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Ms. Kim is an experienced special education teacher in an inclusive preschool classroom. In the fall, Ms. Kim implemented some classroom management strategies and had been successfully handling challenging behaviors as they occurred. In January, a new child, Sara, joined Ms. Kim’s classroom. Sara is a 3-year-old girl with significant developmental delays and very limited expressive language to communicate her needs and wants. Sara’s family moved to the United States from China 2 years prior. Both parents speak English fluently, but the primary language used at home is Chinese. Sara uses pointing and crying to express her needs most of the time. During her first week of school, the sound of Sara’s crying filled the classroom. Ms. Kim knows she needs to do something for this little girl. Sara’s parents have told Ms. Kim that Sara’s behavior is the same at home, and they do not know what to do. They have asked Ms. Kim for help. The school behavioral specialist has conducted a functional behavior assessment (FBA) for Sara at school, which indicates that Sara does not have the language skills to express her needs and that the functions of her challenging behaviors were mainly to obtain things she wanted and, to a lesser extent, escape from activities. The behavioral specialist has suggested Ms.

Kim teach Sara to express her needs using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS; Frost & Bondy, 1994). Along with some other positive behavior support strategies that Ms. Kim had already been using in her class, such as building positive relationships with children, setting up a supportive learning environment, and designing meaningful learning activities, Sara’s behavior greatly improves after PECS is introduced.

During the teacher–parent conference in mid-February, Ms. Kim talks about Sara’s improvements; although Sara’s parents are impressed by her progress at school, her crying behavior has not changed much at home. They have asked Ms. Kim what more they can do.

Challenging behavior can be defined as “any repeated pattern of behavior, or perception of behavior, that interferes with or is at risk of interfering with optimal learning or engagement in pro- social interactions with peers and adults” (Smith & Fox, 2003, p. 6). Children who display challenging behavior that are not responsive to typical supports are at risk of ongoing, persistent problematic behavior of increasing intensity as well as later academic difficulties (Fox, Dunlap, &

Cushing, 2002; Powell, Dunlap, & Fox, 2006). Sara’s persistent crying is disruptive to the other children in the classroom and limits Sara’s ability to engage in positive interactions with her teachers and peers and to participate in learning activities. Her behavior also causes distress for her family at home, indicating a need to address the issue in a systematic way across settings.

It is generally accepted that challenging behaviors serve some sort of communicative purpose—to gain access to something desired (e.g., a toy, adult attention) or to escape from something aversive (e.g., a difficult task; a structured activity, such as circle time; Dunlap, Ester, Langhans, & Fox, 2006). Challenging behaviors develop, persist, and sometimes intensify because they are working for the child in some way (i.e., getting that child’s needs met). A child who hits and shoves to access a toy is reinforced for that behavior each time the other child relinquishes the object, increasing the likelihood the child will hit and push the next time a toy is possessed by someone else. In this way, the consequences of the challenging behavior (access to the desired toy) influence whether the child will use the challenging behavior the next time a set of similar circumstances arises.

621754TCXXXX10.1177/0040059915621754Council for Exceptional ChildrenTEACHING Exceptional Children research-article2016

Strategies for Helping Parents of Young Children Address Challenging Behaviors in the Home Zhen Chai and Rebecca Lieberman-Betz

Article

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An evidence-based, systemic approach to promoting positive behavior change is positive behavior support, which focuses on prevention of challenging behavior, teaching functional skills to replace the challenging behavior, removing the maintaining consequences of the challenging behavior, and reinforcing the newly acquired, desirable behavior (Powell et al., 2006). An integral component of positive behavior support is the FBA, which is conducted across contexts to understand how consequences (i.e., what happens after the challenging behaviors) and antecedents (i.e., what occurs before the challenging behaviors or the condition under which the behaviors happen) affect challenging behaviors (Dunlap & Fox, 2011). Successful implementation of positive behavior support requires collaboration with team members, including parents and professionals.

When Sara initially displayed persistent crying behavior, professionals in the school setting conducted an FBA as part of the positive behavior support process to identify the functions of the behavior. The FBA results indicated that because she lacked age-appropriate communication skills, Sara cried to obtain things she wanted or to escape activities that she did not like. The FBA results were used to develop a plan that promoted more socially acceptable ways (i.e., replacement behaviors) for Sara to communicate her wants and needs at school. Teachers provided positive reinforcement when Sara displayed the appropriate replacement behaviors, which ultimately reduced her crying. However, the use of the replacement behaviors did not generalize to the home setting, highlighting the importance of involving parents in each step of implementing positive behavior supports.

