Behavior Change Project

By: Renee Carstensen

Renee Carstensen
Behavior Change Project
Behavior Change Project

The Child and ABC Functional Assessment

The child I chose is a little boy who is four years old. Throughout this
project his name is Mater. The behavior is that Mater says I want that when
he wants to have something or needs help completing a task. I think that the
antecedents are that his caregivers sometimes model good manners, he
never learned what please means, he never learned how to ask for
something nicely, he doesnt go to preschool where they teach the children
about manners. The good and bad consequences that Mater has when he
doesnt say please is that he gets what he asks for even when he doesnt say
please and he knows he can get what he wants without saying please. Mater
is behind most of his peers. He hasnt learned that manners get you farther
in life.

SMART Goals
I actually came up with two SMART goals for Mater. The first one is just
based on what I knew from what his primary caregiver told me, and the
second one is based on what I observed. The first goal is: Mater will say
please 2 out of 5 times when he needs help. The second one, after
observations, is: Mater will say please, when prompted, 3 out of 5 times
when he needs help with a task.

Documentation
The two types of documentation that I used were; parent survey and a
time sampling. I asked Maters primary care giver for some of the behaviors
that she would like for Mater to change. She wrote down three different

Renee Carstensen
Behavior Change Project
Behavior Change Project

behaviors on a Lightning McQueen behavior

chart that I found on the internet. She wrote
saying please, picking up, and potty
training. The one that I decided to work on
with Mater is saying please. I started
recording instances when Mater should be saying please, how many times I
prompted him to say please, and how many times he said please.

Sampling of documentation
Time
9:30am
10:05a
m
10:31a
m
10:35a
m
10:38a
m
10:40a
m
10:46a
m

11:03a
m
11:10a
m
11:24a
m

Monday, December 8th 2014

Activity
Said Please?
Changing the channel
X
Picking up Legos
Picking up train set

He told his caregiver to say

please when she is asking
him to do something
Eating a snack

Reminder?
X

Watching Team Umi Zoomi

When he was eating a snack
I asked him for some of his
snack and he said I should
say please
Getting dressed

XX

Getting shoes on

Needed help getting in car

seat

Strategy/Plan

The baseline is that Mater needs constant reminders to say please when
he wants something or needs help with something. I plan to change that

Renee Carstensen
Behavior Change Project
Behavior Change Project

behavior so that Mater only needs to be reminded to say please 2 out of 5

times. The first plan that I had was when Mater didnt need a reminder to say
please that he would get to eat a baby carrot. Since his caregiver gave him a
snack of baby carrots, I had to come up with another reward type thing
that I could use. The next thing I came up with was a high five. This actually
worked the best.

Behavior Changing Process

The first thing that I did was ask Maters primary
caregiver to fill out a little chart that tells me what
she wants to see Mater change with his behaviors.
Next, I went to Maters house and started observing
him. After that I decided to work with Mater on saying please when he needs
help with something or wants to have something. Next I started observing
what specific time that Mater needs the most coaching on saying please. I
focused on the morning, after breakfast but before lunch.
I realized that Mater needs the most reminding after breakfast but
before lunch. Next I started to demonstrate what different times that Mater
needed to say please. Then whenever Mater was in a situation that needed
him to say please I looked at him until he said please. After he said please I
gave a baby carrot. When he had a snack of baby carrots I changed my
reward to a high five. Mater really started to understand that he needed to
say please when he had to remind his caregiver to say please when she
needed him to do something.

Renee Carstensen
Behavior Change Project
Behavior Change Project

Analysis: Achieving Goals

When I first started observing Mater he had to have constant
reminding to say please when he needed help with something or when he
wanted something. After I worked with him he only needed to be reminded
once or twice to say please. My SMART goal was to have Mater say please
when he was prompted 3 out of 5 times. Right at the end of the process I
was going to give Mater another SMART goal. He achieved my goal because
he was reminded ten times to say please and he actually said it eight times.
The benefit of my observation strategy was that it told me the time,
when he was prompted to say please and if he actually said it or not. The
disadvantage of my observation strategy was that in the activity I had to boil

Renee Carstensen
Behavior Change Project
Behavior Change Project

it down to just one activity. If Mater was doing more than one activity at the
same time it might have been difficult to figure out if, or when or to what,
that Mater was saying please to.