A Talk on Behavior Therapy

Behavior Therapy

What is Behavior Therapy?

Behavior therapy is:

To change maladaptive behavior: e.g. – Aggression (to self/to others), Poor sitting tolerance etc.

To maximize social functioning: e.g. – to enhance constructive social interaction, reduce impulsivity etc.

To Increase self independence: e.g. – Managing one’s daily chores like bathing, feeding, commuting to short distances etc.

Basic premise –

• Every behavior has a cause, which could be a physical condition like (sensitivity to sound/touch) or a learned behavior, for e.g. to seek attention, self stimulation etc.
• Work on the cause/problem behavior and get the effect, for e.g. making unnecessary sounds in the middle of a class could be to get attention or to escape work.
• Behavior (positive or negative) is learned, either directly or indirectly.

Steps in Behavior Therapy -

• Identify the problem behavior for e.g. hand biting, echolalia
• Observe the problem behavior in different settings like school, home, with other kids, with elders, in a garden, with the helping staff.
• Find out the cause for e.g. physical condition or environmental condition
• Develop a strategy for e.g. take the behavior that is most urgent to be addressed and is hampering the child’s development.
• Implement the strategy for e.g. across various settings like in school, therapy centres etc.
• Check the success for e.g. how much has the child benefited from the strategy? Has the behavior under question reduced/increased or is the same?

Some of the Possible Targets in Behavior Therapy:

• Sitting tolerance
• Attention seeking behavior
• Impulsivity

Problems in Behavior Therapy

• Lack of awareness – Many people know about Occupational Therapy/Speech Therapy/Remedial Education but behavior therapy is very unpopular in India. There is a suspicion as to how and does it really work?
• Unsuccessful Generalization of therapy rules – large families/lack of orientation to the problem/denial in parents/defensiveness for the problem behavior/ words are not followed by actions
• Lack of institutions/courses in India for BMT or Applied Behavior Analysis.
• Parents are not willing to invest in Behavior therapy and doubt the rationale behind the therapy.

Strategies:

There are many strategies that can be implemented to rectify a problem behavior in children but due to shortage of time, I will be discussing only 2-3 amongst other techniques that can be adopted.

• Operant/instrumental conditioning
• Token economies – One can use tokens of choice as reinforcement and tokens can be exchanged for a reward upon exhibiting the desired behavior.
• Prompts for e.g. Modeling – modeling the desired response for the student. This type of prompt is best suited for individuals who learn through imitation and can attend to a model.

 Aditi Chaudhary