How To: Write Behavior Statements to Identify Causes of Child Behavior Problems

When a teacher is confronted with a misbehaving or non-compliant student, the challenging behavior presents a puzzle to be solved. Instructors skilled in resolving behavior problems know that effective behavior management is built upon 3 assumptions (Packenham, Shute, & Reid, 2004). First, students engage in specific behaviors for a purpose (e.g., to seek peer attention; to avoid academic work). Second, events in the school environment play a central role in shaping student conduct, whether as behavioral triggers or reinforcers. Third, the teacher who can accurately identify both the purpose (function) of a student's problem behavior and events in the environment that sustain that behavior will be able to select appropriate intervention strategies to replace or eliminate it.

A classroom teacher has access to a great deal of information that could potentially be helpful in analyzing a student's behavior: direct observation, interviews with the student, interviews with past teachers and parents; work products, school records, and more. In fact, as Hosp (2008) notes, a problem that teachers frequently face is not that they lack sufficient data to understand a student, but rather that they are saturated with too much global information to easily analyze.

Behavioral statement: Template for analysis. What is needed is a simple template that helps teachers to narrow their problem-solving focus, productively tap into their reservoir of knowledge about a student, and --hopefully-- solve the behavioral puzzle. Such a template exists in the form of the  'behavioral statement' (Moreno & Bullock, 2011). The behavioral statement--also known as the 'ABC' (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence) statement-- describes (a) antecedents: events that precede and trigger the problem behavior; (b) behavior: the problem behavior itself; and (c) consequences: events occurring as a result of the behavior that reinforce it in the future.

The behavioral statement neatly encapsulates the behavior and its context and places the student's behavior on a timeline (trigger, behavior, outcome). The statement's format allows the teacher to examine what antecedent events or conditions may precipitate a problem behavior and think about how to reengineer aspects of the learning activity to prevent the problem behavior. In the same manner, the statement prompts the instructor to look at the current consequences that accompany the problem behavior, consider whether they are actually supporting misbehavior, and perhaps seek to replace them with alternative consequences to extinguish undesired behaviors.

Classroom Behavioral Statement Organizer. While teachers can certainly draw upon their knowledge of students to write their own behavior statements, the process does require time and reflection. Yet time is a scarce commodity in busy classrooms. Teachers need access to streamlined tools to speed their understanding of mild problem behaviors and make behavior analysis feasible in general-education classrooms (Packenham, Shute, & Reid, 2004).

The Classroom Behavioral Statement Organizer, which appears below, is just such a tool, created to help instructors in a classroom setting to quickly draft behavior statements in ABC format and use those statements to link student behaviors to their underlying purpose or function.  The chart is a table divided into four columns: (1) Antecedent/Activity; (2) Student Behavior; (3) Consequence/ Outcome; and (4) Behavior Function. The teacher browses the elements in the first 3 columns to assemble a behavior/ABC statement that describes a student's problem behavior and its context. Based on this statement and the teacher's comprehensive knowledge of the student, the instructor then selects the underlying behavioral 'function' or purpose, a hypothesis that best explains why the problem behavioral is occurring.

A brief explanation of the sections of the Classroom Behavioral Statement Organizer follows:

• Antecedent/Activity. The chart lists a range of classroom activities (e.g., student work-pairs; reading activities; independent seat work) typically taking place when the student problem behavior occurs. If a teacher finds that a student behavior is displayed across multiple classroom settings/activities, it is recommended that the instructor make the analysis more manageable by choosing only the one or two most important settings/activities where the student's behavior is most problematic. Also, while this antecedent/activity list covers the majority of common classroom activities, the teacher is encouraged to write out his or her own description of any antecedents or activities not listed here.

• Student Behavior. A listing of the more common types of student misbehavior (e.g., talks to other students about non-instructional topics; fails to comply with routine teacher requests) appear in this section of the chart. The instructor identifies those problem behaviors that the student most often displays during the 'antecedent/activity' previously selected. It is recommended that teachers select no more than 2-3 behaviors to keep the behavior statement (and classroom intervention) manageable. If the teacher does not see a particular behavior listed, the instructor can use the examples from the chart as models to craft his or her own behavior definition.

• Consequence/Outcome. The teacher chooses outcomes/consequences that typically follow the problem behavior (e.g., student fails to complete work; student is sent from the classroom to the office or to in-school suspension). The instructor should try to limit the number of consequences/outcomes selected to 3. If, in the teacher's opinion, several consequences (e.g., positive peer attention; student fails to finish work) occur with the same frequency, each selected consequence can simply be indicated with a check mark. However, if several consequences are linked to the behavior but one consequence (e.g., student fails to complete work) clearly occurs more often than another (e.g., student is sent to the office with a disciplinary referral), the teacher should number the relevant consequences in descending (i.e., 1, 2, 3)  order of frequency. The value of rank-ordering when consequences happen with differing frequencies is that such ranking can provide insight into what 'pay-off' is actually sustaining the problem student behavior. For example, the instructor may note that the number-one consequence for a misbehaving student is that she reliably gets positive attention from her classmates but that a more sporadic disciplinary consequence such as teacher reprimand or office referral ranks a distant third. From this differential rate of consequences, the teacher may conclude that the more frequent peer attention is driving the behavior and that the sparser disciplinary consequence is not sufficient to change that pattern.

• Behavior Function. Having reviewed the behavior statement, the teacher chooses a behavior function that appears to be the most likely driver or cause of the student problem behavior(s). Seven possible functions are listed in this column (Witt, Daly, & Noell, 2000). The most commonly observed behavioral functions in classrooms are escape/avoidance and peer or adult attention (Packenham, Shute, & Reid, 2004), but other functions can be identified as well.  If the teacher is unsure of the function sustaining the behavior but has 2-3 candidates (e.g., peer attention; escape or avoidance of a situation or activity), that instructor should continue to observe the target student's behaviors and note accompanying antecedents and consequences in an effort to rule out all but one of the competing hypotheses.