“He needs a behaviour chart!”
A common instruction from our advisor, when a child started showing negative behaviors. It was often the violent behaviors that grabbed the most attention and got you a behavior chart. The biters, the hitters, the screamers had a special chart on the wall that was going to help get to the root of their problems.
What is a behaviour chart?
Behavior charts have the times of day on one side and a list of possible behaviors along the bottom, or vice versa. Behavior analysts use these to discover patterns and therefore provide a starting point to work from.
The adults working with the child are informed of the behaviors to look out for and taken through step by step instructions of what is to be recorded.
In theory this all sounds great. In practise, it can be open to individual interpretation and result in many unanswered questions.
At what point is a scream a scream?
What if the child is hurt and they go into meltdown. Do we record that?
They have sat under the table for 1 hour now. Is that 1 tick or 2 ticks as she has missed 2 lessons?
The box in the chart was full, so I just ticked in the next row.
I forgot to enter the data for yesterday afternoon. What happened again?
So how can we use behaviour charts successfully in a real classroom?
- 1) Clear instructions from the start
Getting a team of adults to view and record behaviors in the same way can be very difficult. We all have different levels of expectations and understanding. All adults involved in recording must be following the exact same criteria. You may even want to have a quick guide set up next to the sheet to keep everyone on track.
- 2) Watch out for serial tickers
I am not the highest ticker on behavior charts. If I observe a child demonstrating one of the behaviors, I aim to record it once. However, a TA I worked with in the past, viewed children’s negative behaviors as a personal attack. I could feel her bottled up anger spill over. I watched her stride over to the chart to take out her frustration. She would then pierce the sheet with the pressure of her pencil. Serial tickers do exist so watch out for them!
- 3) Child specific
Which behavior is it that you really need to focus on for your particular child? It’s really difficult to tackle everything all at once, so choose between 1 and 4 to monitor. Creating a behavior chart for individual children takes 2 minutes using Word or other programs. You need to decide which negative behaviors are either being repeated again and again, or are causing distress and destruction to themselves and their surroundings. You may find that it is only one behavior that you are looking out for. That’s OK.
- 4) Children like predictable events
Some children with autism will very quickly observe that you go to your behavior chart after every time they, hit / spit / rip work etc. Before you know it, you are performing a predictable routine. Be warned, some children will like the control and predictability of this recording routine. They may even perform the negative behavior you were trying to stop, just to get you to tick that chart.
- 5) Children are more than graphs
Behavior analysis charts have a very cold feeling about them. They are snap shots of moments in time and that is it. They don’t always explain what was happening for the child before, during or after the event. For example, was the lesson engaging enough for them, and were their sensory needs met? If not used along with other methods, behavior charts simply record all the ‘bad’ moments a child has during a day. I have seen this cold, raw information presented to parents and it can be devastating.
What would your behaviour chart say?
And what if it was on view and shown to your nearest and dearest? When introducing strategies in the classroom, I often put myself in the shoes of the child. How many of us would appear in a positive light if we had behavior charts in adulthood?
Which behaviors do you need to improve?
- exceeded time on social media?
- ate too many calories?
- more than 1 glass of wine?
- missed gym class?
- felt jealous of friend’s instagram post?
The BIG problem I have with this type of monitoring is that it leaves little room to acknowledge the positive and you can become engrossed in the negative. I have done a lot of good this week too, honest! If adults in the room are only focused on collecting negative marks on the chart, it can subconsciously reinforce a belief that there is more negative than positive about the child.
She’s doing it again.
Wait for it, he is about to throw the toy.
Graphs, charts and statisticsWe have moved to a place in school where everything needs to be measured in order to plan and show progression. Data and graphs are seen as positive aids to learning. However, there is a human element to all of this data. Data is not reflective of the whole child. As the increasingly popular movement, More Than a Score, has shown in recent years, we need to realise the importance of a holistic approach to learning. I believe this is equally important in how we assess, record and observe children.
Conclusion
My opinion on behavior charts is this. It is absolutely OK to gather data, record frequencies of incidents and set achievable targets. But keep in mind, statistics don’t represent the whole child. Ticks and tally marks can never replace actual real life moments, where environment, relationships and triggers can be understood and accounted for.
If only teaching was as simple as taking children through a score sheet. As qualified professionals, let’s not forget the development and needs of the whole child in our classroom strategies.
For further support and ideas, discover our Positive Behaviour Strategies resource HERE.
thinking differently
The Autism Junction