In the past, some teachers depended on punishment to reduce problem behaviours, however, punishment brought about only temporary reductions in negative behaviours, did not teach any new skills, and led to more negative side effects such as the child withdrawing from and avoiding the classroom and the school.
Today however, teachers practice a more positive and functional approach to reducing challenging behaviours called positive behaviour support. Positive behaviour support provides a structure for considering the development of instructional environments that increases teachers ability to deliver effective instructions to all children, thereby increasing success rates and reducing negative behaviours. It consists of finding out why a certain behaviour is happening and develops interventions to improve or eliminate those behaviours. For example, through this kind of assessment the teacher may discover that a child's disruptive hand flapping might be more often when challenging tasks are given and the hand flapping becomes a way to get away from the tasks. With this information the teacher can plan strategies to reduce the disruptive behaviour. In this example the teacher might teach the child a more appropriate way to behave for instance teaching him/her to ask for a break rather than flapping his/her hands to get away from the task for a while.
Some other strategies that teachers can use include the following -
- A variety of visual support which can be used to help children with special needs understand routines, how to transition from one activity to the next, and gain new skills. An Activity Schedule can be a specific visual support strategy that can be used with simple written or pictorial instructions which can be placed on the wall of the classroom/group area.
- Teaching social skills through Social Stories. For example, a Social Story about lining up might describe the instruction given by the teacher, what the children do and why. Other common situations that can be helped through these kind of stories include sharing, turn taking, and coping with teasing.
- Modify the classroom environment to minimize challenging behaviours.
- Teach and reward alternate behaviours.
- Work with everyone concerned to be sure that there is consistency across all setting, such as home and school.
