Managing the Environment to Modify Behavior

Key Elements

Hartshorne, T., Brown, D., Antaya, C., Schmittel, M. (2016)

Environmental Factors

External factors in the environment can have a profound impact on the student’s behavior.

Over 30 years ago Danish educator, Dr. Lilli Nielsen, taught us that if we change the environment we change the child.

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Environmental Factors (cont.)

• Nielsen introduced strategies for designing and structuring the environment in ways that encourage the child to pay less attention to their own body and give more attention to the immediate world around them.
• By changing features of the environment, the student’s behavior can be modified so that attention will be encouraged and supported while facilitating learning.

Environmental Management

In the Classroom

• Other authors have defined what is meant by the word “environment” in the context of teaching students with deaf-blindness.
• These authors present information that serves as a guide to thinking about and structuring the environment in ways that encourage learning.

For example, Tony Best identified three key elements to consider in any environment:

1. People �
2. Time�
3. Space

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Source: Best, 1998

Environment

Key Elements

Tony Best also refined the idea of space into a sequence of areas, which gradually increase in physical scale:

• Face space
• Body space
• Personal space
• Social space����

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Environmental Zones

Elements

Designing the Environment

• Marleen Janssen placed great emphasis on the idea of consciously designing the environment so that the child can survey it in terms of the three key elements (i.e., people, time, and place). �
• With all three elements, minimizing clutter, emphasizing clarity, consistency, and predictability are of paramount importance.

Source: Janssen, 1993

Importance of “Design”

• Like Nielsen, Janssen uses the word “design” to make it clear that this is a very deliberate and carefully organized activity.
• There is an intense focus on the individual child for whom the environment is being designed and structured.

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Exploring the

Three Key Elements

Now, each key element of environment will be examined in depth on the next few slides.

People

Limited & Available

• The people in the student’s environment should be limited in number, and must be: available, attentive, and responsive.
• Availability typically means being in close physical proximity to the student.
• These adults should not be burdened with extra tasks and should be free to pay careful attention to the student.

People

Familiar & Observant

• The student’s spontaneous expressive behaviors and responses may be minimal or very idiosyncratic in expression, meaning, and intent.
• Therefore, the people in the student’s environment will need to know the student, and be skilled observers.
• Part of knowing the student involves being aware of their interests and knowing what they like and dislike.Then using the student’s motivators to build and sustain a positive relationship.

People

Engaged & Responsive

• These select people will also need to have an acute sense of when to intervene with the student and when to simply observe and monitor the student’s actions.
• Depending on the student and the situation, an intervener may not be actively involved with the student for a significant part of an activity.
• But, an effective intervener will be observing and available throughout the entire activity.

People

Identifiable & Consistent

• Each person will need a way to identify themselves to the student – there is a good deal of information available about using personal markers and name cues.
• Consistency of approach, and consistency of action is essential if the student is to develop trust in the person and be free to attend to what is being taught.

People

Summary of Considerations

• Limited in number
• Available
• Not overburdened with non-student tasks
• Familiar
• Skilled observers
• Responsive
• Engaged
• Identifiable (personal markers/name cues)
• Consistent��

Source: Best, 1998

Time

Sequences

• There are well-established strategies for helping the student with deaf-blindness develop concepts of time.
• These usually involve the creation of consistent routine sequences, simple at first and then becoming more extended and complex as the student’s ability to understand and anticipate develops.

Time

Consistency

• Initially the routine sequence may involve small-scale activities that recur frequently, like the way the person introduces themselves to the student, or the way that a meal is presented. �
• Gradually the sequences could expand in scale and extent to include activities like dressing in a consistent sequence.

Time

Calendars/Schedules

• Over time, the scale can be extended and specific objects, photographs, or symbols can be introduced to represent specific activities or places.
• Soon an individualized calendar system is in place, which details the activities for the morning, day, week, month, etc.

Time

Survey Past, Anticipate & Plan Future

That calendar can then be used not just to anticipate, plan, and discuss future events, but also to reflect back on what has already been done.

Time

Number & Repetitions

• Working on numbers can be aided with concrete markers for each repetition during a repeating activity such as a gym circuit.
• For example, on completion of each circuit, another marker will be removed from a peg and placed in the ‘finished’ box until there are no markers left. This means the activity has been completed.

Time

Adapted Timepieces

As appropriate, a wide range of adapted clocks and countdown clocks can be introduced as well.

