Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is an evidence-based, person-centred approach designed to improve the quality of life for individuals by understanding and addressing the factors that influence their behaviour. PBS focuses on teaching and reinforcing positive behaviours while minimizing the occurrence of challenging behaviours.
Key principles of PBS include:
1. Person-Centred: It emphasizes individual preferences and needs, ensuring that interventions are tailored to the unique circumstances of each person.
2. Holistic Approach: It addresses the individual’s environment, routines, social contexts, and relationships, recognizing that these can all impact behaviour.
3. Proactive Strategies: PBS aims to prevent problem behaviours by altering environments or teaching alternative behaviours.
4. Functional Assessment: Understanding the underlying reasons or functions of a behaviour is crucial. This involves identifying what the behaviour achieves for the individual (e.g., attention, escape, access to items, sensory input).
5. Skill Building: PBS encourages the development of new, adaptive behaviours to replace challenging ones.
6. Focus on Outcomes: The goal is to enhance the person’s quality of life, promote social inclusion, and ensure participation in meaningful activities.
In Positive Behaviour Support (PBS), behaviour is seen as a form of communication, especially in individuals who may have limited verbal communication skills. By addressing the function of the behaviour, PBS aims to reduce the need for challenging behaviours by teaching more effective and appropriate ways of communication.
FERBS
FERBS stands for Functionally Equivalent Replacement Behaviours. These are alternative behaviours that serve the same purpose or fulfill the same function as the challenging or problematic behaviour.
The goal of FERBS is to teach individuals new, more appropriate ways of achieving the same outcome that their challenging behaviour previously provided. The process involves:
1. Identifying the Function of the Behaviour: Understanding why the person engages in the challenging behaviour. For example, they might act out to get attention, avoid a task, or gain access to something.
2. Developing a FERB: Once the function is identified, a FERB is taught. The FERB should:
- Be socially acceptable.
- Be more effective than the challenging behaviour.
- Be easy to implement and reinforce.
For instance, if a child engages in disruptive behaviour to gain attention from a teacher, a FERB might be teaching the child to raise their hand or use a communication card to ask for attention instead.
3. Reinforcing the FERB: The FERB must be consistently reinforced in the same way the challenging behaviour might have been. Reinforcement helps the individual learn that the new behaviour is just as effective (or more so) than the old one.
How PBS and FERBS Work Together
In the context of PBS, FERBS play an integral role. PBS involves a comprehensive assessment to identify the function of behaviour (the “why”), and based on this, FERBS are developed as a key part of the intervention strategy.
- Functional Assessment and FERB: As part of PBS, behaviour analysts or practitioners conduct a functional behaviour assessment (FBA) to determine the function of a challenging behaviour. Based on this, FERBS are introduced as replacement behaviours that serve the same purpose but in a more adaptive manner.
- Reinforcing Positive Behaviours: Both PBS and FERBs emphasize the importance of reinforcing the desired behaviour. As the individual practices the FERB, it is positively reinforced, which increases the likelihood that the new behaviour will be repeated in the future.
- Teaching and Generalization: The process of teaching FERBs is part of the PBS plan. It involves not just teaching a new skill but also ensuring that the person can generalize it across different settings and situations.
- Example: A new student at school is paired with a peer mentor who shows them around, explains the school’s expectations, and offers support.
- Why it works: Peer mentoring fosters a sense of belonging and allows students to model positive behaviours for each other.
Example in Practice
Situation:
A child with autism frequently throws objects when they want to avoid a difficult task (e.g., math homework).
PBS Approach:
The child’s behaviour is assessed to understand that throwing objects serves to escape from the task.
The PBS plan might involve:
1. Changing the task demands (breaking them into smaller steps).
2. Teaching the child to use a break card to signal when they need a pause.
3. Reinforcing the child for using the break card appropriately.
FERB:
The FERB would be the use of the break card or another more functional way to communicate a need to stop or take a break, rather than throwing objects.
By focusing on FERBS, PBS provides a structured, supportive framework to help individuals develop new, more functional ways of interacting with their environment.
Summary
- Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is a comprehensive framework that seeks to improve quality of life and address challenging behaviours by focusing on proactive, positive interventions.
- FERBS are replacement behaviours that serve the same function as a challenging behaviour but are more socially acceptable and effective.
Together, these approaches work to reduce challenging behaviours and promote skill development by addressing both the function of the behaviour and the teaching of more adaptive alternatives.
Transform Life is a NDIS registered organisation that provide support for your autistic child, as well as support to you as a parent to best navigate the challenges your child and family face on a daily basis.
Book your consult with an experienced Therapist at Transform Life to explore how OT, PBS and Speech Therapy can support you and your family.
