PREVENTION OF PROBLEM BEHAVIOR BY TEACHING FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION AND SELF-CONTROL SKILLS TO PRESCHOOLERS

• Published in: Journal of applied behavior analysis Vol. 46; no. 2; pp. 355 - 368
• Main Authors: Luczynski, Kevin C., Hanley, Gregory P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington, IN Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2013; Wiley Periodicals, Inc; Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Subjects: Academic Failure; At Risk Students; Behavior disorders; Behavior Modification; Behavior Problems; Behavior Therapy; Biological and medical sciences; Child care; Child Health; Child, Preschool; Children & youth; Classrooms; Communication; Communication Skills; Control Groups; Curricula; Daily Living Skills; delay tolerance; early child care; Experimental Groups; Families & family life; Female; functional communication; Help Seeking; Humans; Kindergarten; maintenance; Male; mands; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; Participant Satisfaction; Preschool Children; preschool life skills; Preschool Teachers; Prevention; problem behavior; Program Effectiveness; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Questionnaires; Reinforcement; Self Control; Self Management; Social Behavior; Social Behavior Disorders - prevention & control; Social Behavior Disorders - psychology; Social Behavior Disorders - therapy; Social Control, Informal; Social skills; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Teenagers; Treatments; Human; Preschool age; mands; Tolerance; self-control; Time lag; Behavioral disorder; social skills; Prevention; Skill; Treatment; Language; preschool life skills; problem behavior; delay tolerance; Verbal behavior; Self control; Social aptitude; early child care; Functional communication; Child; maintenance; Public health; prevention; functional communication
• ISSN: 0021-8855; 1938-3703; 1938-3703
• DOI: 10.1002/jaba.44

We evaluated the effects of the preschool life skills program (PLS; Hanley, Heal, Tiger, & Ingvarsson, 2007) on the acquisition and maintenance of functional communication and self‐control skills, as well as its effect on problem behavior, of small groups of preschoolers at risk for school failure. Six children were taught to request teacher attention, teacher assistance, and preferred materials, and to tolerate delays to and denial of those events during child‐led, small‐group activities. Teaching strategies included instruction, modeling, roleplay, and differential reinforcement. Six additional children randomly assigned to similarly sized control groups participated in small‐group activities but did not experience the PLS program. Within‐subject and between‐groups designs showed that the PLS teaching procedures were functionally related to the improvements and maintenance of the skills and prevention of problem behavior. Stakeholder responses on a social acceptability questionnaire indicated that they were satisfied with the form of the targeted social skills, the improvements in the children's performance, and the teaching strategies.