Tier 2 PBIS Targeted Social Skills Instruction - Wayne RESA (PDF)

Tier 2 PBIS Targeted Social Skills Instruction Wayne RESA 2021-2022 Chris McEvoy Kayrl Reynoso [email protected] [email protected]  Teaching Social Skills • Social Skills Instruction (SSI) focuses on explicitly teaching behaviors to students who show social skill deficits. Social Skills Instruction assists students in acquiring new behavioral skills, building fluency with existing skills, or generalizing existing skills to new situations. • Social Skills Instruction teaches students appropriate interpersonal communication skills, self-discipline, and problem solving skills. It combines a number of strategies to prevent and replace problem behaviors, and increase skills and behaviors leading to social competence.  Tier One PBIS: Teaching Expectations • A core feature of Tier One PBIS is that all students receive direct instruction in the school’s positive behavior expectations i.e., the PBIS matrix. • Schools develop core values such as RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, and SAFETY, and then define the specific behaviors representing those values in all locations of the school. • Schools typically have a plan to ensure that all students receive direct instruction in the specific behavior expectations at the beginning of the school year, and then provide booster lessons throughout the school year.  Why Targeted Social Skills Instruction? • Tier 2 targeted social skills instruction is utilized when one or a small group of students are having difficulty consistently demonstrating one or more of the school’s expectations. • Those students may need additional instruction, perhaps in a different format, more practice, more reminders, and more reinforcement in the expectations selected for targeted instruction.  Targeted Social Skills as a Tier 2 Intervention Identifying skills/behaviors for instruction • Which specific expectations is the student having difficulty with? • Ask his/her teachers. • Refer to behavior incident reports or Office Discipline Referrals. • If the student is on Check In Check Out in what area (respect, responsibility, or safety) are they having the most difficulty? Targeted social skills instruction can be used to augment CICO.  Getting Started Since the student has not mastered the expectations through the Tier One level of instruction they will likely need some explicit instruction in the behavior. Example: The student has a repeated problem with interrupting others and speaking disrespectfully. The Tier 2 team decides targeted instruction in “active listening” will be started with the student and a small group of other students. Active listening is broken into its component parts for explicit instruction: Pay attention – avoid distractions Show you’re listening – nod, smile, eye contact Give feedback – ask clarifying questions Don’t interrupt – don’t argue Respond respectfully  What is explicit instruction? Explicit instruction is a way to teach in a direct, structured manner. When teachers use explicit instruction, they make lessons crystal clear. They show kids how to start and succeed on a task. • Anita Archer describes explicit instruction as a 3 step process: • Modeling & Demonstration – “I do” • Guided Practice – “We do” • Independent Practice – “You do”  Plan for Targeted Instruction •When will it occur? •How long are the lessons? •Where? •With whom? •For how long? •What data will be used to measure progress?  Building Fluency & Generalization • Practice plus constructive performance feedback builds fluency. • The more practice the better. • Use the following generalization strategies to promote use of the target skills with other people, situations, etc. • Teach/Practice in the environment the skill will be needed. • Have multiple people/adults prompt and acknowledge the positive behavior when it occurs. • Use real life situations for instruction. • Make sure the student is rewarded when they display the behavior.  What about Functional Behavior Assessment? Should we do a functional behavior assessment before beginning targeted social skills instruction? • Not necessarily. It may be relatively easy to identify the positive behavior expectation from the matrix that the student needs extra help with. • The identification of “replacement behaviors” typically involve some degree of FBA in that it is necessary to identify a prosocial behavior that serves the same function as the problem behavior and that is more efficient in gaining positive reinforcement for the student. This is typically a Tier 3 level intervention.