In positive behavior support (PBS) practices, one critical issue involves helping professionals understand and respect the values of families from culturally diverse backgrounds. This article summarizes embedded cultural values of PBS represented in four key features of the PBS process: collaborative partnerships, functional assessment, contextual…

This article presents three case studies of elementary students with learning disabilities whose behavior interfered with the quantity and quality of their classroom instruction. In each case, interventions involved teaching and reinforcing specific replacement behaviors that were identified through functional behavioral assessment. (Contains…

When used within a comprehensive positive behavioral support program, the CPI Postvention model can serve as a facilitation tool, guiding staff through functional behavioral assessment for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Challenging behavior is defined as behavior of such intensity, frequency, or duration that the physical safety of the…

Positive behavior support (PBS) represents an empirically driven concern with quality of life (QOL), support through systems change, and linkage to multiple behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences. The major impediments to QOL are problem behavior, skill deficits, and dysfunctional systems. A model for addressing dysfunctional systems is…

This study examined the efficacy, social validity, and durability of a positive behavior support (PBS) approach with the family of a girl with autism and severe problem behavior. The study was conducted across a 10-year period beginning when the child was 5 years old. A multiple baseline across family routines design evaluated the functional…

In this article, the effectiveness of pre-service training that focuses on collaborative consultation and positive behavior support for treatment of challenging behaviors is evaluated. The effectiveness of an 8-month training program is evaluated for three participant groups: (a) 16 advanced undergraduate and master's-level students who received…

Previous studies have shown that presession attention for problem behavior can serve as an abolishing operation when attention functions as a positive reinforcer. In the current study, we show that the stereotypy of a child with severe disabilities was undifferentiated during standard analogue functional analysis conditions. However, when…

This commentary discusses how existing technology and application of functional assessment can be expanded to improve the lives of more people with severe disabilities. It emphasizes how functional assessment can enhance life quality in typical settings in which people with severe disabilities and challenging behavior live, work, and play.…

Functional analyses of problem behavior for 4 young boys with developmental delays showed that problem behaviors were maintained by both negative and positive reinforcement. Functional communication training was conducted with one set of training stimuli in which the child's mother presented a work task in the family living room. Pretreatment…

This article reviews features of behavioral support plans that teams should consider as they develop positive, effective responses to problem behavior, including investing in prevention occurrences of problem behavior and developing instructional objectives, avoiding rewarding problem behaviors, rewarding positive behaviors, and knowing what to do…

This study analyzed specific stimuli reinforcing destructive behavior in two 11-year-olds males with mental retardation and severe destructive behavior problems maintained by attention. The use of concurrent schedules of reinforcement identified alternatives to the reinforcing verbal reprimands and led to development of effective treatments to…

The current study describes an assessment sequence that may be used to identify individualized, effective, and preferred interventions for severe problem behavior in lieu of relying on a restricted set of treatment options that are assumed to be in the best interest of consumers. The relative effectiveness of functional communication training…

School discipline is a growing concern in the United States. Educators frequently are faced with discipline problems ranging from infrequent but extreme problems (e.g., shootings) to less severe problems that occur at high frequency (e.g., bullying, insubordination, tardiness, and fighting). Unfortunately, teachers report feeling ill prepared to…

Results of prior studies (e.g. [J. Appl. Behav. Anal. 32 (1999) 285]) showing that participants chose alternative behavior (compliance) over escape-reinforced destructive behavior when this latter response produced escape and the former response produced positive reinforcement may have been due to (a) the value of the positive reinforcer…

While the majority of students in schools tend to respond to effective general academic instruction and proactive schoolwide discipline systems, some continue to exhibit intense and chronic problem behaviors, even in the best schools. For these students, schools are highly variable in their ability and capacity to provide accurate and durable…