Stop That Seemingly Senseless Behavior!: FBA-Based Interventions for People With Autism

by Beth A. Glasberg

Once you've determined the purpose of a child's or student's seemingly senseless behavior by doing a functional behavior assessment (FBA), the next step is to work on changing or modifying the behavior. Stop That Seemingly Senseless Behavior! follows up on Dr. Glasberg's previous book, Functional Behavior Assessment for People with Autism , with a guide to developing an effective behavior intervention plan to stop undesirable behaviors such as hitting, screaming, or repetitive questioning. Stop That Seemingly Senseless Behavior! outlines an educational approach for parents, teachers, adult service providers, and aides that not only quickly reduces the problem behavior but also teaches the individual with autism new skills to get his needs met. It Review of what an FBA is How behavior is learned and unlearned Preventing challenging behavior Replacement behaviors Reinforcement techniques Pros & cons of reinforcement vs. punishment Interventions tailored to the function of the problem behavior Collecting and graphing data Writing behavior intervention plans Troubleshooting Positive Behavior Supports Full of case studies and Keep it Simple tips, plus forms, figures, and graphs, Stop That Seemingly Senseless Behavior! offers families and professionals proven strategies to change a person's challenging behavior, helping him to have a more productive and inclusive future. An example from the book of an FBA-based
Marie's problem behavior was swearing. An FBA revealed that Marie's swearing functioned to obtain attention from a preferred teacher. Her behavioral intervention allowed her five fewer swear words per day in order to obtain her 15 minutes of special time with her preferred teacher. In order to increase her chances of success, once Marie was only swearing 20 times per day, the allowed swears were reduced by only one each day. The teachers used a token board to help her visualize how many "swears" she had left. After two months, Marie was down to zero swearing incidents per day, and maintained this decreased level one year later. Also by Beth Glasberg :
Siblings of Children with A Guide for Families

Genres: Nonfiction, Autistic Spectrum Disorder

154 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 2008