Positive Behavior Support for People with Developmental Disabilities

Book excerpt: This book, prepared in response to a request from the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, reviews the published literature on positive behavior interventions and uses this database to provide four main content areas for research. Positive behavior support (PBS) is defined as an approach for dealing with problem behavior that focuses on the remediation of deficient contexts (such as environmental conditions and/or behavioral repertoires) that by functional assessment are documented to be the source of the problem. The research published on PBS between 1985 and 1996 (n=107 articles) was reviewed with respect to four categories of variables: demographics, assessment practices, intervention strategies, and outcomes. Results indicated that: (1) PBS is widely applicable to people with serious problem behavior; (2) the field is growing rapidly overall, but especially in the use of assessment and in interventions that focus on correcting environmental deficiencies; (3) using stringent criteria of success, PBS is effective in reducing problem behavior in one-half to two-thirds of cases; (4) success rates nearly double when intervention is based on a prior functional assessment; and (5) consumer needs that emphasize comprehensive lifestyle support, long-term change, practicality and relevance, and direct support for consumers themselves are inadequately addressed by the research base. Recommendations are made for bridging the research-to-practice gap. (Contains more than 300 references.) (Author/CR)