Time

Summary of Considerations

• Sequences
• Consistency
• Calendars/schedules
• Survey past, and anticipate & plan future
• Number
• Repetitions (with concrete markers)
• Adapted timepieces

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Source: Best, 1998

• Lilli Nielsen promoted the idea of creating responsive environments which are easily accessible to the student and encourage them to begin thinking and moving beyond their own body space and extending out into the world.
• “The Little Room” and the “Resonance Board” are the best-known and most frequently used items of equipment that Nielsen created.
• The Little Room is especially useful in helping the student to develop an idea of vertical space and think “up”.

Space/Time

Accessible & Responsive

The Little Room

The Be-Active Box

An increasing number of adapted designs are now available that expand upon Nielsen’s original ideas.

• By consistently performing certain activities in the same places, these areas can be given a specific identity allied to that activity.
• A marker for the activity can also indicate by association the precise location where the activity will take place.

Space/Time

Consistency & Markers

• The field of Orientation & Mobility for students with blindness or low vision offers many ideas that can be adapted for students with deaf-blindness.
• Ideas from this field include: routes to get from one place to another, landmarks to identify the place you have reached, and the use of multiple sensory systems to locate and identify these markers.

Space/Time

Routes & Landmarks

Space/Place

Summary of Considerations

• Accessible
• Consistent
• Landmarks
• Markers to identify areas by use/function
• Responsive
• Uncluttered
• Routes

The Senses and

the Environment

When we consider changing the environment to influence behavior it might help to think about the environment in sensory terms, taking each sense from the following list in turn, and trying to answer the question:

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“Which senses is this child really using to survey the environment around them?”

The Senses and

the Environment

There are seven senses. All of these senses play roles in managing the environment:

• Vision
• Hearing
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch
• Vestibular
• Proprioception

If you would like more information go to the “Sensory System, the Brain and Learning” module.

• Remember that each sense is designed to work simultaneously with all the other senses for maximum efficiency.
• If other senses are not working properly or are missing, then any senses that are intact will become potentially more important but will also be more challenged.

Self Stimulation

Self-stimulatory behavior, often times known as self-regulation, refers to repetitive body movements or repetitive movement of objects.

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We all self-stimulate, or self-regulate, to:

• maintain alertness�
• wake up or calm down�
• maintain postural control or keep/get comfortable�
• occupy our minds and fight boredom�
• generally improve our functioning to achieve our goals

Stereotypic Behaviors

Related to Senses

• Visual - staring at lights, repetitive blinking, moving fingers in front of the eyes, hand-flapping.
• Auditory - tapping ears, snapping fingers, vocalizing.
• Tactile - rubbing the skin with one's hands or with another object, scratching.
• Vestibular - rocking front to back or side-to-side.
• Taste - placing body parts or objects in one's mouth, licking objects.
• Smell - smelling objects, sniffing people.

Self Stimulation

Sensory deficits and poor sensory perception usually make children with deaf-blindness self-stimulate with more intensity, more persistence, and for a longer period of their lives than what might be considered “normal.”

Self Stimulation

• Attempts to stifle and stop self-stimulation behaviors may result in worse self-regulation and loss of positive functioning.
• Observing how and when a child self-stimulates will offer valuable insights into who they are and how they work for assessment, teaching, behavior management, and relationship building.

Self Stimulation

• Remember that a child’s self-stimulation behaviors can indicate what is wrong/missing from their environment, and can also sometimes point you towards the solution to the problem.
• If a self-stimulation behavior is not dangerous or illegal, ask “What does it mean?”, and then intervene to try to answer that question, NOT to stop the behavior as the primary goal.

Managing the Environment & Reducing Self-Stimulation

On the next few slides, tips and tactics for managing self-stimulation are presented. These fall in line with the idea of controlling environment.

Minimize Tactile Distractions

Provide the Necessary Physical Supports for Postural Security

Utilize and Allow the most Effective Postures for Attention and Comfort

Minimize All Distractions�(if possible)

Keep Smell & Taste Inputs

Pure and Separate

Position and Support for Optimum Attention, Comfort, and Functioning

OHOA Deaf-Blind Intervener Learning Modules

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A national resource designed to increase awareness, knowledge, and skills related to the process of intervention for students who are deaf-blind. Developed by National Center on Deaf-Blindness.

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For more information, contact NCDB at

info@nationaldb.org.

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The contents of this presentation were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education #H326T130013. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the The Research Institute, nor the US Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Project Officer, Jo Ann McCann.

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