Target Audience: Behavior Analysts
Behavior analysts working in public schools are faced with complex cases that require extensive behaviors plans with multiple interventions. The problem is that these plans can be overwhelming for teachers and staff who do not have the time or resources to do what is being asked of them. Consider that providing praise may be more difficult initially for staff who have been frustrated by noncompliance and other unwanted behaviors. In these situations, we have to ask ourselves what recommendations will be more likely to be well-received and will give us the most bang for our buck. Let’s remember the A (antecedent) in ABC and see where that takes us.
As we know, manipulating antecedents is our way of being proactive. We want to rearrange environmental variables to promote desired behaviors while preventing disruptive behaviors that interfere with learning. In essence, we want to change motivating operations to work for us instead of against us. We want to increase establishing operations for cooperative engagement and positive social behaviors. Think behavior momentum, task modifications, greetings, routines, do rather than don’t statements, fading adult support, etc. Here is a link to an article the outlines classroom-based antecedent interventions and provides evidence to support their implementation in a classroom setting: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0d21/d6cf05ff4bf1cf857c6ce769dbba7c319960. Pdf
Prevention is always preferable and may be an easier sell than reinforcement-based systems. As a result, antecedent interventions may lead to greater contextual fit and higher treatment integrity. Teachers may be more quickly reinforced for their efforts and so may be more willing to try additional antecedent methods as well as reinforcement-based approaches. Furthermore, antecedent-based interventions that can be extremely effective in improving behaviors and maintaining that improvement over time.