Background Information and Setting
Ahmed is a five year old boy who is smart and friendly. He is from Saudi Arabia and lives with his parents in United States. He has lived in United States ever since he was three and a half years old. Ahmed speaks both English and Arabic very without any difficulty. He has an eight months brother who he loves so much and likes to talk a lot about him. Ahmed goes to school at kid’s kount daycare in Shippensburg. He loves school and shows a lot of interest and desire to learn. Due to this he becomes very excited when he wakes up in the morning to go to school. His favorite hobbies are building cars and trucks with LEGOS. Other hobbies that he enjoys are drawing, making shapes, and characters with clay, building castles and train tracks.
However, Ahmed difficulties in memorizing things like songs or even a part of a song, unlike children at his age. Due to this he has to spend up to seven hours in the daycare form Monday to Thursday. He had been the only child until he was four years old. Ahmed is also a bit selfish and does not like to share. Consequently he is used to gaining attention from his parents and may go to an extent of becoming angry when they are busy. Due to this he interrupts his mother while she is trying to talk to his father and this mostly occurs during lunch and dinner time. Ahmed calls his mothers name so many times when wanting to say anything and doesn’t stop even if she ignores him. Another challenging behavior of Ahmed is that he always wants to be a leader without any effort.
The challenging behavior of Ahmed has been identified as the aggressive desire to gain attention especially from his mother. Therefore, the setting from which Ahmed will be observed is home and the mother has been selected as the most appropriate person to observe and document the behaviors of Ahmed. His behavior will mostly be noted during two specific meal times that is lunch and dinner times. While going through the documented observations, it’s observed that Ahmed Habit of shouting and calling his mothers name is a little bit increased at dinner time compared to lunch time. The setting in which the data collection and documentation took place was home. It’s obvious that this setting comprises of Ahmed, his parents and a younger brother who is eight months old. The setting also comprises of the essentials that would be found in any modernized house and Ahmed interacts with people that he is very close with.
Summary of Data Collection
Data collections system is a very important component in diagnosing the challenging behavior of a student (Troutman & Alberto, 2012). The most appropriate mode of data collection for the target behavior of the student is Observation. Ahmed needs to be observed for a structured period of time and during certain event. He also needs to be observed closely and the best person for the task would be the mother, immediate documentation after every period of observations is very important so as to increase the reliability of the business. The number of occurrence may be tallied in table. Documentation should be done at several occasions within several days .however, the observation as an approach to data collection is prone to errors. The reliability of data collection was compromised because different meal times had different events since the father might not have been around during certain times and the rate at which Ahmed was calling his mother might have been inaccurate.
Interview is another significant component of data collection frame work (Troutman & Alberto, 2012). The mother need to be interviewed to order to try and identify any other behavior associated with the target behavior. Consequently, it’s very important for the observer to document any other factor that triggers the target behavior of Ahmed. The mother should also not factors or events that lead to reduced attempt of seeking attention for effective implementation of diagnostic measures.
After identifying the target behavior of Ahmed to be interrupting his mother while she is talking to his father especially during lunch and dinner time by calling out her mothers name several times when wanting to say something and continues to call even when she ignores, data was collected for three consecutive days during specific meal times that is lunch and supper. The setting in which data collection took place was at home at data was to be collected during meal times. Observations were made for a period of twenty five minutes after which documentations was done. The number of occurrence was tallied for all the days of data collection. It’s important for the mother to note down some of the alleviating events so data analysis
Hypothesis
After examining the already collected data, it’s clear that the rate at which Ahmed rate of calling his mother when taking to his father was more during dinner time compared to lunch time. However data was to be collected at meal times since that was the period during when Ahmed call her mother name most compared to other periods of the day. A logical hypothesis for Ahmed’s behavior would be as follows. Since, Ahmed has the behavior of wanting to be a leader without much effort he is prone to behave is a way that he would gain all the attention. During dinner and supper, the whole family sits together and whenever Ahmed wants to say anything he will behave in a manner that would draw every body’s attention in the house. Secondly, presence of his younger brother in the family might have made his parent draw attention from Ahmed to his younger brother. Since he was an attention seeker, he would do anything whenever his family gathers together so as to acquire all the attention he would need.
Objectives for Ahmed
Target behavior: Ahmed interrupts his mother while she is talking to his father especially during lunch and dinner time by saying “Mom” many times when wanting to say anything, and continue to call her even if she ignores him.
