Lesson 1: What is Positive Behavior Support & Building Rapport

In this section you will discuss positive behavior support, building rapport, and understanding behaviors.

What is Positive Behavior Support?  

Positive Behavior Support (PBS) is a set of research-based strategies used to increase a person’s quality of life and decrease problem behavior by teaching new skills and making changes in a person’s environment. This concept is meant to improve socially appropriate behaviors and skills, while further fostering independence for the person supported. When used consistently and correctly, PBS has been shown to decrease targeted unwanted behaviors by 80-90%.  

PBS support does not place blame on the person but instead focuses on how the behavior can be changed or modified to increase successful outcomes. PBS is not punitive or harmful; it focuses on improving concrete, specific behavior targets through positive reinforcement. PBS strategies also provide choices and participation, so the person has more control over their support. Plans and strategies should be discussed with the person supported so it is individualized, and they are engaged.  

Historically, behavioral plans were specifically made to focus on one goal or area of life while often disregarding the possible impact on other areas of a person’s life. For example, if a student was disrupting class, a plan was made with goals to lower the occurrence of class interruptions. This single intervention only focused on one specific behavior without addressing adjacent social and behavioral skills which would have a broader impact. Now, utilizing valued outcomes of PBS, a plan would be created to enhance a student’s social skills and awareness of social queues with strategies to provide group learning opportunities and encouragement of extracurricular activities. Instead of solely focusing on one behavior, the approach would consider other areas of life this behavior could positively or negatively affect. As a result, the student would have improved classroom behavior, opportunity to socialize with classmates, have a more enriched social life in and out of school, and likely have a positive impact on the student’s quality of life.   

Similarly in a work setting, if a person was ignoring coworkers and refusing to work together as a team, a plan would be created to target this lack of collaboration. The Job Coach or employer would set clear expectations on collaboration, shared goals, respectful and effective communication, learning from or teaching coworkers, and helping others with their tasks. Intervention strategies could include providing positive praise during achievements or collaborative interactions and fostering teamwork during task completion. Specifically, when the person did not ignore coworkers or refuse to work with others, they would receive positive praise from other coworkers, supervisor, or job coach. They could also be promoted to a higher position or given more responsibilities. The plan would consider long-term goals as well as enhancing social opportunities outside of work including attending meet-up groups, social skills classes, joining a team or participating in group activities. This plan would encourage collaboration outside of work that would transfer into a work environment. Results of this plan would build professional relationships, cooperation within the workplace, a more positive work culture, as well as a more well-rounded social life outside of work. 

Build Rapport and Understand Behaviors: 

For PBS strategies to be impactful, we must build rapport with the person supported. It would be difficult, and unreasonable, to provide specific suggestions for a person’s plan without knowing their personality and goals for a good life. Small steps to build rapport include showing positivity, engaging in work appropriate small talk, asking questions and actively listening, smiling and being approachable, finding common interests, sharing about professional experiences, following-up and being accountable. Statistics show a person with a disability will have as many as multiple thousand support staff in their lifetime. There are many contributing factors to this and as you can imagine, this may cause a person to be hesitant or afraid to be open to someone new or work with others. Going back to the previous example of PBS in the workplace, first consider what this person’s behavior (refusal to work as a team) could be communicating or a result of (fear).   

This leads me to point out one of the most important components of PBS which is the understanding and agreement that behavior is communication. Behaviors fulfill a need. Everyone communicates through behavior from as young as infancy when a baby cries to communicate their need for food or a diaper change. Whether aware of it or not, adults do this as well. Take a moment and honestly think of how you have communicated through “behaviors” in your professional or personal lives…  

We may be able to think of a few examples where our behaviors solicited a positive outcome we were hoping for. For example, you go above and beyond by taking WPS 102 and receive positive praise from your supervisor and class trainers, and you are respected as an expert in this field. 

You will likely see this with people you support, too. Both positive and negative occurrences. Perhaps the person you support has gotten out of washing dishes at home if they sit on the ground and kick their legs. When the person’s parent or staff removes dishes from their chores list, this reinforces that their behavior achieved the desired outcome. So, if they want to avoid stocking shelves in the workplace, why not sit on the ground and kick their legs – the task should then be removed, right?! Now we see why congruent support at home and the workplace is key to having effective supports. Once we have built rapport with the person and their family or staff, we have more insight into how to mirror effective supports from home to work or improve non-effective, enabling supports.  

Additionally, if a person offers to carry out a customer’s groceries and they receive a positive compliment from the customer, this may achieve their desire for recognition and reinforce them to continue offering help.