1- The Case of Sara
For this discussion, refer to the story of Sara located on page 41 of your Behavior Modification text. This case study deals with out-of-seat behaviors. Post a substantive response to the following discussion questions:
- What is the behavioral definition of out-of-seat behavior?
- What recording method will you recommend to record Sara’s out-of-seat behavior?
- What instrument will you recommend for recording Sara’s behavior? How will the instrument be practical for use in this scenario?
2- Reply to your friend’s post
11 hours ago
Per James’s description of Saras out-of-seat behavior, she gets out of her seat and talks to or teases other peers resulting in class disruption and inattentiveness to James. Therefore, I would define this out-of-seat behavior as any instance that Saras bottom leaves the seat and her legs are fully extended for a minimum of 5 seconds and/or she is speaking to a peer without the teacher’s permission. Personally, I would care the most about how many times Sara engages in this behavior (frequency) and also how long she can go between engaging in this behavior (inter response time). While I do think duration is something to consider I think inter-response time is important to determine possible functions of the behavior. Is there an average time she goes without engaging in behavior? Could this be linked to her attention span or ADHD? Is the time between completely variable and could be based on the current class content? There are many things inter-response time could potentially lead us towards. I would use finger clickers to record frequency. I would recommend pencil and paper to quickly jot down the time the behavior ends and the time it begins again at the podium or teacher’s desk or whatever is near him when teaching.
