What is the message?
Lagging skills
The Role of Lagging Skills in Challenging Behavior
There are underlying skills that help students manage their behavior, their needs, their emotions, their socializing, and even their learning. Some students haven't yet developed the skills needed to manage those things on their own. They can’t meet expectations and challenging behavior is certainly the result. We refer to these skills as "lagging skills" The lagging skills impact the students' behaviors. These lagging skills are the reason the student is using challenging behaviors to send the message.
What are the lagging skills?
Sometimes teachers and teams can identify the lagging skills based on their knowledge of the student. For example, the student is not a skilled reader and that influences how he responds to work demands. A student is non-verbal and that influences her ability to communicate her needs and frustrations. These lagging skills influence behavior messages.
A tool for identifying lagging skills
Sometimes the lagging skills are not so obvious until you know what you are looking for. Dr. Ross Greene has developed an assessment tool, called the ALSUP, to help teams look for and recognize lagging skills. His website, Livesinthebalance.org has a lot of information about how to use this assessment. Here are some examples of the first few items on the ALSUP:
Difficulty handling transitions or shifting mindsets
Difficulty doing things in the expected or logical order
Difficulty persisting when tasks are tedious or challenging
These lagging skills on the ALSUP can explain WHY the child is using the difficult behavior to communicate. Knowing what these lagging skills are can help the team to recognize the supports needed by the student and the skills that should be targeted for the student in the behavior support plan.
As you look at the ALSUP, you see there are many areas where a student might experience difficulty. Although some students do experience many lagging skills, you will not be addressing them all at once.
Think about the behavior you have observed and the message the student is sending. Then start at the top of the list and, with the team (Big Idea Number 2), decide whether each lagging skill is playing a key role in the behavior and the message you are focused on.
The lagging skills you identify will be part of the Message Statement. They will also be the focus of your behavior support plan.