Importance of Parent Involvement

Challenging behavior not only is disruptive in classroom environments but also can negatively affect families

when children demonstrate persistent challenging behavior in the home and community settings. Families are at increased risk of stress and isolation from their communities when young children demonstrate challenging behavior, potentially reducing time the family spends in places such as parks, grocery stores, family events, and restaurants (Fox et al., 2002). An integral part of any positive behavior support system in place for young children demonstrating challenging behavior is family support and parent training.

Classroom teachers play a particularly important role in helping families carry over successful classroom

strategies to the home environment.

Current research suggests parents are capable of providing positive behavior support in the home to decrease challenging behavior (e.g., Duda, Clarke, Fox, & Dunlap, 2008; Dunlap et al., 2006; Fettig & Barton, 2014). Elements crucial to achieving enduring behavior change in young children include (a) family centeredness, (b) family and professional partnerships, and (c) successful inclusion in the child’s natural environments (Fox et al., 2002). These elements are part of developing an intervention with good “contextual fit,” which is “the congruence between the behavior support intervention and the values, skills, resources, and routines of those who will implement the intervention” (McLaughlin, Denney, Snyder, & Welsh, 2012, p. 88).

Family Centeredness

Family centeredness involves working with families in ways that strengthen and empower the family to support the child’s needs within the specific cultural context of the family (Noonan & McCormick, 2014). This includes determining needs, concerns, and priorities as a family and providing supports and resources that meet those

identified needs. Family centeredness also involves working with the family to support the child’s development in the natural environments of the child and family (i.e., those environments in which the family typically participates: the home, playground, library, restaurants). In the case of working with parents in implementing a positive behavior support plan, family centeredness includes teaching family members (a) specific strategies for preventing challenging behaviors, (b) how to teach their children functionally equivalent skills, and (c) how to reinforce their children’s new appropriate behaviors within the activities and routines of the family (Fox et al., 2002). Classroom teachers play a particularly important role in helping families carry over successful classroom strategies to the home environment and in supporting families to develop strategies specifically for the home.

Family and Professional Partnerships

An important aspect of the development and implementation of an effective behavior support plan is the relationship formed between parents and early childhood professionals. Family-centered practices that help establish effective family–professional partnerships include “treating families with dignity and respect,” providing families with information so they are able to make informed decisions regarding their child and family, and giving families choices regarding their desired level of involvement and services (Noonan & McCormick, 2014, p. 37). Teachers who institute these practices as part of carrying out positive behavior supports with families can increase the likelihood of successful implementation by parents and positive outcomes for children. By recognizing that parents provide valuable information during the information-gathering step of the positive behavior support process, and also serve as the most important change agent in the child’s life, teachers demonstrate respect for families. Whereas families provide

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professionals with important assessment and observational data, professionals can help families learn to implement strategies to effectively promote their child’s positive behavior across the natural activities and routines of the family (Fox et al., 2002). Providing families with information regarding potential behavioral strategies, offering choices around which strategies to implement, and ascertaining family members’ preferences regarding level of involvement in implementation will increase the likelihood teachers and families will develop a behavior support plan that is meaningful and readily implemented in the home. Ongoing, effective communication needs to occur in order for classroom teachers to develop collaborative relationships with families with children in need of positive behavior support. This may involve regular meetings and scheduled conferences as well as more informal opportunities to communicate during pickup and drop- off or through written communication (e.g., a journal sent back and forth between home and school, e-mail, phone calls, text messages).

Inclusion in Natural Environments

The inclusion of young children exhibiting challenging behavior in the typical activities and routines of the family is important to the well-being and optimal functioning of the family. Families of young children exhibiting persistent behavior challenges may experience isolation from family, friends, and the larger community (Powell et al., 2006). Many studies have shown that behavior support programs work best when professionals address how to support the parents in successfully including their child and family in those activities deemed important by the family, which may include going to the park, going to the grocery store, or eating at a restaurant (Lucyshyn, Dunlap, & Albin, 2002). Early childhood special education teachers need to work with families to develop and implement strategies that

will enable the entire family to participate in those daily and occasional activities that are meaningful and occur outside the classroom environment.

