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Well, we finally had our first program of the school year, and our primary focal point -- led by our newest co-host, Heidi O'Leary, Special Education Director in Topsham, Maine -- was on how to write a CPS-flavored IEP, driven by the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP). This is big...
Challenging behavior isn't a puzzle anymore when you put the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) to work.
On today's program, we helped a mom begin identyfing the lagging skills and unsolved problems contributing to the challenging episodes of her daughter (who we're calling Debbie), using the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) as our guide. Once the problems are identified, the task of solving them begins...along with the adventure of getting to know Debbie.
Dr. Greene promised to do an entire program on how to use the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP), and here it is!
We went with a more technical topic today, but one that comes up frequently in schools: how to incorporate the CPS model in general and the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) in particular into a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and a Behavior Plan. First, you may want to reconsider your definition of "function"...it's not that the student's challenging behavior is helping him get, escape, or avoid, but rather than the behavior communicates that he's lacking the skills to deal with the demands being placed on him in a more adaptive fashion. After that, the ALSUP pretty much gives you all the information you need to write your Behavior Plan...except that you might want to change the name of that document and call it a Problem Solving Plan instead. Helping kids with their challenging behavior isn't about altering their behavior through use of incentives...it's about collaborating on solutions to the problems that are setting in motion their challenging behavior. Listen to the recorded version of the program!
In this inaugural edition of Collaborative Problem Solving at Home, Dr. Greene describes how challenging kids come to be challenging: they're lacking the skills not to be challenging. This perspective represents a dramatic departure from viewing challenging kids as manipulative, attention-seeking, unmotivated, coercive, and limit-testing. Dr. Greene also describes how to go about figuring out what skills your kid is lacking, through use of the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP). He discusses the fact that challenging behavior occurs under highly predictable conditions, called "unsolved problems," and describes how to go about identifying these unsolved problems in your child. A great introduction to Collaborative Problem Solving for parents!
In this program, Dr. Greene talks about the importance of having a "vision" for what discipline should look like in a school building. Having a vision starts with understanding that challenging behavior is a form of developmental delay...continues with using the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) in a school's assessment procedures...and continues with creating mechanisms for school staff to become skilled at using Plan B. Along the way, it's also necessary to create mechanisms for school staff to communicate well about at-risk students.