Models of Instruction for Children with Severe Behavior Disorders - Report Example

Describe the Theoretical and Research Base of Two Prevalent Methods or Models of Instruction for Children with Severe Behavior Disorders Introduction This discussion aims at describing the various behavioral rectification methods that can be practiced when dealing with children having issues of severe behavior disorder. From a general point of view, these types of behavioral issues are witnessed in majority of the children during their early life phases. In correspondence with the modern approaches taken to combat these challenges, this discussion will concentrate on studying two prevalent models that can be implicated in intervention programs to guide children with behavioral disorders, viz., the “Behavioral interventions method” and the “Cognitive behavioral strategies”. Accordingly, emphasis will be laid on assessing the application of the chosen intervention models along with specific examples to illustrate their implication strengths. These models of effective instructing techniques are used as corrective measures for children suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Discussion Application of Behavioral Intervention Method Behavioral interventions mainly aim towards assisting students in developing behavioral traits that prove to be favorable for their own learning process and to the other children as well. Proper structured classrooms contribute towards prevention of multiple disciplinary issues along with offering a suitable situation favorable for learning. This is a prolonged process as majority of the teacher’s time is spend by focusing and interacting with students, suffering from severe behavioral disorder syndrome who finds it difficult to remain focused on the lesson being taught. Behavioral disorder is a serious issue and should be considered as an opportunity for teaching in an effective and efficient manner with an extra degree of commitment (ED.gov, 2008). Multiple behavioral intervention techniques are used for helping children with disorders in controlling their behavior, which is further necessary for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the instructing process. One of such techniques is the verbal reinforcement technique (ED.gov, 2008). In this technique, children witnessing behavioral order are praised at every stage of activities, which are assigned to them. Through this appreciation process, efforts are made for encouraging and motivating them. Moreover, a control in the type and frequency of praising also plays a vital role in pushing children’s development. Repeating similar types of praising statements are not appreciated with due consideration to the aspect that if the children get the same praising repeatedly, the praise may lose its worth. In addition, focus of the teachers should be more towards praising strategies rather than punishment methods. Accordingly, positive reinforcement techniques should be preferred over negative reinforcement techniques as it helps in changing the attitudes and shaping the children’s behavior on long-term basis rather than temporarily bringing a change in their behavior. As such, a process brings no change in their attitudes; it is likely that the intervention program might result in a substantial increase in the frequency and intensity of improper behavior deciphered by the children. Teachers also need to provide encouragement and assistance to the children in order to prevent them from getting frustrated with their assignments (Grohol, 2008). Apart from verbal reinforcement techniques, a variety of other behavior disorder corrective techniques can be used for instructing children suffering with ADHD syndrome. These techniques include removing all the items causing annoyance to the children, with the intension of preventing attention distraction amid them (Young & Amarasinghe, 2010). Many a times children, who fail to stay focused, perform inappropriate activities during their class hours with the intension of gaining attention of teachers and other classmates, ultimately creating chaos within the classroom environment (Sprinkle, 2004). The common technique of discouragement for these practices used by teachers is simple ignorance, which largely tends to be effective when instructing the children having behavioral disorders. Teachers also use techniques like proximity control in which, they move their physical presence to the location of the sitting or standing child, which helps in drawing the child’s attention to what the teacher is saying and thus, preventing the child’s focus from being distorted (Grohol, 2008). Example Behavioral Intervention Method, as previously stated, is a long-term process. It includes a wide variety of be behavioral intervention strategies, which are experimented on children diagnosed with ADHD syndrome in order to make them let go off their existing negative mind set and bring a change to their thinking pattern; thus, making an indirect attempt in bringing about behavioral development amid their personality traits. During the rectification sessions, children are very often asked to form alternate solutions to a common problem, the intension being to generalize their skills and provide structured opportunities to them for utilizing their social skills. Another instance that can be illustrated in this context is making children learn how to resolve conflicts through verbal talking to each other in a supervised setup. The primary step of this behavior rectification program includes teaching ‘receptive language skills’, ‘nonverbal and verbal imitations’ and the foundations of appropriate cooperation through one-to-one communication. The second includes lessons on communicative language and interactive play with peers (Grohol, 2008). Application of Cognitive Behavioral Strategies Cognitive Behavioral Strategy (CBS) is a blend of two different styles of behavior disorder rectification strategies, viz. the Cognitive Strategy (CS) and the Behavior Strategy (BS). Cognitive Strategy (CS) is a dynamically framed and usually time-effective strategic approach towards rectification of expressive and behavioral issues. Similarly, the Behavior Strategy (BS) uses traditional and operant training techniques for handling a variety of problematical behaviors deciphered by children with special needs (RCPSYCH, n.d.). CBS describes that recovery of a child with behavioral problems is a time-consuming process, as they need to learn techniques for managing the problems in a positive way through a multidimensional