IRIS Module Answers

Assessment Take some time now to answer the following questions. Please note that the IRIS Center does not collect your Assessment responses. If this is a course assignment, you should turn them into your professor using whatever method he or she requires. If you have trouble answering any of the questions, go back and review the Perspectives & Resources pages in this Module. 1. Give a school-based example of two of the following: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, or extinction. a. Positive Reinforcement: i. Give the student a “gold star” on their chart for walking silently in the hallway while the rest of the students talked. b. Negative Punishment: i. Taking recess away from a student who is pushing other children on the playground during recess. 2. Discuss at least two benefits of conducting an FBA to address problem behaviors. a. FBA can help instructors understand the reasons for the student’s behavior and why they are misbehaving. b. FBA information can be used to design an intervention that will help students overall learn more efficiently. 3. Watch the video below and fill out the ABC analysis form on Kira, the girl in the white shirt. What do you think is the function of Kira’s behavior? a. I believe Kira’s behavior is done in order to receive attention from her peers. Each time she does something inappropriate, the class immediately starts laughing at her and she starts smiling, thus showing an indication she is pleased that she has received attention. Near the end of the film, when another student is answering, Kira looks around to see if people are still laughing at her because that attention is the foundation of her behavior. b. ABC Analysis: REFER TO BOTTOM OF PAGE 4. Nigel’s problem behavior includes cursing, making derogatory comments toward other students, yelling, spitting, and shoving chairs. Which direct observation method would you use to collect data on Nigel’s problem behaviors? Explain your answer. a. First, I would begin collecting data on Nigel’s problem behaviors by interviewing him personally. Through this, I would try to ask questions that would give background information on the target of his behavior, possible consequences or antecedents associated with the behavior that could be changed, the place, time, and setting in which the behavior is most likely to occur, and intervention strategies that have not been tried yet. Hopefully, Nigel will be willing and able to provide information to help better comprehend the issue, whether it be something that is going on at behind closed doors, or something being done in the classroom that he simply doesn’t respond well to. If for some reason Nigel doesn’t give any information that is helpful, then direct observations will be done on him. An ABC Analysis would then be started in opposition to collecting baseline data because the targeted information is not focused on frequency or duration of the behavior at this point. We simply just want to know what is causing his behavior. With the ABC analysis, what has been done as his teacher can be charted, alongside what Nigel does in response, and what consequences are given for said behaviors. After completing multiple charts, a pattern should become visible of what is triggering the misbehavior. 5. Look at the matrix below for Nigel. Use this information to determine a possible function of the behavior and to develop a hypothesis statement. a. The function of Nigel’s behavior is that he doesn’t really like attention, and prefers to be alone. b. Hypothesis Statement: The main motivation for Nigel’s tantrums and outbursts (shoving chairs, spitting, yelling, swearing) is that he doesn’t enjoy receiving attention. He very well knows these outbursts will result in him receiving independent work time, which is why he continues doing so-- so that he can continue to work and be alone. 6. Look at the graph below. The objective of the function-based intervention was to reduce the instances of Nigel’s problem behaviors (i.e., cursing, making derogatory comments toward other students, yelling, spitting, shoving chairs) during a twenty-minute small-group activity. Is the intervention successful? If you were the teacher, would you keep, modify, or discontinue the intervention? Explain your answers. a. Overall, I would say the intervention put into action for Nigel wasn’t very successful. Personally, If I were Nigel’s teacher, I would modify the intervention to better suit his needs. This would be done because the intervention in place is clearly not working based off of the fact that before Nigel’s intervention, his aggressive behavior never occurred for multiple times in the 20 minute lesson span. However, even when the intervention is implemented thoroughly, Nigel’s aggressive behavior actually doubles; it can reach up to 20 instances of aggression per a 20-minute lesson span. I don’t feel it necessary to completely re-write an entirely new function-based intervention for Nigel, after all of the hard work that was put into his current one. Therefore, modifying the current intervention to see if it may work in a different way would be the best plan of action as a result of this. If in the case that modifications were still unsuccessful, then the intervention would be discontinued, the FBA would be looked back upon, and a new function-based intervention would try to be formed. 7. Discuss why it is important to evaluate implementation fidelity. Be sure to explain the role of social validity ratings. a. It is very important to evaluate implementation fidelity. If an intervention was generally unsuccessful, the first thing that should be done is analyzing all of the data that has been collected on a student. Then, data from the intervention would be compared to baseline data to see if the undesirable behaviors have decreased, as well as checking to see if desirable behaviors have increased. From here, it would then be determined whether the intervention needs to be adjusted or not based off of the data comparison. If the intervention simply feels unsuccessful, then it will most likely be found in the evaluation that the intervention really was unsuccessful and needs to be appropriately adjusted. It is crucial to evaluate the data in this way because sometimes, instructors tend to notice if the behavior is still unsatisfactory; this way, however, when looking at the data, the instructor may very well realize that the behavior has actually somewhat decreased overall. In turn, the intervention would actually not have been fully unsuccessful. b. If the intervention was determined to be completely unsuccessful, the next plan of action would be to complete an implementation fidelity data analysis. A professional would then be brought in to come observe a lesson in which the plan is being implemented. This professional would fill out an implementation fidelity observation form as the lesson is implemented to check for how efficiently the plan is being implemented in accordance with how it is supposed to be implemented. After the percentage is calculated of the number of steps completed with fidelity, the instructor can then view if they have actually been enforcing the plan efficiently and correctly. Although this can be a hard task to accomplish, this factor of implementation is vital because sometimes the issue may not always be the student, but the way in which the fidelity is done. At the end of the day, teachers make mistakes too; with this in mind, it is essential to check that the instructor is doing their job correctly before plans are made to change due to the student. If an instructor finds that they’re not correctly implementing the plan, they can simply try again to see how the student reacts overall when the intervention is actually done correctly. From there, if the intervention is still not as successful as hoped, the instructor knows for sure that they may want to make modifications.