By Mary Matthews, DLC Program Specialist & Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA)
In moving to remote learning, we have all seen shifts in our students’ behavior. But, what we have to consider is that the behaviors students may have exhibited in school are not necessarily going to be the same as the behaviors they’re exhibiting now at home.
Some students who exhibited challenging behavior in school may be adjusting well to this new routine at home. Meanwhile, some students who were well adjusted at school may be struggling to adapt at home. And finally, some students who were exhibiting challenging behaviors at school are now exhibiting different challenging behaviors at home. It is important that we consider how each child is adjusting to remote learning in order to figure out the right supports that will meet their needs.
The first step in figuring out the right supports for each student is asking the right questions. We need to truly understand what is happening at home, but this can be difficult to do when we have numerous families to check in with each week. While we might feel that we are asking the right questions, in reality we are not providing a space for parents to share what is truly occurring at home. Asking more detailed, specific questions can help us dig deeper and get to the root of behavior issues at hand.
Once we figure out what support needs to be provided, we can start to think about what tools we want to give to families to equip them in supporting their child’s behavior. One idea we can offer is to suggest that parents implement structural or environmental modifications. For example, we can encourage parents to come up with a schedule or routine that matches online learning requirements. This schedule provides flexibility and predictability for the student to work at home, and can be posted visually to increase understanding of “what’s next”. We can also work with parents to set simple and specific goals for their child’s behavior. Since a child’s IEP goals may not have been designed to be suitable for a home environment, we can ask the parents what new goals they want to see their child work towards while at home and create solutions to address those specific needs. Then, we can use parent surveys or other methods of data collection to help parents track their child’s progress toward these new goals. This will help us get a clear read on whether current behavior supports are effective at home or if we need to provide further, differentiated support to meet behavioral needs.
Here are some tools and resources we found that can assist teachers and families with providing remote behavior support during virtual learning:
- Parent-Child Behavior Contracts
- PBIS Incentives for Distance Learning
- Google Forms Tutorial
- Student Daily Check-In Using Google Forms
- Educating the Whole Child: Tips for Teachers During Distance Learning
Need more ideas on how to support student behavior remotely? Check out the Remote Behavior Supports Coffee Chat to see specific examples from two Board Certified Behavior Analysts, Naomi Parikh and Justine Katzenbach! Or feel free to reach out to us with any questions!
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