So, How Do Antecedent Interventions Prevent Problems?

Continuing the example of the preschool child kicking in order to escape from circle time, we can use antecedent interventions (based on an FBA) to reduce kicking. I’m providing a very brief overview of this FBA process, so if you’d like to learn more, please visit our ABA Tutorial.

Some of the first steps we would want to take are tracking the behavior using an ABC chart, as pictured below. This is just a hypothetical example. In a real setting, you would want to take data on more than 2 incidents of the behavior to look for a pattern.

If we look at the pattern, we can see that this behavior occurs during songs at circle time. In the example, I stated that we already knew this. Taking the ABC data is what allows us to see this pattern. So, now we can make some changes to the circle time routine to help support the student. We might seat the student on the side of the group instead of the middle, so that there is less singing noise, if the student is sensitive to sounds. We might provide a schedule of circle time activities, so the student knows what to expect during circle time. We might provide the student with some visual materials such as pictures or toys related to the song for the student to hold during circle time. What strategies we choose will depend on our knowledge of the student and what his needs and sensitivities are. Once we choose some strategies we will still need to track how often the student kicks, so that we will know if our strategies are helping reduce the behavior or if we need to think of new strategies.