Behavior is communication {5 tips for responding}

An individual's behavior is part of his communication system, especially if a disability limits traditional forms of communication. Consider this excerpt from a children's chapter book I read aloud this week to my young daughter:

"I don't want to go back to school," she told Cory. "Miss Hall is mean and scary. I don't want to stand in the corner.

Cory shook his head.

"You got it all wrong, Andi," he said. "Miss Hall is nice...Sending you to the corner is the worst thing she'll ever do."

Cory's voice changed to a whisper. "Don't tell Miss Hall, but I like the corner. It's right next to the window. I can see a lot out there."

Andi's eyes opened wide at this news. "You like standing in the corner?

Cory nodded. "Sometimes I get tired of doing lessons. Then I act up, so I can go look out the window."

The teacher thought she was disciplining Cory by sending him to the corner; instead, she was giving him exactly what he wanted. By his misbehavior, he was saying, Please let me go stand in the corner and look out the window! Because the teacher didn't understand his behavioral communication, she didn't change the consequence to a less desirable one that may have actually deterred him. Meanwhile, for a different child - Andi - the idea of standing in a corner was enough to steer her clear of breaking the rules, which is a good reminder that we should consider each person as an individual not as a label or category.

But the teacher could have done even better than just making the consequence less desirable. She could have made the desired behavior easier for Cory as well. If he needed frequent breaks to refocus his attention, for example, she could have proactively prevented the misbehavior by targeting the behaviors/circumstances (also called antecedents) preceding and leading up to it.

What are the individuals in your ministry communicating by their behavior? These steps might help:

1. Identify the behavior.
2. List everything that happens just before the undesired behavior. After a few incidents, you'll probably find a common antecedent (such as the behavior occurs each time you're doing an activity that the person doesn't like or it happens shortly after you enter a certain room or it doesn't begin until about five minutes into storytime). This could help with the next step.
3. Consider what the individual might be communicating with that behavior (such as I'm bored or The lights are bothering me or I can only pay attention for five minutes and then I get distracted).
4. Figure out one thing you can change to respond to that behavioral communication (respective to the examples above, some might be use more multi-sensory teaching strategies, incorporating visual, auditory, and hands on aspects or use lamps instead of florescent lights/move to a room with different lighting or teach in multiple shorter segments of time rather than one long block).
5. Make the change for at least three weeks and see how if the individual's behavior changes. If so, continue. If not, start back at the beginning, and don't be discouraged. Even experts in behaviorism have to do a little trial and error to figure this stuff out.

Here's an example: One child with multiple disabilities at our church was spitting at his helpers and occasionally at other children and inanimate objects. This is a major behavioral issue because of sanitary concerns, which made it a high priority for us to address. Eventually we realized that he did it on Sundays when his mother passed him off to a helper in the hall instead of bringing him to the room (we suspect that he felt like we were taking him away from mom in the hallway, whereas he felt like she was giving him to us at the classroom) and when he only had male helpers (which made sense because his dad isn't around and he seems to trust women more than men). Now that we've established drop-off procedures and paired him with female volunteers, the problem is mostly resolved.

We could have just written off his behavior as bad or difficult to manage or too unsanitary. Instead, by treating it as communication, we were able to work with his mom to figure out what he was trying to tell us and adapt accordingly. And, as a result, this family is able to be engaged at our church. Praise God!

How about you? Do you have any examples like that one? Could you share them below to benefit all of us?

Or do you have any tough behavioral situations you're working through in your ministry? If so, share those too, and we can support one another in troubleshooting. Please - out of respect and love - remember to maintain confidentiality by not using names or using fake names and by not disclosing other information that could identify the individuals in question.