Behavior intervention plan
Sarah’s target behavior
Sarah’s peer interaction is a major target behavior. She does not play with her peers and sometimes shows signs of aggressive behavior by hitting and pushing them. She enjoys and follows adults’ company than her peers, and when she engages the other children, she and snatches dolls from them without waiting her turn. While the other children are playing, she only watches without joining.
Antecedents and consequences of her behavior
Since Sarah enjoys adults’ company than her peers, she always imitates them and will follow them. When the adult leaves, she goes back to playing with dolls, and when she finds that another child has taken the doll, she pushes them and snatches it back. She screams and cries, and when a peer tries to engage with her, she leaves and joins an adult. The best data to use in this case is a watch to record the amount of time she uses to engage with peers, dolls, and adults.
The objective for the intervention
The objective would be to ensure that Sarah has time to engage with her peers and learn patience. When she finds her peers playing, she snatches playing dolls without waiting for her turn and watches while playing. This intervention’s objective is to help her expand her play skills and learn to communicate with her peers when she wants her needs met rather than snatching, hitting, and pushing.
The desired behavior
Sarah should be playing with her peers as opposed to spending time alone or with adults. She should be engaging them without pushing and hitting them, and she should be waiting on her turn to play with dolls rather than snatching the preferred dolls.
The function of the behavior
When Sarah refuses to interact with her peers, she is depriving herself of early learning since socializing and playing contribute to physical, child’s well-being emotionally, cognitive and social development.
Replacement behavior
Sarah should play regularly with her peers to get the same outcome as the rest of the kids. She should interact with them instead of just watching. The teachers should reinforce her to engage more with her peers.
Improvements
In the classrooms, teachers should learn to praise and encourage Sarah whenever they see a positive interaction between her and her peers. Anytime they see her enjoying any of her peer’s company without fighting, they should say words of praise to encourage them.
Skill development
To encourage Sarah to more social and interactive, teachers should promote storytelling skills in classrooms where every child tells a story to the rest of the class. This will enable her to feel freer with her peers.
Behavior intervention plan
The best strategy in this situation would be to set up small groups where the groups are given a specific topic to discuss (Greenberg & Weitzman, 2012). Another would be to set up tasks where two peers collaborate to develop a particular outcome while also setting up dramatic plays that could play a massive role in helping Sarah.
Monitoring Sarah’s progress
Her progress could be monitored by always checking how involved she is in group discussions, dramatic plays, and collaborative tasks. Encouraging her to give out her opinion would be a significant step.
Parent involvement
Parents can be involved in her progress by encouraging her to do homework with other kids and give her time to play with other kids from the neighboring environment.
Reference
Greenberg, J. and Weitzman, E (2012). Strategies to Encourage Peer to Peer Interactions in Early Childcare Settings. Vancouver coastal health.
https://vch.eduhealth.ca/PDFs/FM/FM.240.S77.pdf