Positive on Paper: Intent vs. Impact

As school counselors and educators, we should all be working toward the same goal: schools where students feel safe, connected, and supported. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) was intended to help create safe and welcoming environments by shifting schools away from reactive discipline and improving students’ social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. This framework has been widely implemented for several decades, and I believe in much of what it was intended to do. Personally, I have found operating within tiered logic very helpful in my work. As a trauma informed and restorative practitioner I have definitely appreciated the move toward more proactive approaches that PBIS advocates for.

You can probably sense a huge “BUT” coming next.

In 1997, when PBIS first entered the scene I was still in my undergrad as a psychology major. I secured a job as a student therapist for an autistic child even though I hadn’t completed my degree yet. In 1997, it was the norm for undergraduate students to support autistic children through Discrete Trial Training (DTT) as part of the early-intervention ABA industry. The field looked quite different than it does today. No ABA certification required. I recall my work during that time with my autistic student was quite scripted and specific and focused on compliance and a token economy. Not far from how some would describe PBIS today, especially the critics who feel that the old ABA and PBIS are based on strict applied behaviorism. I believe PBIS in some districts has evolved from that strict applied behaviorism to a more trauma-informed, relational approach. This would make sense since right around the same time the foundational Adverse Childhood Experience study was published which then led to the decade of the brain. My first encounter with a trauma informed framework was right around 2014, when the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released official national guidelines and I’ve been researching, learning and applying that framework to my work ever since.

Why this history lesson you ask? Well let me tell you a story that might help fill in the gaps of all I’ve said thus far.

As part of a PBIS framework it was common to train teachers to use a strategy called “positive behavior narration.” The idea is that if you acknowledge the behaviors you want to see by praising those doing what you’ve asked, there will be a vicarious positive response from those still off task through your behavioral cue. It is designed to be a supportive, proactive strategy that avoids the negativity of a direct reprimand. I’ve observed this done and can admit that it’s a useful strategy, even though in my training, no one ever discussed what the nervous systems of the 90 % were doing and they definitely didn’t discuss what the nervous system of the off task students were doing. We will leave that conversation for another day.

In one scenario, a teacher was using this strategy but 99% of the class was lined up and ready to go to lunch. There was one student still fidgeting at their desk and struggling to put their materials away in order to be dismissed. The teacher followed the protocol and avoided a direct reprimand. What she did do was continue to say “I’m still waiting for that 1%,” “We are all still waiting for the 1% so we can go to lunch.” I’m sure you can imagine what this did for the students who were “hangrily” waiting in line to be dismissed. Enter the groans, eye rolls and snickers directed toward the one student still off task who had the nerve to keep them from their full tummies.

What I’ve just described I’ve seen happen time and time again across multiple different environments. The intent is gentle behavior narration, the impact is a systemic public shaming that helped you gain temporary compliance in exchange for psychological harm.

While this isn't necessarily an argument against PBIS. It's an invitation to ask some important questions:

What is compliance costing us?

Do we discuss unmet needs and lagging skills in our conversations about behavior?

Does the “positive” in PBIS only apply to those who are compliant to the system?

Are we discussing relationships continually in our professional learning, or are we just trying to publish a positive behavioral ledger?

I’m hoping that now you understand why I gave you a glimpse into my professional past and a little history lesson about PBIS entering public schools. It is widely known in the neurodiversity and psychology communities that modern ABA is actively trying to re-author its story. We also know that PBIS was built off of ABA. The same ABA that led me to leave my position as a student therapist because I didn’t want to continue to ignore even though it was planned, weaponize rewards, or treat a child's distress as a data point to be managed. We know too much about the brain and the body and our overall nervous system now to ever go back to that, yet these ghosts still exist in our education systems.

I encourage anyone reading this who leads this type of work to genuinely unpack your behavior system at school, be willing to ask the reflective questions I’ve provided and no longer mistake compliance for a strong climate and culture. The cost is too high.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

―Maya Angelou

Sources:

Elder, L. (n.d.). What is discrete trial training? Autism Speaks. autismspeaks.org

Horner, R. H., & Sugai, G. (2015). School-wide PBIS: An example of applied behavior analysis at a scale of social importance. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 8(1), 80–85. doi.org

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (2014). SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. HHS Publication No. (SMA) 14-4884. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. samhsa.gov

Carr, E. G., Dunlap, G., Horner, R. H., Koegel, R. L., Turnbull, A. P., Sailor, W., ... & Fox, L. (2002). Positive behavior support: Evolution of an applied science. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 4(1), 4–16. doi.org