scientific instruction method (NCBI, 2009). Through this process, he/she can get a better understanding of the areas where they need to improve their behavior. Cognitive strategies include multiple techniques like ‘Socratic questioning’, ‘cognitive restructuring’, ‘questioning the evidence’, ‘examining options and alternatives’, ‘labeling of distortions’, ‘collaborative empiricism’, ‘decatastrophizing’, ‘listing advantages and disadvantages’, ‘reattribution’, ‘turning adversity to advantage’, ‘collaborative set’ and ‘cognitive rehearsal’. Likewise, behavior strategy also acts on the basis of a multidimensional structure including the principles of ‘assertiveness training’, ‘behavioral rehearsal’, ‘graded task assignments’, ‘bibliotherapy’, ‘relaxation and meditation’, ‘overbreathing’, ‘social skills training’, ‘shame attacking’ and ‘time-out’. Cognitive behavioral strategy starts with understanding of a child’s thinking process about his/her viewing things and experiences as those take place in his/her life. During this process, the children are likely to be influenced by varying thoughts, descriptions, values and attitudes, which can be termed as cognitive processes and its impacts can be identified based on the way they behave and deal with emotional troubles. The following step in this process includes searching for any sort of change that can be brought to the negative patterns of behavior raising difficulties for children towards their learning process (National Institutes of Health, 2008). Cognitive behavioral rectification program are short duration programs, which happen in form of sessions. In these sessions, the teachers or the therapists try to understand the psychological sufferings being experienced by a child and make him to explore his/her problems after which, corrective methods can be developed and framed to tackle with the issues. This program propagates that it is actually the thoughts of a child, which obstruct him/her from viewing and accepting things, or situations which he/she does not believe to be right or difficult to be mould accordingly. The ultimate aim is therefore to help that child in getting lose of such thoughts and making his thinking process wider and more rationale. If the child continues to hold on to such thought process, it will be hard for the teachers to rectify such a child’s behavior through cognitive behavioral strategies (Duric, Assmus, Gundersen & Elgen, 2012). Example A common case of behavioral disorder, which can be taken into notice in this discussion, reflects that many a time children, suffering from ADHD, decipher signs of being depressed (CHADD, n.d.). They start having problems in facing their everyday activities like openly participating in some events or mixing up with other children. They start holding on to a strong negative thought that they are not fit to face the world or whatever they do will end up being a failure and sometimes even with an inferiority complex of not getting attention from others. With this sort of thought process, they start isolating themselves from the outside world or end up doing some foolish activities or practicing bad habits. This further inhibits their confidence level to interact with others and therefore, decipher behavioral disorder symptoms. Ultimately, these inhibitions results in a downward spiral in the personality traits of the children having behavioral disorders (Fowler, 2004). In cognitive behavioral rectification program, such children are made to attend sessions in groups or sometimes individually, where focus is mainly given in making them understand how their negative thought processes are causing problems in their learning process and even what others think about them. Through these understanding processes, an effort is made to convert their mental state of thoughts, which eventually results in bringing change in their behavior by boosting their level of confidence (Duric, Assmus, Gundersen & Elgen, 2012). Conclusion Children having ADHD syndrome very often behave immaturely. They also face complexities in learning the various ways to manage their rashness and hyperactivity. They also witness problems making friendships with other children when made to operate in a group as they lack adequate ability in forecasting the results of their actions. Both of these techniques can be further classified into sub techniques, which can be implicated for guiding children in making them learn how to control their behavior. Behavioral problems mostly affect the learning process of the children as they fail to remain focused for long. Therefore, focus needs to be provided to deal with the deviant behavior of the children in order to create an appropriate learning environment and instruct them towards betterment. As revealed through the study, it is with the same intention that corrective techniques like behavioral interventions method and cognitive behavioral strategies have been playing a vital role in helping these sorts of behaviorally challenged children in changing their mindsets and building confidence within them. References CHADD. (n.d.). Psychosocial Treatment for Children and Adolescents. Retrieved from http://www.chadd.org/Understanding-ADHD/Parents-Caregivers-of-Children-with-ADHD/Evaluation-and-Treatment/Psychosocial-Treatment-for-Children-and-Adolescent.aspx Duric, N. S., Assmus, J., Gundersen, D. & Elgen, I. B. (2012). Neurofeedback for the treatment of children and adolescents with ADHD: a randomized and controlled clinical trial using parental reports. BMC Psychiatry 12:107, pp. 1-8. ED.gov. (2008). Teaching Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Instructional Strategies and Practice. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/adhd/adhd-teaching_pg4.html Fowler, M. (2004). Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Briefing Paper, pp. 1-24. Grohol, J. M. (2008). ADHD Behavioral Interventions for the Home. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/adhd-behavioral-interventions-for-the-home/0001754 National Institutes of Health. (2008). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder/adhd_booklet_cl508.pdf NCBI. (2009). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Diagnosis and Management of ADHD in Children, Young People and Adults. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53656/ RCPSYCH. (n.d.). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Retrieved from http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/treatmentswellbeing/cbt.aspx Sprinkle, N. (2004). 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