Providing families with information regarding potential behavioral

strategies, offering choices, and ascertaining family

members’ preferences will increase the likelihood

teachers and families will develop a behavior support

plan that is meaningful and readily implemented

in the home.

Ms. Kim realized that involving Sara’s family in assessment, development, and implementation of the behavior support plan would increase the efficacy of the plan in decreasing the challenging behavior and increasing Sara’s functional communication within the contexts most meaningful to the child and family. After learning that Sara’s crying behavior continued to persist at home, Ms. Kim decided to schedule additional meetings with the parents to more actively collaborate with them as part of the positive behavior support process. During the initial meeting in the family’s home in late February, Ms. Kim asked Sara’s parents about their needs for supporting Sara as well as their expectations. Sara’s parents indicated that they had great difficulties with Sara during mealtime—she would not sit at the table during any meal. Sara would cry until they let her leave the table. They especially miss going out to eat with friends, which they have not been able to do for almost a year due to Sara’s mealtime crying. As first- generation immigrants without much support from their immediate family, who had remained in China, these meals are important to Sara’s parents. Dinners out had provided them a way to

connect with the Chinese community in their town and this played an important role in helping their family maintain their cultural ties while living in the United States. Sara’s parents and Ms. Kim agree to focus on a single routine, mealtime, which will greatly affect their family functioning and community support network. By improving Sara’s behavior during mealtime, the family hopes to improve life quality.

Establishing trusting relationships with parents takes time and is vitally important to creating successful collaborations between classroom and family contexts. Ms. Kim knows she will need to conduct several home visits during the rest of the school year in order to build rapport with the family, check in on the family’s progress with the function-based intervention, collect data, and determine the family’s need for assistance with any other issues.

Working With Families From Diverse Backgrounds

The demographic landscape in the United States is changing, with more and more children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families present in classrooms (Banerjee & Luckner, 2014). Young children from CLD families may be simultaneously learning two languages in the home or may be learning English primarily in the classroom with little to no exposure in their home or communities. In addition to linguistic differences, there may also be differences in developmental and behavioral expectations based in the family’s culture. Varying expectations based on social and cultural context may be reflected in differences in perception and identification of challenging behavior (Wang, McCart, & Turnbull, 2007). It is important that professionals working with families of CLD backgrounds engage in the positive behavior support process in a way that respects and values the families’ cultural perspective and recognize that the process itself incorporates values of mainstream American culture (Wang et al., 2007).

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An emphasis for teachers working in multicultural educational settings and communities is development of cross- cultural competence. Cross-cultural competence is the “ability to think, feel, and act in ways that acknowledge, respect, and build on ethnic, [socio]- cultural, and linguistic diversity” (Lynch, 2004, p. 43). Development of cross- cultural competence involves self- reflection, general knowledge of other cultural groups’ values and beliefs, and the ability to communicate effectively with those from cultures different from one’s own (Lynch, 2004). Engaging in the development of cross-cultural competence enables teachers to work more effectively with children and families from CLD backgrounds by providing foundational understanding of one’s own potential biases as well as an understanding of how to communicate with families from a cultural background different from one’s own.

Engaging in the development of cross- cultural competence

enables teachers to work more effectively with

children and families from culturally and

linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Wang and colleagues (2007) provided suggestions for implementing

the positive behavior support process with families from CLD backgrounds (Table 1). Before starting the positive behavior support process, it is recommended that teachers reflect on their own cultural backgrounds. Self-reflection allows providers to understand how their own culture influences their perspectives on child development and working with families, child and parent expectations, and teaching practices (Lynch, 2004; Noonan & McCormick, 2014). It is recommended that teachers learn about the family’s behaviors and expectations for the child (e.g., roles of family members, family structure, nonverbal communication, whether the family feels comfortable disagreeing with a professional, comfort with sharing personal information, discipline style; Wang et al., 2007). When conducting the FBA and developing behavior plans, Wang et al. have suggested building a relationship with the family using a cultural mediator, understanding the family’s perspectives of the positive behavior support process and the preferred level of involvement, and identifying supports for the family as well as possible barriers to successful collaboration. Finally, when implementing the behavior support plan, it is important to support the whole family and communicate effectively with the family members regarding their perspective on what is and is not going well as well as their goals for the child (Wang et al., 2007). Instrumental in successful outcomes of the positive behavior support process is

the willingness and ability of teachers working with families from CLD backgrounds around challenging behaviors to reflect upon and understand their own values and biases, recognizing that they may differ from those of families and that they could potentially affect the collaborative relationship (Barton & Banerjee, 2013).

