into your behavior plans and your behavior strategies. The overall behavior change framework is starve it and replace it. We want to eliminate or reduce the effectiveness of the negative behavior in getting access to that why, and at the very same time give a new appropriate communicative way to get access to that same why. Now guys, negative behaviors are successful. Just like positive behaviors, they're learned, and these behaviors right now are resulting in something awesome. For that child. We want to change that contingency. We wanna make it so the negative behavior doesn't work and a positive behavior does. So think about that. Make it so the negative behavior no longer works or no longer works as well. And at the very same time, give them a positive, prosocial communicative behavior that does work. So let's look at the first piece, starving the negative behavior. This means you're going to change your behavior or the environment so the inappropriate response either does not result in something awesome or results in less of something awesome. So we can do either, make it not work or not work as well. A lot of times, especially in a classroom setting, we're going to be in that area of we're going to make it not work as well. Basically what you're doing here is minimizing the reinforcement for the negative behavior because oftentimes it's— we're really not able to remove all of the reinforcement for a negative behavior. It might not be possible or safe if a child's engaging in aggression or eloping or anything like that. We're not just gonna ignore that attention-seeking behavior, right? And remove all reinforcement. He could get hurt, right? So we have to intervene, but we can still do so in a way that minimizes the reinforcement for the negative behavior. So we wanna really play with the magnitude of our response, play with the environment and the setting events to make that behavior not be as successful. Basically, you're gonna reduce or decrease the level or quality of the result. Starving the negative behavior could look like giving less attention to a behavior, It could look like removing fun toys from an accessible break area. It could look like putting an iPhone or an iPad on a locked setting. Again, there's a lot that goes into what this starve it really looks like, but these are some potential examples. While teaching a replacement behavior— this is in all caps because yes, I am yelling this— this is the most common misstep I see in behavior plans is no replacement behavior. If you do starve it on its own, it might work temporarily, but it's not gonna work long-term, and it could really cause an escalation in a dangerous situation if you have a student with a history of aggression. Because you need to give a different way to get them what they want, and this has to happen at the same time. The replacement behavior is my secret sauce to a behavior plan. You need it. The sandwich is not delicious without the secret sauce. So you have to teach a replacement behavior. A replacement behavior is a behavior that results in the same reinforcement— that's something awesome— that the negative behavior was resulting in. So if the negative behavior was resulting in a break, the replacement behavior results in a break. If the negative behavior results in attention from the teacher or peers, the replacement behavior results in attention from teacher or peers. It has to result in that same reinforcement. Now oftentimes I hear people, well, he knows how to ask for help, he knows how to ask for a break, he knows where his stuff is, he's just not utilizing that replacement behavior. Well, the key to a replacement behavior being a successful part of a behavior plan is teaching it. Teaching it. You can't just give the replacement behavior and be like, here you go, use this. It's not a magic wand. We have to teach this response. This is why I so often say that decreasing a negative behavior is actually a skill acquisition thing. We need to teach the missing skill, and here the missing skill is that replacement behavior. We learn new skills through repeated practice, through lots of opportunities, through reinforcement. Think about how you learned how to add. You didn't learn how to add in one day. You didn't do addition one day in kindergarten and never do it again. You weren't punished when you couldn't do addition correctly. No, you learned addition through repeated practice and lots of opportunities and reinforcement. Guys, it's the same thing with our replacement behaviors. We need to approach teaching new skills, new communicative pro-social behaviors, with the same rigor and thoroughness that we approach teaching academics, because to me, man, it's arguably more important. So this is a process. Replacement behaviors aren't going to be taught in a few minutes on a Monday. We need to again approach these behaviors just like we do— would academics. Give it time, give those opportunities for success, and build up those replacement behaviors.
