School Behavior Support

Behavior Challenges At School

When a child’s teacher, guidance counselor, or school principal reaches out to report that a child is experiencing a pattern of behavioral difficulties in the classroom, it is a challenging time for everyone. Parents and school personnel are often searching for answers, while the child is becoming increasingly frustrated and discontent. Adding to the complexity of the dynamic, the student may have neurodivergent diagnoses such as autism, ADHD, or anxiety contributing to challenges with emotional regulation, impulse control, and perspective taking.

Mary Beth’s Expertise

If your child is experiencing the challenges described above, we encourage you to reach out for guidance and support. Mary Beth Hes has a wealth of experience supporting learners who are experiencing behavioral challenges and helping them adjust to the expectations of learning in a classroom environment, both through her 15 years of classroom experience and extensive time spent working one-on-one with students with special needs.

Mary Beth’s Approach

Mary Beth approaches behavior support through a collaborative problem solving lens. She begins by gathering background information from parents, teachers, and the student about the challenging behaviors that are occurring. She then analyzes when they occur and how they have been responded to by caregivers in order to identify potential triggers and unintended reinforcers of the challenging behaviors. 

Mary Beth views behavior as a form of communication and an opportunity for teaching and learning. After the information gathering phase is complete, a hypothesis is made as to why the behavior is occurring and what the behavior is attempting to communicate. Working collaboratively, she explores environmental supports and modifications that can be used to prevent the challenging behavior from occurring. Further, she identifies the skills that the student needs to learn in order to communicate effectively without using the challenging behaviors as a means of communication. Finally, she creates a plan on how to instruct those lagging skills and supports teachers and parents as they teach those skills to the student.

Behavior Tracking

In addition to taking preventative measures, a clear plan is put into place on how to respond to and monitor challenging behaviors. Mary Beth works collaboratively to identify a few simple behavior goals to target and states them in student friendly language. Caregivers discuss these goals with the student so they understand what the target behavior looks like and does not look like. 

During the implementation phase, at the start of the school day, the teacher previews the goals with the student and reminds them of their target behaviors. The teacher checks in with the student several times during the day to discuss with them if they are meeting their behavior goals and provides positive reinforcement when the targets are met. Their success is marked on a color-coded card that provides clear, visual information to the student. 

The completed behavior tracker is sent home each day so that parents are in regular communication with the teachers in regard to progress towards behavior goals. With this regular communication system in place, parents are able to provide additional reinforcement at home. This provides the student with consistency between home and school with regard to their target behaviors.