KORBAN SAFFRON BEHAVIOR PLAN

SARAH LEWIS
D.SOKOL & V. WIDMAN

I. HISTORY
A. Korban is a Caucasian male, aged 2 years and 11 months. He

will be turning 3 on December 20, 2014. Korban lives at home with

his Mother, Sarah and his Father, Alex along with his 7 month old
sister Tahlia. The family has modest earnings but most of the family
income is spent on the children's needs. Dad works in the fiberglass
industry and Mom is and independent jewelry consultant as well as
an assistant teacher in a preschool. Sarah also is a full time student
working towards an Associate Degree in Applied Science focusing
on Early Childhood Education. Both Mom and Dad work during the
day and are at home at night. Korban and Tahlia spend their days
with Mom, Dad, Grandma, or Grandpa. Every day they are home
with one of those specified adults
B.

The setting that I observed Korban in was his own home. It is

where he is free to be himself and show all of his true colors and
behaviors. His home is a small trailer in a mobile home park sizing
about 900 square feet. He shares his room with his sister Tahlia and
the rest of the house with 3 large dogs. Korbans house is littered
with kids toys and books reaching from one side of the house to the
other.
C.

Korban is my son, I have known him for his entire small life and

then some.
II. DESCRIPTION OF CHILD
A. I chose Korban because he is my son. I am a very busy mom

and he has some behavior issues that I would like to address and
change. I work with so many children that need behavior
modifications but I wanted to do a behavior plan where I would be
able to see the results of my work. That way I can see if I did my
work the right way and if I came up with appropriate ways to work
with his behavior.
B. Korban has an amazing vocabulary. At three years old Korban
can speak in paragraphs and he can talk circles around some fully
grown adults. He loves to help with anything that Mom, Dad, Grama
or Grampa are doing. If you give him a task he will do it and be so
ecstatic to do that for you. One of the other things that Korban does
really well is cuddle. If you are sick or cold he will be happy to curl
up

on your lap and just keep you company. Korban is completely

capable
has

of making clear decisions and he is very intelligent. Korban

excellent hand eye coordination and he is so helpful with his sister,

Tahlia. One character trait that can be a strength or a challenge is
Korban's strong will. If he doesnt want to do something he will go

out

of his way to not do that task. At the same time if Korban wants
something he will move heaven and earth to get that item. Korbans
biggest challenges are that he has such a large vocabulary he can
be super mouthy, He doesnt always listen and when he becomes
frustrated he will just morph into an infantile state where he just

shouts and throws things around the house. Our biggest challenge is
getting Korban to sleep.
C. Korban has been refusing to go to bed calmly for almost 2 years
now. Just after his first birthday we started giving Korban one long
nap in the afternoon instead of two shorter naps throughout the day.
When we changed the nap schedule Korban started refusing to nap
without being soothed to sleep.
III. TARGET BEHAVIOR
A. When Korban is told to "Get ready for your nap", Korban instantly
starts crying with a howling noise. he lays down on the ground and
begins kicking both of his feet in the motion of a scissors blades, in
most cases he screams "I'm not going to bed" Korban will continue
this behavior for as long as he can physically scream until he needs
to breath. When I pick him up or his Father picks him up he will lock
his body, throwing his head backwards away from whomever is
holding him forcing the person holding him to adjust their positioning
on his body into more of a bear hug grip. on some occasions Korban
will push his arms into the person holding hims chest pushing
himself further away from the person trying to take him to nap and
when all else fails he will turn to hitting Mom, Dad, Grama or
Grampa, in the face.
B. The Antecedents are all usually the same scenario every day.

Korban eats his meal at the kitchen table, whether it is lunch or

dinner. When he finishes eating he is asked to "go get ready for bed"
which consists of going to the bathroom, brushing his teeth and
picking out his story.
C. The setting is inside Korban's home starting at the Kitchen table
and extending into the Bathroom and then into Korban's Bedroom.
D. The consequences of Korbans behavior are that immediately he
is picked up and held so that he doesnt get stepped on or sat on by
the dogs. After that he is quickly rushed through going to the
bathroom, brushing his teeth, picking out his book and is quickly laid
down, read to then Mom and only Mom will lay down in his bed and
calmly sing "you are my sunshine" to him while she strokes his hair.
She lays with Korban until five minutes after he has been sleeping to
make sure that he is fully asleep and not getting back up.
E. I chose this behavior because it can take hours to get him calm
and sleeping soundly. I dont want to just throw him in his room
kicking and screaming so I need to find a safe, healthy way to get
him to go to his bed and do his sleep routine without so much of a
battle. I dont mind laying with him every night in the least. In fact I
love putting him to bed because its my time that I get to lay with him
and be with just him. Its "Our Time". I would just like to have an
easier time putting him to bed. I dont like to fight with him and hear

him yelling and shouting because he is sad that he has to go to bed.

F. Korban has been refusing to go to bed calmly for almost 2 years
now. Just after his first birthday we started giving Korban one long
nap in the afternoon instead of two shorter naps throughout the day.
When we changed the nap schedule Korban started refusing to
sleep without being soothed.
G. Sometimes the behavior has slight variations to it ranging from
Korban not hitting me or his father when we pick him up to Korban
running into different rooms trying to avoid being picked up because
he doesnt want to get ready for bed.
IV. HYPOTHESIS
A. When Korban is asked to "Go Get Ready for Bed", Korban
instantly starts crying with a howling noise. he lays down on the
ground and begins kicking both of his feet in the motion of a
scissors blades, in most cases he scream "I'm not going to bed".
Korban will continue this behavior for as long as he can physically
scream until he needs to breathe. When I pick him up or his Father
picks him up he will lock his body, throwing his head backwards
away from whomever is holding him forcing the person holding him
to adjust their positioning on his body into more of a bear hug grip in
order to get away from his parents and delay his sleep time. As a
result mom hurries through their sleep routine so she can lay Korban

down and soothe him to sleep.

