Excerpted from the preface of Positive Behavioral Support: Including People with Difficult Behavior in the Community, edited by Lynn Kern Koegel, Ph.D., Robert L. Koegel, Ph.D., & Glen Dunlap, Ph.D.

Copyright © 1996 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Positive behavioral support refers to the broad enterprise of helping people develop and engage in adaptive, socially desirable behaviors and overcome patterns of destructive and stigmatizing responding. The term typically refers to assistance that is provided for people with developmental, cognitive, or emotional/behavioral disabilities; however, the principles and approaches have much greater generality. Positive behavioral support incorporates a comprehensive set of procedures and support strategies that are selectively employed on the basis of an individual's needs, characteristics, and preferences. These procedures are drawn from the literatures in operant psychology and applied behavior analysis as well as all other disciplines and orientations that offer demonstrable improvements in a person's behavior and manner of living.

Positive behavioral support emerged from the foundation of behavior management in the 1980s and since then has gained converts, credibility, substance, and a growing base of encouraging data (Horner, et al., 1990; Meyer and Evans, 1989). It was developed in an effort to help people with disabilities and serious problem behavior with methods that would be effective in changing undesirable patterns of behavior; respectful of a person's dignity; and successful in promoting a person's capabilities, expanding a person's opportunities, and enhancing the quality of a person's lifestyle. The essential features of positive behavioral support include a grounding in person-centered values; a commitment to outcomes that are meaningful from the perspective of a person's preferred lifestyle; a reliance on individualized, functional assessment; and an appreciation and utilization of multiple interventions and support strategies.

The objectives of a program of support and intervention have a great deal to do with the selection of procedures and the manner with which they are implemented. In the context of positive behavioral support, objectives are geared to improving the way that a person lives, learns, socializes, and participates in community activities. Objectives arise from an appreciation of a person's directions, aspirations, and preferences and of the cultural expectations that are expressed by one's family and social institutions. Objectives always include the establishment of desired repertoires of responding, including those repertoires that are functionally incompatible with occurrences of problem behavior. One of the values that defines positive behavioral support is that interventions should strive to enhance a person's competencies and access to desirable environments, social circumstances, and activities. A value that is equally fundamental is the acknowledgment that all people are to be treated with respect and dignity and that intervention programs must therefore refrain from interactions that are degrading, humiliating, or pain inducing.

About the Book

The content and organization of this book were selected to depict the expanding and maturing character of positive behavioral support. Some chapters focus exclusively on practical considerations in implementing support programs, while others emphasize new developments in applied research. Some chapters present strategies that apply to young children or to elementary or secondary students, and others present approaches that are most relevant for adults. Some chapters focus on systems issues and the overall design of support programs, and others concentrate on the details of language development or individualized assessment and intervention.

The organization of the book into four sections provides another indication of the comprehensive nature of positive behavioral support. We have chosen four dominant contexts in which positive behavioral support must be provided, and we have identified authors whose work exemplifies important developments in these contexts. Although the sections have a good deal of overlap, they represent distinctive and dynamic arenas of behavioral support activity. Each of the four section ends with a discussion that establishes a framework within which to reflect on the contributions of the selected chapters.

The first section includes five chapters that address Family Issues and Family Support. These chapters include a variety of perspectives and data-based demonstrations that involve effective, practical strategies for helping families address the special challenges of living with serious problem behavior. The second section, Education Issues, focuses on support strategies for students who have disabilities and problem behaviors. Included in this section are a discussion of the design of educational systems, a personal description of a mother's efforts to build a desirable educational experience for her son, considerations of training for educational interventionists, and a consideration of legal avenues to appropriate educational supports.

The third section, Social Inclusion, presents three chapters and a discussion that address social relationships, social interactions, and the relevance of social inclusion to the subject of behavioral challenges and behavioral support. Social inclusion has come to be regarded as an integral process and outcome consideration in positive behavioral support, and the chapters that make up this section illustrate important perspectives. The final section, Community Inclusion, includes contributions that have broad implications for support strategies in diverse community environments. Together, the chapters in this section blend conceptual and methodological advances with practical considerations pertaining to lifestyle arrangements, person-centered planning, and comprehensive training projects.

This book is intended for professionals, students, and all individuals who are concerned with the status of positive behavioral support efforts, its expanding foundation of empirical testimony, and its powerful diversity. We hope that all readers will recognize the features that unite these chapters under the theme of positive behavioral support, including the commitment to person-centered values and comprehensive support alternatives that are individualized and oriented to the development of meaningful outcomes. The essence of positive behavioral support is that it is a human endeavor.

This book is the product of many people. We would like to acknowledge al of the individuals who have worked on the RTC-PBS, all of the students and staff who were involved in the production of the national conferences, and Cindy M. Carter and Josh K. Harrower for their editorial assistance with this book. We are also grateful to all of the chapter authors who shared their expertise at our conferences and who have delivered thoughtful contributions to this volume. And, finally, we are grateful to the parents, researchers, service providers, and administrators who have attended the conferences and who have helped to define current socially meaningful issues of positive behavioral support.