Behavioral Support. (Book Review).

Janney, R. & Snell, M.E. (2000). Behavioral Support. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes

Behavioral Support is one of the four Teachers' Guides to Inclusive Practices that Janney and Small have written to provide education professionals with access to best practices regarding inclusion. The publishers and the authors of this and the other three guides advertise that the techniques and strategies presented are field-tested and based on current research. Though the expressed audience of the guides includes special and general educators, school principals, counselors, related services staff and family members, this particular guide reads like a "how-to" for classroom teachers who need help with students who have what they might refer to as "difficult" behaviors. However, as the authors never lose sight of the fact that behavioral support plans are most effective when everyone participates, all members of the educational team would benefit from the information within, so the broad audience designation is not only understandable but also lauded.

Its two greatest strengths are that it contains a thorough Appendix with various helpful blank forms, and it is written in easy-to-understand language. Janney and Small avoid the use of jargon and succinctly instruct teachers, step by step, how to provide an appropriate education through the use of behavioral support plans for special needs students who have behavioral issues. The text, more pamphlet than book, outlines in five concise chapters -- the basic information professionals and family (with or without a background in special education) need to develop a plan that will allow those students who find it difficult to function in the general education classroom because of behavior issues be successful in that and other settings. The authors use various insets to both illustrate and expand upon concepts they present. A few of the insets give brief summaries of the applicable research.

In the first chapter, Janney and Small dispense some basic information about behavior problems and define what they mean by positive behavioral supports, the approach they champion in this booklet. They define positive behavioral supports as "a collaborative problem-solving process to develop individualized interventions that stress prevention of problem behaviors through the provision of effective educational programming (p. 2)." Though they admit the "incorporation" of the application of behavioral principles, they deny that theirs is a traditional behavior management approach even though they explain that "the emphasis of this approach is on preventing problem behaviors and teaching the student alternative behaviors (p. 2)," goals not incongruous with traditional behavior management.

The authors advocate the use of functional behavior assessments prior to the development of behavioral support plans. Chapter 2 focuses on identifying the problem behavior through the use of the functional behavior assessments, important advice to the practitioner or family member who may describe undesirable student behavior with vague phrases like "he gets upset" or "she refuses to work" instead of defining behaviors that can be observed and measured, like "he hits himself" or "she tears her work papers up." According to Janney and Small, a functional behavior assessment identifies the antecedents to behavior, the behavior, and the consequences (or after-effects) of the behavior and according to the authors is important for two reasons:

1) it identifies the setting that triggers a behavior, important information in the prevention of the occurrence of the behavior in the future; and

2) it helps to identify the purpose for which the student is exhibiting the behavior, i.e., what the student "gets out of it," important for helping the student develop alternative behaviors that help meet his or her needs.

The information learned from functional behavior assessments is critical to developing effective behavioral support plans. The authors impress that knowing what triggers behavior and why a students engages in it is necessary to prevent the behavior and to teach the student alternate methods for getting what he or she wants, key elements of an effective behavioral support plan.

The "meat and potatoes" is presented in Chapter 3, in which the authors explain how to design, use and evaluate individualized behavioral support plans. In the discussion of evaluating the effectiveness of the plan, emphasis is given to accurate data gathering instead of relying on often unreliable intuition. Janney and Small also illustrate the necessity of developing a crisis management plan as an important part of a comprehensive behavioral support plan. In this and the other four chapters, examples are provided to illustrate the concepts discussed, and blank forms are provided in the Appendix.

The authors express their belief that programs are successful only when students become self-managers and are able to integrate into the social community of the classroom community as well as the academic community. Chapter 4 presents the best practices for teaching these social interaction and self-management skills. Though brief, the information is thorough for its purposes. A few commercial social skills programs are recommended, but a basic strategy for teaching any skill is effectively outlined. This chapter could stand alone as a quick guide for aides or incidental personnel who are not necessarily involved in the development or management of the behavioral support plan.

Chapter 5 seems at first extraneous, but actually is the "big picture" that the classroom teacher should be working towards. Titled "Classroom Community: Mutual Respect, Self-Direction, and Solving Problems Together," Janney and Small move behavioral supports plans one step beyond teaching the social interaction and self-management skills to creating the truly inclusive classroom. The chapter is a brief, short collection and explanation of research-proven methods for effective management and instruction that support or contribute to a supportive classroom community.

Overall, Behavioral Support is a helpful, easy-to-follow guide for teachers and other professionals or family members who want to help special needs students succeed in the classroom and other settings. For the general education teacher who is having difficulty with classroom management, it is a text of manageable length that outlines strategies that can be implemented immediately to provide relief from what may be considered unmanageable behaviors that disrupt the instructional environment. It would not be a significant investment of time to read this concise booklet, and it would be time well spent.