Behavior Mod/Reward Systems

[JulieB]

Brice,

Thanks for generously sharing your wisdom. As the Exec Dir of Attachment & Trauma Network, I get this question frequently from families of traumatized children. I struggled with this issue with my own daughter; it was a major component of our own due process case, but I have no good answers.

What can/should a parent use to help convince the school that traditional reward-based (and punishment-based) behavior modification approaches won't work. Some of our children manipulate these systems. Some of them hold it together until they get home and then melt down. Some just remain dysregulated, never earning points, with their shame and misbehaviors growing.

What research, evidence, information should parents be bringing to the schools to advocate that their child not be placed in a program that uses these strategies, but should be in a trauma-sensitive environment where emphasis is put on regulation and modifying the environment?

In other words, often we know what works best at home, but we have no "studies" to bring to the table to get the school to hear why their approach is making the situation worse.

Julie Beem
Executive Director
Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.
www.attachtrauma.org

[Brice]

Pitfall 9: Trying to change the child instead of changing the environment.

Even if we agree that the child's behavior needs to change (for the child's benefit), that doesn't mean that we start by applying direct consequences to the child's behavior. Our first intervention should be to change the environment to reduce triggers to undesirable behavior, to provide more support and cueing, and to see if the child has the prerequisite skills to exhibit the desirable behavior. If not, our intervention should be to teach the skills while providing more support and cueing in the environment.

The entire article is available at http://www.tourettesyndrome.net/wp-c...s/pitfalls.pdf
Should we change the conversation with the school district by changing the terms? Yes, if by changing the words more accurately describes what should be written into an IEP.

Special education is a cause and effect critteA parent must have strong advocacy skills to do that successfully

Having information is not the same as having knowledge.