2.2 Behaviourism and Applied Behaviour Analysis
The use of behaviourist strategies that tend to be ‘hierarchical’ in nature are successful for most of the students most of the time (Nash, Schlosser, & Scarr, 2016, p. 168). Students whose behaviour is serious, disruptive and ongoing require individualised more intensive strategies of intervention. However, there is an additional layer that needs to be considered and that is the child with trauma. For the child with trauma who demonstrates difficult and challenging behaviour (and not all do), a combination of strategies from a behavioural and psychological perspective will help us to better understand them and provide the support they need, the best we can.
From a behavioural perspective, we start with the theoretical foundation of behaviour theory. From behaviour theory arose applied behaviour analysis (ABA) which is behaviour theory applied to the ‘real world’ context. ABA manifested in schools looks like the processes and procedures of Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) which when then implemented at a whole school level is called School-wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) or as is the case in many Australian schools, Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL). Our focus is on behaviour theory and the behaviourist strategies associated with managing individuals challenging behaviour at the most intense end of the continuum when we think about challenging behaviour from least disruptive (for example constant pencil tapping) to most disruptive (for example aggressive and unsafe). Used together with the knowledge from the psychological perspective (for example attachment and trauma theory), we will have a deeper, more comprehensive approach to understanding and supporting children with trauma. We will now turn our attention to a detailed exploration of positive behaviour support and its theoretical foundation of behaviourism and applied behaviour analysis.
Behaviourism: A snapshot of history
Pavlov (Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, born in Russia in 1849)
Most people have heard of Pavlov and his dogs. Pavlov observed that when a bell was rung at the same time that the dogs were being fed even if there was no food present, the dogs would salivate. As a result of his experimentation, classical conditioning (sometimes called respondent conditioning) was born. Classical conditioning is when an unconditioned stimulus gets a response. Food is the unconditioned stimulus; the bell is the conditioned stimulus.
While this type of conditioning is not as common as operant conditioning (see Skinner), it is most likely demonstrated by children who have experienced trauma. They react with reflexive behaviour. For example, an unconditioned stimulus (threat of harm) and an unconditioned response (fight, flight or freeze) with a neutral stimulus (such as a person, activity or smell). A child may behave disruptively upon smelling perfume because that perfume was worn by the person who physically harmed the child. It appears to be