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What are environmental supports?
What are environmental supports?
Environmental supports are strategies that teams identify and implement that prevent or reduce the likelihood that the targeted behaviors happen. Environmental supports proactively set up the environment for student success. Positive behavior change begins with effective environments that support behaviors you want to see and prevents behaviors that you don’t. Environmental supports are targeted and specific for each student and his or her situation.
Teams use the Message Statement to determine what the student is communicating and what lagging skills are contributing to that. The message and the lagging skills drive the selection of environmental supports. Environmental supports are intended to reduce the occurrence of the targeted behaviors (and the situations that trigger the behavior) while the student learns new ways to communicate.
Instructional environmental supports
Instructional environmental supports are used for students who exhibit difficult behavior around schoolwork demands. Addressing aspects of schoolwork demands can help to reduce the frequency of behavior episodes. What instructional changes can we make right now to address the message of the behavior?
Physical environmental supports
Physical environmental supports changes how the classroom is set up in order to reduce the frequency of behavior episodes. Seating, the arrangement of instructional materials, and the location of staff can all be part of physical environmental supports. What physical changes can we make right now to address the message of the behavior?
Relationship environmental supports
Relationship environmental supports include planning specific strategies to build relationships in the classroom with staff, peers, and even the student himself. These strategies can include increasing positive affirmations, offering leadership roles, and building student self-confidence. What relationship changes can we make right now to address the message of the behavior?
Determining what supports are needed
Teams problem-solve to determine how best to support students with environmental supports. What change can we make right now to address the message of the behavior? While there may be some limits to what teams can change, identifying strategies that address the message and the lagging skills of the student requires teams to think strategically.
Time-limited
Time-limited
Most environmental supports are time-limited. They will be in place as the student learns new skills.
A plan for ensuring implementation
A plan for ensuring implementation
Generally, environmental supports will be implemented wherever the student needs support. This can include multiple classroom settings. The team must ensure that everyone understands the environmental supports the team wants to implement and has the resources and skills to implement them effectively.
Using data to determine when to fade supports
Using data to determine when to fade supports
The team will be collecting information (data) on the difficult behavior throughout the behavior change process. Additionally, the team will be collecting instructional data (information) on the skills the team has selected to teach the student. As the instructional data indicates progress in learning replacement skills, the team can begin to fade the environmental supports, letting the student's new skills begin to be used.
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