Comprehensive Individualized Curriculum and Instructional Design

a game with an adult) for fewer requests for attention during instructional times will help Sophia increase her endurance during instructional times and reduce her need to solicit attention so frequently. Increased positive interactions and relationships with adults (the natural reinforcers) should increase and maintain social skill use. Critical Features of Function-Based Prevention Strategies The next step in developing a function-based support plan is to determine strategies to prevent the problem behavior. These include antecedent strategies that alter the triggers to problem behavior. The literature suggests critical features for prevention strategies that: (a) directly address the features of the antecedent (e.g., task, people, environmental conditions) that trigger the problem behavior (Kern, Choutka, & Sokol, 2002) and (b) directly address the hypothesized function of the problem behavior (Kern, Gallagher, Starosta, Hickman, & George, 2006). Jackson (Figure 2, column A) is engaging in problem behavior when presented with math worksheets (antecedent) to avoid difficult math tasks (function). Prevention strategies could include reducing the difficulty of his assignment by interspersing easier problems with addition and subtraction problems with which he can be more successful. When this is done, his need to engage in problem behavior to escape the task is prevented or reduced. A number of other prevention strategies have been shown to address escape-motivated behaviors such as: (a) to pre-correct desired behavior (Wilde, Koegel, & Koegel, 1992); (b) clarify or simplify instructions to a task or activity (Munk & Repp, 1994); (c) provide student choices in the activity (Kern & Dunlap, 1998); (d) build in frequent breaks from aversive tasks (Carr et al., 2000); (e) shorten tasks (Kern & Dunlap, 1998); (f) intersperse easy tasks with difficult tasks 72