As part of the positive behavior support process, Ms. Kim needs to attend to potential cultural influences on the parents’ perception of Sara’s challenging behavior, how involved they want to be as part of the team, and what kinds of strategies are acceptable to them. Although it was established early on in January that the parents observed the same crying behavior at home and were interested in support around decreasing this behavior, little more was learned at that time regarding (a) possible cultural influences on her parents’ perceptions of Sara’s behavior, (b) the family’s involvement in the local Chinese community or ability to navigate transculturally, (c) the family’s comfort in taking on a collaborative role with professionals, and (d) daily routines and activities where the family needed more support. Good communication regarding these questions was needed to facilitate the process of understanding the perspectives and context of the family and increase the likelihood the resulting positive behavior support plan would be carried out successfully in the home as well as the classroom.

Table 1. Involving Families From Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds During the Positive Behavior Support Process

Before starting the process •• Reflect on one’s own cultural background •• Learn about the family’s behaviors and expectations for the child

Conducting the functional behavior assessment and developing a positive behavior support plan

•• Build a relationship with the family using a cultural mediator •• Understand the family members’ perspectives of the positive

behavior support process and their preferred level of involvement •• Identify supports for the family and possible barriers to successful

collaboration

Implementing positive behavior supports •• Support the whole family •• Communicate effectively with the family members regarding their

perspective on what is and is not going well as well as their goals for the child

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To help with her approach in collaborating with Sara’s parents, before the first home visit Ms. Kim researched Chinese culture and its potential influence on (a) perception of the teacher’s and parents’ roles in education and (b) parenting styles. Ms. Kim understood that although there was likely as much within-culture variation as cross-cultural variation for the family, having some initial insight as to how Sara’s family viewed her role as teacher, the role of parents, and Sara’s behavior would provide a strong foundation for a successful function- based intervention. During her first home visit, Ms. Kim clarified that she was there to support the family members, and if they did not feel comfortable with the strategies she suggested as a result of the positive behavior support plan, they could communicate that to her, and they would collaborate as a team to develop strategies acceptable to everyone. Sara’s parents indicated that Sara’s success in school was very important to both of them and that they wanted to get involved in Sara’s education as much as possible. They believed that Ms. Kim was the expert, and they would try their best to follow Ms. Kim’s suggestions.

Conducting a Functional Behavior Assessment in the Home

The first step of developing a behavioral intervention plan is to conduct an FBA to determine the reasons for the challenging behaviors (Dunlap & Fox, 2011; Sugai et al., 1999). Research has shown that interventions based upon FBAs are more effective at decreasing challenging behaviors compared to interventions that do not consider information derived from a FBA (Ingram, Lewis-Palmer, & Sugai, 2005). During the FBA, the teacher may gather information through checklists and behavior scales, by conducting interviews with parents, or by directly observing the student in the home. Once all the information is gathered, the team will identify the challenging and replacement behaviors, define

them using measurable and observable terms, discuss what happens before and after the challenging behavior occurs (i.e., antecedents and consequences) that may be maintaining the challenging behavior, and decide the function of the behavior (Wood & Ferro, 2014).

Sara’s parents wanted support during mealtime. During her first home visit, Ms. Kim interviewed Sara’s parents to get their perspectives. She asked Sara’s parents about their routine before mealtime, when Sara cried, and how else they responded to her crying besides letting her leave the table. Sara’s mom told Ms. Kim that Sara typically entertained herself while she was preparing for dinner. When dinner was ready, Sara’s mom would call her to wash hands and come to the table. Sara typically participated in this part of the routine and allowed her dad to wash her hands and take her to the table. Once seated at the table and presented with food, Sara typically cried. When this happened, they would try to redirect her by showing her the food she liked. Sometimes it worked, and she would eat a bite or two. Most of the time it did not work, and as a result, they let her leave the table so she would stop crying, and Mom would feed her while she was away from the table. Sara’s parents shared that it was common to feed young children in Chinese culture, but they wanted to feed her when she was at the table and not while she was running around the house.

