Making the Plan

Putting it all together

You've used data to determine the message of the student's behavior and you've identified the developing skills that drive the way the message is being delivered. Now it's time to create a behavior intervention plan.

A behavior intervention plan has several parts. Environmental supports is the most extensive part of the plan. Environmental supports help to support the behaviors the team wants to see and prevent behaviors the team wants to avoid. The plan will also include a section on skills that the student needs to be taught. This section will result in long lasting behavior change. The behavior intervention plan also includes a thoughtful plan on how the team will respond to behavior incidents while the environmental supports and new skills being taught take hold. Finally, the plan includes a way to determine if the plan is working - using data. Each of these parts is described in greater detail below.

Expand the text in each section below by clicking the down arrow next to the titles.

What are Environmental Supports

Environmental supports are strategies and actions you can take to set up the environment for student success. The student has not yet developed the skills they need to replace the interfering behavior they have been using so you are the one who implements changes.

Environmental supports have two functions. First, they might support behaviors you want to encourage. This might include visual supports to prompt behavior like raising your hand for help. Second, environmental supports help to prevent behaviors you want to avoid. For example, you might set up a more frequent check-in during academic tasks so that the student doesn’t become overwhelmed with the task and use interfering behavior to communicate that frustration.

Many of these strategies will be time-limited because the next part of the plan, teaching new skills, will help your student progress. Other strategies might be helpful for the student for a long time.

Environmental supports can include physical changes to the environment, like seating and teacher proximity, instructional changes like reducing the amount and complexity of the student’s work, and relationship building. But it is very important to keep in mind that environmental supports are chosen specifically based on message of the student’s behavior. No two students will need exactly the same amount of and type of environmental supports. You want “just right” supports in place!

As you implement your behavior intervention plan, the team will meet regularly and frequently to review the supports so that you can add or reduce as you see the effects of your environmental supports.

Teaching New Skills

Environmental supports are intended to reduce the target behavior in the short-term. This section of the plan will begin to address long-term behavior changes.

In this section, the team will start with where the student is (he's doing the best he can right now) and help him build his developing skills.

Ask yourself what the student needs to learn in order to change the way the student is currently delivering the message or even the need for the message. The developing skills that the team identified can help point out what they need to learn.

You might be teaching

better communication skills,
better social skills,
better executive function skills,
better ways to manage frustration or anger, or
functional skills like better reading skills, how to read a clock, or how to sharpen your own pencil.

What you decide to teach is related to WHY the student is using interfering behavior to communicate the message.

It is also helpful to identify HOW the skill will be taught. To see examples of teaching strategies, you can move to the Teaching Strategies page.

Reacting in Ways That Help

This part of the plan helps the team to articulate what will happen - in the short-term- when the interfering behavior that is being targeted occurs. While your environmental supports will help to reduce the frequency, intensity or duration of interfering behavior episodes and your plan for teaching new skills will begin to replace old patterns of behavior, it is very likely that there will still be interfering behaviors that occur. So the team plans how they will respond. The goal is to get the situation in hand and get back to teaching and learning as quickly and smoothly as possible.

This section of the plan is not “consequences;” it is not intended to identify punishments for behavior. Instead, this section is a thoughtful plan that answers the question: How can we respond to the interfering behavior in ways that help, in ways that get us back to teaching and learning as quickly and smoothly as possible? Addressing interfering behavior effectively and getting the situation in hand leaves more time in the student’s day for developing the skills identified by the team as critical.

The power in your behavior intervention plan is in the first two parts, environmental supports and teaching new skills. This part of the behavior intervention plan, reacting in ways that help, keeps time and effort focused on those two parts.

For behavior that is very intense, teams may want to consider creating a safety plan that details what steps adults can take if a crisis happens.

To watch a 24 minute webinar on Reactive Strategies, click this link.

Determining If the Plan is Effective

Once the plan is implemented, the team will want to be able to determine if the plan is effective. Is the behavior changing in the way the team wants? This can be determined through the use of data. The team already collected data - information- about the interfering behavior when they were trying to determine the message of the behavior. Now, that data collection method may change so that the team can track changes to the behavior. To learn more about data collection, click the picture on the right.