Behavior Change Project

Operational Definition
John, a 15 year old male, is an 8th grade student attending a local middle school. John is a transfer student from another state and he been placed into an inclusion classroom because he has been identified as a student with a disability and requires an IEP. Lately, John has been verbally and physically disruptive during math class. Some of the disruptive behaviors John often exhibit in the classroom include making loud noises and jokes during instruction, calling his peers names, physically touching his peers, and grabbing group materials. John’s teacher collected data and learned that his verbal disruptive behavior occurs 4-8 times during each sixty minute class meeting, and his physical group disruptions occur 75% of the time he works with a group. After meeting with John’s other teachers, his math teacher learned that his disruptive behavior is only present during math class. According to John’s math test scores on his IEP, his math instructor also learned that math is a challenging subject for John and he is significantly below grade level. Both John’s math teacher and his IEP team reached an agreement that they would like to decrease the number of times John disrupts instruction and eventually eliminate the disruptive behavior. The replacement behavior for John is to remain focused and on task during math instruction and assigned activities without triggering any disruptions (i.e., distracting loud noises or jokes causing the class to go into a laughing uproar, physical contact with peers, name calling, or grabbing his peers’ materials). Instead of John being punished for his disruptive behavior, the replacement behavior would allow him to remain in math class, and he will also be able to receive posit...

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... prevent the student from becoming frustrated (Scheuermann & Hall, 2012). This is appropriate for John because it has already been determined that he has a performance deficit and is not motivated to behave in math class due to his frustration that he does not understand the concepts. This method of instruction could ultimately help John improve his math skills rather than forcing him to continue to struggle with math. Since John is in an inclusion classroom with several other students, John’s teacher may not always have the opportunity to provide John with one-to-one instruction; therefore, other evidence-based interventions should be implemented when one-to-one instruction is not available.

References
Scheuermann, B., & Hall, J. (2012). Positive behavioral supports for the classroom. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc. ISBN # 10:0132147831