After her first home visit with the family, Ms. Kim observed Sara several more times in the home during mealtime to collect baseline data (i.e., the length of time that Sara spent at the table during each meal and the occurrence of crying). These observations allowed further refinement of hypotheses regarding function(s) of the challenging behavior. Once the positive behavior support plan was put in place, intervention data collected during mealtime could be compared to baseline data to see if there was a decrease in the crying behavior (see Figure 1). After gathering information through the parent interview and direct

observations, Ms. Kim conducted another home visit in mid-March to discuss the findings. Ms. Kim explained to Sara’s parents that children used challenging behavior to communicate, and the reason that challenging behavior persisted was because it worked to get their needs met. After discussing Sara’s behaviors immediately before and during meal time, both parties agreed it was possible that Sara’s crying behavior was due to the fact that she preferred not to participate during mealtime, and the replacement behavior would be that Sara would sit at the table to finish her meal. They hypothesized that the function of her challenging behavior was to escape from mealtime.

Developing a Behavior Intervention Plan With Parents

Once an FBA has been completed, the teacher can work collaboratively with the family to brainstorm support strategies that match the function of the challenging behavior. When developing a behavior intervention plan with parents, the teacher should consider the family’s goals, strengths, supports, and needs. Each family is unique, and a behavior support plan is more likely to be accepted and consistently implemented by the family when it is a good “contextual fit” for the family (McLaughlin et al., 2012). The team works together to identify (a) effective strategies that have been used by the teacher and family, (b) prevention strategies that make the child less likely to engage in challenging behaviors, (c) new skills needed by the child to appropriately get needs and wants met, and (d) new responses to the challenging behavior to make it less effective for the child. These strategies should be easy and efficient for the family to use (Fettig, Schultz, & Ostrosky, 2013).

Working With Parents to Identify Prevention Strategies

Using prevention strategies can decrease the opportunities for the child

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to engage in challenging behaviors by removing the triggers of challenging behaviors or making the use of challenging behaviors irrelevant and by increasing the opportunities for the child to engage in appropriate behaviors (Dunlap, Lee, & Strain, 2013; Powell et al., 2006). When developing prevention strategies for parents to use at home, the teacher could first discuss with the parents some easily implemented prevention strategies, like modifying the environment, establishing a predictable routine and following it, providing clear expectations and teaching them (e.g., instead of saying, “Don’t cry,” tell the child to “use your PECS to tell me what you want”), giving choices, using cues, and using a First-Then board (a laminated piece of paper with a space for two picture cues to be placed side by side—one depicting the current activity [e.g., mealtime], and the other depicting the [reinforcing] activity to follow [e.g., playtime]; see Table 2). The teacher and parents can then decide if it is possible to remove the trigger of the behavior. If the triggers cannot be removed, the teacher and family can talk about what could be done to make the child’s use of challenging behaviors irrelevant and how to teach the child more appropriate behaviors to replace the

challenging behavior. It is important that the teacher builds on the strategies that the parents have already tried at home.

Ms. Kim shares her concerns that Sara may feel bored during mealtime, contributing to her desire to escape from the activity. She asks Sara’s parents if it would be possible provide some food on Sara’s plate to let her eat by herself so she could be an active participant in mealtime. At the same time, Sara’s parents could still feed her. Sara’s mom is interested in trying this idea; she likes giving Sara the opportunity to practice eating independently, because she had been worried that Sara did not eat well during lunch at school when no one fed her.

Ms. Kim also suggested that Sara’s parents could provide Sara with some choices to encourage active participation and give her some control within the mealtime routine. For example, they could ask her if she would like to sit next to Mom or Dad, or they could give her two food choices and ask her which one she wanted to eat (e.g., “Do you want broccoli or carrots?”). Ms. Kim offers to make some food pictures to add to Sara’s PECS notebook so she could use these pictures to make her choices during mealtime at home. Ms. Kim also suggests they might want to

use a First-Then board. If the parents are willing to modify their routine and add one of Sara’s favorite activities after dinner, they could use the First-Then board to tell Sara that when dinner was finished, she could go to her favorite activity.

