Ep. 53: Teaching Positive Behaviors – Part 10 of the FBA Mini-Series

Continuing on in our FBA-BIP mini-series, we're at Step 10! This week, we’re tackling one of the most important steps in behavior intervention planning—choosing the right replacement behavior. Just reducing problem behavior isn’t enough; we have to actively teach what to do instead in a way that’s functional, motivating, and sustainable.

🔑 Key Takeaways
✅ Replacement behaviors must meet the same function – If a student yells to escape a task, teaching them to request a break makes sense. Giving them a fidget does not.
✅ Make it easy & efficient – The new skill must be as quick (or quicker) than the problem behavior, or it won’t stick.
✅ Teach what’s already in their repertoire – If a learner can’t say, “Can I take a break?” yet, start with something simpler, like using a break card.
✅ Plan for sustainability – Reinforcement should be natural whenever possible, so skills can generalize without heavy external rewards.
✅ Extinction matters – If the old behavior still works sometimes, students will keep using it. Staff must commit to only reinforcing the replacement behavior.

📚 Resources and Ideas
📌 Check out Episode 12 on replacement behaviors!
📌 Teaching Positive Behaviors FREE visuals
📌 These Functions of Behaviors social stories might be helpful for your young learners!

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Transcript

Ep. 53:  Teaching Positive Behaviors – Part 10 of the FBA Mini-Series

Audra: [00:00:00] The third question, is the reinforcement easier or equal? Meaning that whatever skill that we teach them, it has to access whatever they're seeking as quickly and as easily as what the behavior is already doing. Otherwise, they're not going to use it.

Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran here to bring you evidence-based strategies with a student-centered focus. Let's get started. 

Audra: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists. We are working through the FBA and BIP process, and today we wanna talk about briefly, step 10, which is now that we've done the FBA and we've decided what behavior we're going to be targeting, we have decided what the hypothesized function is and we are ready to make some decisions about replacement behaviors. And Caitlin and I recently did a full podcast episode, which I will link into the show notes and so I generated some new visuals, wanna go over quickly kind of what those are 'cause we're now at the [00:01:00] stage of deciding what's most important. So Caitlin, tell us why it's a short step, but very, very important for us to keep in mind. 

Caitlin: I think it's so important because I remember when I was first learning about replacement behaviors and that like light bulb moment for me was equating it to like that whack-a-mole where it's like, okay, you can stomp out this behavior and you can stomp out that behavior. But unless you're giving that child something else to do, you're just gonna keep whacking that mole over and over again. And if you think about it, it makes sense because it's so much easier for any one of us to focus on doing something than to focus on not doing something like, that's a really hard thing to ask anyone to do.

Audra: Exactly. And one of the things we have in the visuals, and this one is kind of the competing pathways flow chart that we always use and we talk, we figured out setting events and antecedent. We know what the problem behavior is, and that problem behavior is getting something for the student. It's fulfilling some sort of need for that learner, right. Sometimes I [00:02:00] think we shoot too high. Well, they're doing this, but we want them to do exactly what their typical peers are doing. So we're gonna make that the replacement behavior. And I always wanna stop people and go, okay, they're not ready for that yet. So when we're talking about replacement behaviors, there's a couple of things I want us all to think about when we're choosing that replacement behavior to teach. 'cause you're exactly right. It's like they, they have a behavior and it's meeting a need. So it's so important that we find a more socially acceptable behavior that they can learn, that they can use, and that it will get them the same need met.

And so I think that's the biggest kind of takeaway. We can't just reduce the challenge in behavior. We have to actively teach what to do instead. 

Caitlin: Right? And we gotta remember that whatever the behavior the learner is showing that we are having a hard time with, they're not having a hard time with, most likely it's working for them. So they're engaging in that behavior to meet that need. So making sure that replacement behavior is the perfect one, the perfect replacement behavior chosen for that learner with their [00:03:00] behavior in mind is so important because it has to fulfill that same need, and then we have to produce the best, biggest response so that they wanna do that replacement behavior and not the original behavior.

Audra: Exactly. Which leads me right into my flow chart. I came up with this and I think it's just helpful kind of as we're deciding on what to teach first of all, we're not just throwing a whole bunch of things at the wall that we're really systematic in thinking about this specific learner, what they're capable of doing, what is going to get them the most bang for their buck and our buck as well.

So the question that I ask first is I have a behavior in mind that I'd like them to learn, is it something they could already do? So say the behavior is yelling, calling out during circle time because they wanna be removed from circle time, which is very common. If all they have is vocalizations and they're yelling, they're getting removed, and I want them to be able to say, "I would like to have a break, please." Well, they can't do that yet. So unless they're able to [00:04:00] actually perform the skill , it doesn't have to be that they're using it correctly in the moment, but it's in their repertoire. They have the ability to use the skill at some point that we can teach them. 

