Behavior is the earliest form of communication. While some students will develop verbal language, others will continue to communicate non-verbally using their behavior. This training will focus on students with moderate-severe intellectual disabilities who use behavior as communication and teach those who work with these students how to recognize, respond to, and shape more appropriate and comprehensible forms of communication. Attendees will learn how to utilize the Form and Function matrix to identify appropriate replacement behaviors for maladaptive behaviors, which are already within their repertoire. This will serve as a guideline for selecting replacement behaviors during the development of appropriate behavior intervention plans. Additional topics will include identifying the student’s level of symbolism and implementing developmentally appropriate supports.
Presenter: Margot Johnson, M.A., BCBA, PENT Administrator
Time: On-Demand Webinar: 2.5 hours
Intended Audience: Individuals working with students with moderate-severe disabilities who primarily use non-verbal language and/or present with challenging behavior. This includes speech-language pathologists, special education teachers, school psychologists, paraeducators, and parents.
Outcomes:
1. Increase awareness of the many forms of communication.
2. Utilize the Form and Function matrix through case studies to identify presymbolic vs. symbolic communication.
3. Understand how to identify functionally equivalent replacement behaviors (FERBs) based on current communication repertoire.
4. Fill out a Form and Function matrix to clarify a current student’s forms and functions of communication and identify behaviors to target for increase to expand a student’s communicative repertoire.
Handouts: The training slides and handouts can be downloaded using the link below. Please save them onto your devices to view the materials during the webinar.
Access the Zoom webinar: Click the link below, register using your school email, and enter the passcode:
- B-2 Beh-Com Webinar
- Access Passcode: 23-24dcsc