Goal: Ahmed will wait until his mother is finished talking, and then he can talk to her.
Three behavioral objectives to increase appropriate behavior
Objective one: inline with the self monitoring process and the attempt of Ahmed to reduce problem behavior, he will monitor the number of times interrupt his mother while talking to is father and the number of times he calls out his mothers name when wanting o say something even if he is ignored. This will be done using a self monitoring chart where Ahmed will be with tallies of the observer and the ends of twenty five minute period of the meal
Objective two: given a chart, Ahmed will employ self monitoring skills to track the number of times he interrupts his mother even when she ignore him during the twenty five minutes period of meal times by making tallies over five systematic minute meal period
Objective three: Given the chart, Ahmed will use self monitoring skills to monitor the number of times he waits for his mother to talk to his father before he can talk by making tallies over 5 minute systematic meal periods
Three behavioral objectives to decrease inappropriate or problem behavior
Objective one: Ahmed will use the self monitoring to minimize the rate of calling interrupting her mother when wanting to say something to 0.4 every five minute for two out of the two consecutive meal periods
Objective two: with the help of self monitoring, Ahmed will minimize the rate of interrupting his parent’s conversation to 0.2 for two out of the two systematic meal periods
Objective three: with the help of self monitoring, Ahmed will increase the number of times he waits for his mother to talk to his father before starting to talk during the twenty five minutes meal time at any given moment over the period of three days.
Behavior Change Program
The target behavior was eliminating Ahmed’s behavior of interrupting his mother. In order to execute the change process, self monitoring approach is employed. This framework requires the involved individuals to keep track of the number of times the target behavior occurs thereby increasing his/her awareness of the behavior (Troutman & Alberto, 2012). Eventually this leads to reduced problem behavior and increased desired behavior. Ahmed will need to keep track of the number of times he interrupts his mother and the number of times he waits for his mother to talk then he can start talking. This serves as a natural boost for Ahmed when he sees that he is improving of the desired behavior.
For effective self monitoring, it’s important for the observer to train him before executing the intervention. Before the first implementation session, Ahmed needs to be instructed on how keep track of the events during meal time. It will also be very helpful when he is provided with a chart that contains picture of cars, trucks, trains and castles to increase his engagement in the process. The observer needs to ensure that Ahmed understands the desired behavior and tally every moment he is waiting for his mother to finish talking to his father. The observer will also proceed to model witting the tally on paper and also let Ahmed understand that he is being monitored and should not try to cheat his results.
Consequently, it’s important to find a reign forcer for Ahmed during meal times as a part of self monitoring process. The observer may give Ahmed the chance of choosing a rein forcer for himself during the end of every 25 minute observation as part of the self monitoring process. The observer may then proceed to employ a deferential approach to the self monitoring process. This is whereby he provides Ahmed with a rein forcer only if he gets within 2 tally marks of the observer’s data at the end of the observation period. Ahmed at the observer will compare data at the end of the 25 minutes. If Ahmed is within 2 tally marks as required by the observer, he will be given a chance to choose his desired rein forcer. However if he fail, the observer will give him a rein forcer and Ahmed will be need to attempt the self monitoring process of the next period
At the begging of lunch and dinner period, Ahmed needs to be reminded to record the data and this is best done with the help of non verbal cue. The observer needs to give Ahmed non verbal prompts through the twenty five minutes of observation and also be ready to assist hi m at any given point during the period of the self monitoring process. The non verbal prompts should be given thought the recording period so facilitate his systematic self monitoring process. The observer needs to use employ differential reinforcement through the three sessions and remind Ahmed on the objectives of the day. He should also be consistently being reminded of his task. At the end of each session the observer needs to discuss the outcomes with Ahmed and encourage him whenever he attains a given goal at all sessions.
The observer can also used the train and hope method in order to generalize behavior in various settings. The observer and the mother need to provide Ahmed with praise whenever he behaves desired. After the structured number of sessions, Ahmed is likely to be intrinsically motivated and continuously avoid interrupting his mother so as to be praises. Consequently this is likely to proceed to other individuals apart from his mother including his fellow students.
References
Troutman, A. C. & Alberto, P. A. (2013). Applied Behavior Analysis For Teachers (9th Edition).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
