 | Lauren Miles |
As educators at Shepherds College, we often refer to the skills we teach our students as “tools for their toolbox”. We focus on teaching skills that support student’s appropriate independence now and into their future. As educators, we also need “tools for our toolbox” to successfully support our students. In order to provide the best support for our students it’s important to understand the concept of the Three-Term Contingency of behavior, antecedent – behavior – consequence. Antecedents are the stimuli that come before and evoke behavior, which is the response of an individual, and the consequence is the stimulus change that follows and affects the future outcome of behavior (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). When choosing the best method to support a student, there are essentially two options, being proactive or reactive. The proactive approach looks at the variables that cause the behavior and attempts to set the student up for success by making changes before the behavior occurs. The reactive approach looks at the variables that maintain behavior and attempts to making changes once the behavior occurs. Many times, a combination of approaches is necessary to effectively support behavior, however, proactive approaches are a great place to start. As the behavior specialist at Shepherds College, I seek to provide the faculty with tools to proactively support the behavioral needs of our students. This is accomplished through the Antecedent Strategies Training Series, a bi-weekly training handout explaining an evidence-based approach to proactively supporting behavior.
What are antecedent strategies?
Antecedent strategies are evidence-based, proactive approaches to behavior change. This is the process of changing some aspect of the environment (physical or social) to encourage a desired behavior to occur or reduce the likelihood of an unwanted behavior from occurring (Mayer, Sulzer-Azaroff, & Wallace, 2014).
How do antecedent strategies work?
Antecedent strategies either eliminate, modify, or change the presentation of the antecedent event or the situation that causes the behavior.
Why use antecedent strategies?
References:
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2007). Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Mayer, G. R., Sulzer-Azaroff, B., & Wallace, M. (2014). Behavior analysis for lasting change (3rd ed.). Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY: Sloan Publishing, LLC.
What are antecedent strategies?
Antecedent strategies are evidence-based, proactive approaches to behavior change. This is the process of changing some aspect of the environment (physical or social) to encourage a desired behavior to occur or reduce the likelihood of an unwanted behavior from occurring (Mayer, Sulzer-Azaroff, & Wallace, 2014).
How do antecedent strategies work?
Antecedent strategies either eliminate, modify, or change the presentation of the antecedent event or the situation that causes the behavior.
Why use antecedent strategies?
- Generate a more reinforcing environment (Mayer et al., 2014).
- Easy to implement. Most antecedent strategies are quite simple to implement and take very little effort to successfully utilize.
- Least restrictive, most effective approach (Mayer et al., 2014).
- Wide impact. Many antecedent strategies can be applied to an entire classroom or group setting and support the behavior of each individual.
- They are proactive!
References:
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2007). Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Mayer, G. R., Sulzer-Azaroff, B., & Wallace, M. (2014). Behavior analysis for lasting change (3rd ed.). Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY: Sloan Publishing, LLC.
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