Who attends the BIP meetings?
- Parent of referred student
- General Education Teachers of referred student
- Special Education Teacher of referred student
- Administrator
- Student (If old enough) to allow them to contribute and let them know it is their plan
- Language Pathologists (if child is demonstrating a deficit in their expressive and receptive language skills)
- Counselor, School Psychologist, or Social Worker (Quinn et. al, 1998)
Behavior Intervention Plans must be evaluated on a yearly basis (like Individual Education Plans). However, IEP Team members may request to meet at any point during the year if goals or interventions need to be changed (Etscheidt & Clopton, 2008, p.374).
Behavior Intervention Plans should always be "implemented in the least restrictive environment,implemented in a timely manner, and be carefully documented (Maag & Katsiyannis, 2006, p.357).
Behavior Intervention Plans should always be "implemented in the least restrictive environment,implemented in a timely manner, and be carefully documented (Maag & Katsiyannis, 2006, p.357).
**Positive** behavior supports to include in Behavior Intervention Plans:
- Positive reinforcement with teacher praise.
- Provide additional opportunities to respond during whole group instruction by:
-"Priming": To increase students' participation rate and decrease disruptive behaviors, teachers can prepare their students before a lesson about what questions they will ask during whole group instruction.
-Rapid pacing, choral reading, or the use of response cards. - Social skill instruction to replace negative behaviors.
- Self-management skills for students to be able to independently monitor their work completion and behaviors.
- Video modeling to model appropriate behaviors.
- Behavior contracting between the teacher and student.
- Visual schedules.
- Social stories.
- Peer support.
(Etscheidt & Clopton, 2008)
Why evaluate the effectiveness?
Consistent data collection is essential to ensure a Behavior Intervention Plan is successfully meeting a student's needs (Killu, 2008, p. 144). To effectively evaluate a BIP, "the student's behavior should be observed, measured, and recorded before, during, and after implementing the BIP, and the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the target behavior should be continually assessed. Continuous measurement of the student behavior reduces the likelihood of error in the intervention process. Furthermore, continuous assessment of student performance and data collection improves the quality and efficiency of the decision making process (Killu, 2008, p.144).
- It is imperative to collect baseline data prior to writing a BIP. Without gathering baseline data, there is no data to measure the effectiveness of the intervention (Killu, 2008, p.144).
- The Team must determine how to measure the behavior. By figuring out how to measure the behavior the team can determine if the targeted behavior is the problem behavior. At times, BIP plans are ineffective because the target behavior turns out not to be the problem behavior (Killu, 2008). For example, "disruptive behavior is often the focus of the intervention. Though disruptive behavior may certainly be a concern, it may also consist of several other responses such as roaming the room, talking with peers, or playing with objects. The true problem, however, is that the student doesn't attend to the task (Killu, 2008, p.144).
- By measuring the data, teachers are able to decide how problematic the behaviors are. At times,the data collection may show that the behavior is not as problematic as originally perceived (Killu, 2008).
How do you evaluate effectiveness?
- After implementing the intervention program for a certain amount of time teachers should "discontinue the formal reinforcement program and once again tally the occurrences of the focus behavior" (Savage, 1999, p.204).
- IF there is little to no change, change the reinforcers or the reinforcement schedule (Savage, 1999).
- IF the behavior is changing at an appropriate rate... then continue with the intervention plan (Savage, 1999).
"Remember that if the reinforcements stop altogether, the old patterns are likely to recur" (Savage, 1999, p.204).