Helping the Family Teach Replacement Skills

Teaching replacement skills provides the child with socially acceptable and effective ways to get his or her needs met. The teacher should talk with the parents about the importance of teaching the child new skills that replace the challenging behaviors to better communicate his or her wants and needs. When selecting replacement skills, the teacher should consider the function of the problem behavior (Fox, Clarke, & Dunlap, 2013); whenever possible, the replacement skills should serve the same function as the problem behaviors. For example, if the function of hitting is for a child to obtain a peer’s toy, the replacement skills should be a socially appropriate way for the child to gain access to the toy (i.e., to request using words, signs, or pictures). On some occasions, when the function of the behavior cannot be honored (e.g., avoiding getting into the car seat), the replacement skills for the

Figure 1. Sara’s Data During Baseline and Intervention

Note. During baseline, when Sara cried, her parents would try to redirect her attention. Most of the time, redirection did not work, so she was allowed to leave the table. When intervention started, Sara was not allowed to leave the table before the timer ended. That explains why the frequency of her crying initially increased after the intervention was implemented.

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child can be to teach him or her to make a choice (e.g., “You can take your teddy bear or your doll, but you need to sit in the car seat”), to use coping skills (e.g., “You can take your blanket and eat your snack when you are in the car”), to anticipate the transition and participate (e.g., provide the cue and use a visual schedule), and to wait for the reward (e.g., “When we get to the bookstore, you can choose a book to buy”; Fox et al., 2013).

The teacher should also take into consideration the skills that the child has already acquired. If the child is not yet talking, then teaching the child to verbally request may not be a good choice. Instead, it may be more appropriate to teach the child to use PECS or sign language. The replacement skills need to be efficient and effective for the child to use (Barton & Banerjee, 2013). Once the child uses the desired behavior, parents should provide the rewards immediately (e.g., give the child the toy).

Through her conversations with Sara’s parents, Ms. Kim found they really wanted Sara to join them at the

table for dinner, so they could not reward the function of Sara’s problem behavior. As a result, Ms. Kim recommended that the replacement skills to teach Sara would be to tolerate longer periods of time at the table. Ms. Kim suggests that Sara’s parents use a timer, initially set it for 3 minutes, and then gradually increase the length of time sitting at the table to 5 minutes, then 7 minutes, and so on. When the timer goes off, Sara could use PECS to request to leave the table. Ms. Kim also points out that because it might take some time for Sara to master the new replacement skill during the learning process, Sara’s parents might still need to feed her for a period of time while she played.

At the same time, Ms. Kim recommends Sara’s parents teach her to use the prevention strategies because the skills are new to Sara. For example, they could teach Sara to anticipate transition to mealtime, to make choices using PECS during meals, and to wait for a reward after meal. Before dinner, Mom could give Sara several cues and show her the First-Then board to tell her what she would do after dinner. During dinner, the parents could use PECS to

let Sara make a choice of what she wanted to eat and also remind Sara, “When we are done eating, we can go to the playground. But you need to finish dinner first.” Ms. Kim also suggests Sara’s parents teach Sara these replacement and prevention skills throughout the day when she is not engaging in the challenging behavior and praise her whenever she used the new skills.

Coaching Families on Responding to Challenging Behavior

Whether or not the child will engage in the same problem behaviors in the future is determined by what happens immediately after the occurrence of the challenging behavior. It is important for the teacher to coach the parents on how to respond to the challenging behavior even if they have started to teach the child the replacement skills. This is due to the fact that it usually takes some time for the child to learn to use the replacement skills, and the child may continue using the challenging behavior before the new skills are mastered. When developing response strategies with the family, the teacher should first understand how

Table 2. Examples of Prevention Strategies

Strategy Examples

Modify the environment •• Reduce distractions. •• Provide visual guidance.

Establish a predictable routine and follow it

•• Use a visual schedule to help child understand when an activity will occur.

Provide clear expectations and teach them

•• Instead of saying, “Don’t cry,” tell the child to “use your PECS to tell me what you want.”

•• Tell the child that he or she needs to finish eating before he or she leaves the table.

Give choices •• Instead of asking the child to eat, give him or her a choice. For example, “Do you want to try some beef or broccoli?” to give the child some control while still providing the expectation that the child will eat.

Use cues •• Use a timer to let child know when an activity will occur. •• Tell the child, “Dinner will be ready in 5 minutes.”

