I am a Specialized Preschool Teacher in a special education self-contained classroom for students on Individualized Education Plans. These students are working on social skills and will be integrated with other preschool students in the future. I currently have six male students, ages three and four. I worked with three out of my six students on my Capstone Project. Currently, only one of my students has a Functional Behavior Assessment and Behavior Intervention Plan, but each student has a behavior goal on their Individualized Education Plan. A Functional Behavior Assessment is a process that identifies specific behaviors, the purpose of the behavior, and what factors maintain the behavior that is interfering with the student's educational progress. A Behavior Intervention Plan is designed to reward and reinforce positive behaviors. These plans look different for each student because they are individualized to meet their needs. My school has 426 students enrolled at the school. They have 80% free and reduced lunch, 12% ELL, and 19% of kids are on IEPs. The school’s population is 73% White, 14% Hispanic, and 7% African American. Four of my students are White, and one is a Pacific Islander. Each one of my students live with both their mom and dad.
The data that I collected showed for specific behavior interventions to support my students' progress in meeting their social and behavior goals on their Individualized Education Plan. The three students I did my study on exhibited, to varying degrees, elopement, which is when a student moves three to five feet out of their assigned area, or leaves the room. They also exhibited physical disruption, verbal disruption, and physical aggression. My students GOLD data indicated a lack of understanding in social-emotional support based on their GOLD data. Teaching Strategies GOLD is an authentic, ongoing observational system for assessing children from birth through kindergarten. It helps teachers to observe children in the context of everyday experiences, which is an effective way to learn what they know and can do. GOLD looks at standards in social-emotional, physical, language, cognitive, literacy, math, science and technology, social studies, and the arts. My students became upset and angry when someone got near their toys and often times they were unable to regulate their feelings, so they acted aggressively or become disruptive by screaming and yelling. I took data on each different part of the students day, so I could use this data to drive my instruction on what needs to be done to help my students be successful. There was a need for specific behavior interventions because my students were demonstrating a lower level of understanding than normal peers their age. This impacted my students behaviors because they have shorter attention spans and lower level of interest in certain activities. I had to have an intervention in place to help my students achieve the task they were given. I also took data on their engagement in the centers, this helped me to understand how much they were actually working in each area. When my students were engaged in an activity in a center, their behavior improved greatly.
The information that was gathered from my action research helped me to strengthen my students ability to self-regulate and follow directions without acting aggressively. This study allowed me to meet my students where they were, help them grow, improve their social emotional skills, and their behavior. I believe that this helped me to make better informed decisions based on what my students needed at that point in time. I was also able to help my students succeed by focusing on their behavior and social emotional skills.
Token Economy
Often times there is at least one student in a classroom that struggles with following appropriate behavior. Students who struggle may need motivation and incentives to help them perform appropriate behaviors inside of the classroom. A token economy gives students incentives for performing appropriate behaviors while working to decrease verbal disruptions, physical disruptions, physical aggression, and elopement. A token economy reward system for students will help increase their motivation and engagement. Token economies are a commonly used behavior modification system used in classrooms all over the world. “Token systems have been successfully employed as behavior-management and motivational tools in education since at least the early 1800s,” (Hackenberg, 2009). The token economy system was created to help with student’s behavior inside and outside of the classroom. Classroom teachers and special education teachers benefit from the use of a token economy. This literature review was organized by describing what a token economy is, the components of a token economy, the benefits of a token economy, teaching and implementing a token economy, and fading the use of a token economy.