BIP

Tiffany Chen

NYU
 Behavior Intervention Plan

Elizabeth’s problem behaviors are making disruptive noises during independent work and

being off-task. This is defined as calling out across the room without raising her hands, talking to

her peers while they are trying to do their work, singing loudly enough to disrupt her peers while

doing her independent work, and sometimes will be focused on her environment rather than on

the task at hand. This is a priority to create an intervention to change her behavior because it is

disruptive multiple times during the day and affects her ability to complete her independent work

effectively and efficiently. The teacher wishes to change her behavior so that it doesn’t become a

bigger issue when she moves onto her future schools.

Based on the FBA, when Elizabeth is expected to complete her independent work without

instruction, she calls outs and exhibit talkative behaviors because she wants to gain attention

from the teacher or her peers. However, her behavior that leads to her desired attention is

problematic and not an ideal method to gain positive attention. Hopefully, the replacement

behaviors of raising her hand and completing her independent work quietly will allow Elizabeth

to get a sense of better ways to gain attention. When she raises her hand instead of calling out to

ask a question, she will still gain the same function, attention. When she doesn’t raise her hand

and calls out instead, the teacher should ignore her to prevent giving her negative attention

(scolding her) or positive attention (answering her) because both will fulfill her desire for

attention. By having Elizabeth work on completing her independent work silently, this will work

towards bringing out her academic abilities that is hindered by her talkative behaviors. An

effective reinforcement for this behavior is providing her specific praise when she has completed

her assignment with the defined criteria. An example would be, “Elizabeth, I like how you

finished your work without talking to your peers and staying focused on your assignments. I
would appreciate if you continue this behavior.” Hopefully, this praise will act as a positive

reinforcement and a form of positive attention for her. Over time, the specific praise will

decrease in frequency so that she won’t become dependent on the attention and the behavior will

be learned.

To start to implement the replacement behaviors, the teacher would modify her

expectations of Elizabeth’s daily routines to complete it without instruction by providing her a

checklist of what she should be expected to do. There would be a two different checklists, one

for her morning work/transitions and another checklist for her independent work. The first

checklist would remind her to raise her hand when she has a question and to have her reflect on

her actions to see if she is doing what is important. The second checklist would act as another

remainder for Elizabeth to check her work and stay focused on the task. These checklists will act

as a prevention strategy for her problem behaviors and encourage her to use the replacement

behaviors. Also, the consequences will act as a positive reinforcer that helps her maintain the

replacement behaviors. For Elizabeth, I would recommend a paraprofessional to be in the

classroom to help the teacher implement the checklist and record. The teacher and the students in

the classroom should be collaborating to avoid giving her attention when she is performing

talkative behaviors (including looking at her and speaking to her) until she is raising her hand or

given permission to. By combination the prevention antecedents with the new consequences,

hopefully the replacement behaviors will make the problem behavior ineffective and irrelevant in

seeking attention.

By getting a chance to perform an FBA and a Behavior Intervention Plan, I have the

opportunity to see what kind of information is important to focus on when trying to figure out a

student’s problem behavior. I have learned that the antecedent is an important aspect that
contributes to the behavior because it is something that can be modified, in addition to the

consequences, to help maintain the replacement behavior and eliminate the concerned behavior.

For Elizabeth, going through the process of observing and tracking her behavior throughout the

day really helped me under why she is deciding to perform these behaviors and understand her a

little bit more. Through the FBA and BIP, I got to see the step-by-step procedures of what an IEP

team would look at. Overall, I think it was helpful in driving more deeply into understanding the

mechanisms of a behavior and what goes into replacing in it in a school context. As a future

teacher, I would be included in this team and having the experience of actually conducting those

procedures will be helpful in understanding the specific terminology and dynamics of filling out

the forms. By having this background knowledge and being better informed, this will benefit the

students even more in trying to provide him or her the best intervention for the behavior.