Use a First-Then board

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the family typically responds to the challenging behavior and ask if these strategies work. The key is to make sure that if parents appear to be reinforcing the challenging behavior, they do not continue to do so as part of the behavior plan. When the child engages in problem behaviors, Fox et al. (2013) suggested redirecting the child to use the replacement skills.

Sara’s parents usually let her leave the table when she cried, which made Sara’s challenging behavior effective. Ms. Kim has suggested that they not reward her challenging behavior by letting her down from the dinner table, instead communicate with Sara that crying would not help, and use the prevention strategies while at the same time reminding Sara of how to use the new replacement skills (e.g., to wait until the timer goes off).

Final Thoughts

Parent-implemented behavior supports for young children have shown promising results (Dunlap et al., 2006). Involving parents in the positive behavior support process will help the child generalize newly acquired skills to the home and community, and lead to positive child and family outcomes. In this article, we have provided several strategies to support teachers in understanding the importance and

process of collaborating with parents during the positive behavior support process, regardless of their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and to help parents understand the process and implement a behavior support plan during their daily routine. The following are suggestions for successful parent-implemented behavior supports.

The Plan Needs To Be a Good Fit

When working with parents on behavior support plans, the teacher should respect the family’s uniqueness and make sure that the intervention plan is a good fit for the family’s needs, values, strengths, and resources.

The Strategies Are Easy and Efficient

Most parents do not have systematic training in working with young children with challenging behaviors. The strategies teachers suggest for use in the home as part of the parent– teacher collaborative process should be simple for parents to implement. If the strategies are too complicated, or deviate from the family’s routine, it will be difficult for parents to consistently implement them. In addition, the intervention should demonstrate some efficacy in a relatively short period of time. If the parents implement the strategies, and fail to see the effects, they may stop implementing the behavior plan (Fettig et al., 2013).

Provide Parents With Ongoing Coaching

Effective and efficient strategies in the classroom setting may not work well in the home. Sometimes this might be because parents have difficulty implementing the behavior support plan with fidelity (Sears, Blair, Iovannone, & Crosland, 2013). Providing parents with ongoing coaching is an important part of parent-implemented positive behavior supports (Fettig & Barton, 2014). The teacher should model the strategies and give parents opportunities to practice the strategies before

implementing the plan and conduct home visits to observe how parents implement the strategies in the natural environment and provide feedback (Powell et al., 2006). If home visits are not possible, it may be possible for the parents to video-record a typical routine so the teacher can provide feedback during a scheduled classroom meeting.

Monitor the Child’s Progress

The child’s behavior at home should be closely monitored. The teacher can develop a checklist to help parents keep track of the child’s behavior. The team should review the data regularly to examine the child’s progress; if the child’s behavior does not improve after the intervention plan has been implemented for a predetermined period of time, the teacher should discuss with the parents how they can modify the plan.

Following the home visit in mid- March used to plan Sara’s positive behavior supports, Ms. Kim prepared a set of PECS visuals for Sara to use at home and a notebook for Sara’s parents to record anecdotal notes during dinnertime. Sara’s parents implemented the behavior support plan, giving Sara cues before asking her to come to dinner and providing her some food to eat by herself. They taught Sara to make choices during mealtime, to anticipate a reward after dinner, and to stay at the table until the timer went off. At the same time, they no longer reinforced Sara’s crying. When Sara used her challenging behavior, they redirected her to use PECS to make choices and told her that crying would not work.

Ms. Kim conducted several more home visits during dinner time, observed how Sara’s parents implemented the behavior plan and how Sara performed, and answered the questions Sara’s parents had about implementing the plan. During the last home visit in early May, both parents indicated that Sara’s behavior had improved a lot since they started using positive behavior supports at home, the strategies were a good fit to

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the family’s values, the strategies were easy to use, and they had started to use the strategies in other routines. They believed that they would be able to go out to eat with their friends very soon.

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Zhen Chai, Assistant Professor, Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces. Rebecca Lieberman-Betz, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education, University of Georgia, Athens.

Address correspondence regarding this article to Zhen Chai, Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders, P.O. Box 30001 MSC 3SPE, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003 (e-mail: [email protected]).

TEACHING Exceptional Children, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 186–194.

Copyright 2015 The Author(s).

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