Caitlin: I see this a lot with learners who use any kind of communication device as well, especially those early learners where they're learning, oh, I'm going to, they're using Proloquo on the iPad, or whatever it may be. And so, right, we wanna teach them a break and it's like, oh, let's put it on the device. We're putting everything on the device. But if they're still not fluent with navigating their device for their basic wants and needs, we're going right to that card. Touch that picture, exchange something that's the same result, but that, or is already in their repertoire. 

Audra: I've told my staff that when we're thinking about a behavior we wanna teach, eventually we want them to get to Harvard. I think I brought this up before, we want them to get there. They're not ready for that yet. So let's think about where they can go right now. And that may just be the tech school or the community college, and we gotta be happy with that. And so you're right, is thinking about what are they capable of doing right now? And so that's the very first thing. If you think of the replacement [00:05:00] behavior, is this something you know that they can be taught? They at least have the skillset that you could teach them to use it in a different place. 

And so then the second question is. Does that behavior that you're thinking about meet the same function? So is it gonna fulfill the same need? 

Caitlin: So if the example you used was like morning meeting. They wanna leave morning meeting, right? So if you're giving them like a kush ball or something to fidget with, what they want is the break from morning meeting, right? They don't want something, they don't want the sensory component, they want the escape in this example.

Audra: Excellent. 

Caitlin: So something like a break request so that they get to leave morning meeting, just like they leave morning meeting when they run away. 

Audra: Right. Or we have students who have behaviors that are getting attention from their peers, they're hitting or yelling or something, get attention from the peers. If our goal then is to give them the "I want a break" as the replacement, well, you're not giving them the same need that they're seeking, the functional language you're gonna give them is, "do you want to play" or something so that they're getting the attention, which is what they're seeking from the peers. 

The third question, is the reinforcement [00:06:00] easier or equal? Meaning that whatever skill that we teach them, it has to access whatever they're seeking as quickly and as easily as what the behavior is already doing. Otherwise, they're not going to use it. So if we teach them something, but it takes them longer to get whatever they're looking for, it has to be easier for them to do, or at least as the same, you know? And so I think that's really important as we're thinking about what are we gonna teach them? That our response to them in delivering that reinforcement, if it's asking for a break, whatever it is, has to be as quick or quicker than what they're doing with the behaviors. And that's really tricky when you're dealing with staff who don't understand the importance of that. Like a gen ed teacher may not understand that if he asks for a break, we have to give it immediately. We can't wait and say, "well, you know, we're gonna wait until recess time" because then you're gonna get the other behaviors back.

Caitlin: Right. And like the first couple examples, we were going over things the learner might not have in the repertoire. Now we're thinking about, okay, maybe the replacement behavior you're trying to teach, it's in their repertoire, but it's too many steps. It's too long. [00:07:00] So I've had teachers say like, oh, they can have a break. They can just go to the back of the room, write their name on the bathroom, sign out, check in with me, and there's like a three step process as opposed to maybe just like sliding over that break card and boom, they're out of the room. Because given the problem behavior, or that three step process, they're gonna pick the problem behavior. So we need to make our new replacement behavior that quick and easy for them. 

Audra: That's exactly right. And I didn't put that in here, is that we need to then teach our staff that we have to stop reinforcing the other behavior. So if they're screaming out, we have to learn and teach our staff that, "I know it's hard not to respond to that, but now we can't respond to that. We have to only respond with this replacement behavior." And that can be really tricky for other staff to understand the importance of that. So talking about the importance of not reinforcing the old problem behavior, and then we talk about, extinction bursts and spontaneous recovery and all these other things. But we need to educate our staff about why that's important to only now reinforce the replacement behavior. 

Then the fourth question, can the behavior you've chosen [00:08:00] become naturally reinforcing? And we want to plan for sustainability, so whatever behavior we're teaching them to use is natural as possible. So the examples we're using is perfect, you know, asking for a break, asking a friend for attention in some way. Something that can be naturally sustainable. If we're only giving Skittles or something, and that's what we're gonna reinforce. Well, that's not an naturally occurring reinforcement. So really think about, is the behavior we're teaching giving them access to as naturally as possible, because we want them to be self-sustaining as quickly as possible too. 

Caitlin: Exactly.

Audra: And then, so if you get through all those questions, you're like, hey, this is a great choice. Later on we're going to be talking about collecting data, but the important part here is that we've chosen something and now we're gonna implement it and see if it works. That is going to be later on. I have some other visuals as well. I will put them in the Facebook group as well as in the show notes and you can get those, add what you think. Share your ideas as well. We love to hear from you. [00:09:00] Wednesdays, we like to post something in the Facebook group where we're asking for your input, what things you're struggling with. This is a great time, you know, have you had great success in figuring out a good replacement behavior and how to use that within your BIP plans. So that is all we have for today. 

Intro: Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists, and be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.