B. To come up with this hypothesis, I watched my husband try to go
through the sleep routine and then wrote down exactly what
happened. At the next sleep time I performed all of the usual tasks
and wrote down what was happening. After Korban went to sleep I
filled out the ABC form that we were provided to see what exactly
was happening to make Korban act the way he was acting. Once I
filled out the ABC form I saw that Korban was throwing his tantrums
because he wanted to avoid having his sleep time.
C. During my observations I filled out the Functional Assessment
Form, The Motivation Assessment Questionnaire, The ABC
observation Form, and the

Plan, Teach and Reinforce Forms,

along with personal observations.

D. The forms that I filled out helped me to see that Korban doesnt
throw tantrums so he gets more of Mom and Dads attention but he
cries out because he has a tangible fear of taking his naps. When I
filled out the ABC forms I realized that I was making Korbans nap
time more stressful by giving into his behavior and then I am
reinforcing his behavior when I lay down with him. This tells him that
he can act that way and no matter what I will make him feel Okay. I
also learned that even though he has a tangible fear of his sleep
time we can fix the negative behavior. When I filled out the

Functional Assessment Form I learned when exactly he was most likely

to have
The

behavioral issues and when he was least likely to misbehave.

PTR Forms showed me Korbans interests and different ideas that

can help make

him feel better about taking naps and going to

sleep at night.
V. BEHAVIOR PLAN
A. The prevention strategies that I came up with for Korban's target
behavior are to calmly hug Korban and tell him that I love him then
encourage him to take a couple minute break before we start doing
our sleep time routine. We also have decided that if Korban kicks
and

screams after we have asked him to stop we will place him on his
bed and once he is calm we will start the process over again.

Korban

is completely enthralled with the Teenage Mutant Ninja

Turtles,

because of that the last prevention strategy I put into place is,

that

when Korban doesnt go to bed without a huge fight we take away

his

ability to watch episodes of the show, this has been the most
effective bargaining chip since we discovered he liked the show.
B. The plan that I have established and put into full effect in our
home so that we can teach a new behavior is a daily schedule with
times and pictures showing Korban what time each event of his day
will be occurring and what he can expect to happen after he is
finished with his current event. In addition to this we are giving him a

series of choices getting him ready for bed. The choices are exactly
the same as the choices he had already but they are not open ended
questions as they were before. For example we would just say "pick
out your pajamas" to Korban before but that question has been
rephrased to "would you like these pajamas or these pajamas". In
addition to all of the above Korban and I came up with a going to
bed

song that we sing when we go from the kitchen into the bathroom
and from the bathroom to his bedroom, this way he has a smoother t
transition.
C. To reinforce the positive behavior we have just shown Korban
we will start with immediate reactions like clapping and cheering
when he does not throw himself to the ground and have a tantrum.
Then we will expand our reinforcements to a turtle sticker chart for
each sleep time that he performs the complete sleep routine without
any tantrums. This means he can get up to two stickers in one day if
he is good. We will reward korban with an extra episode of Ninja
Turtles once Korban can get 2 Sackers on his chart. As he gets

more comfortable with his sleep routine he will need to receive more
stickers in order to get his extra episode of Ninja Turtles.
D. Korban's behavior plan will be implanted by his Mother, Father
Grandma, Grampa and His Aunt Scotia. Not all of these people are
the ones responsible for Korban's sleep routine but there are days

that Korban goes to stay with Grandma and Grandpa or Aunt Scoti.
That makes it important for everyone to follow the same routine so
Korban knows whats coming and has no surprises. If anyone else
has to take Korban overnight they will also be informed of the new
behavior plan so that he can stay on track.
E. The reason for choosing to Hug Korban when he starts to get
upset and to give him a break at the same time is so that we can try
and keep his emotions calm and happy. If we can avoid the panic of
having to get ready for bed it should go more smoothly. The second
prevention strategy of placing him in his room and starting over once
he is calm was chosen because we want to show Korban that he
can calmly tell us that he has a problem and once he does we can
address it and fix it. The final Prevention strategy was chosen simply
because the Ninja Turtles mean so much to Korban. If Korban is
faced with calmly going through a sleep routine or loosing Turtle
privileges he should have no problem doing exactly what is asked of
him. Our first Teach strategy is a daily schedule and that was chosen
because kids benefit from consistency, once Korban knows exactly
what is going to happen it might not seem so scary, this leads into
the second teach strategy we implicated. Korban was getting open
ended questions before we started the behavior plan. Now he is
getting the same options but in a more kid friendly manor. He has

two options instead of one hundred, this is much less intimidating.

The last Teach strategy we put into place is the Sleep Song that
makes the transitions fun and less scary, after looking at all the f
forms that I filled out I saw that Korban wasnt acting out for attention
it was that he was uncomfortable with going to sleep, with his sleep
song he doesnt have to be afraid because now it is fun. Our first
reinforce idea was to clap and cheer for Korban when he doesnt
throw a tantrum when he is asked to "get ready for bed". This
reinforces his happy calm demeanor towards going to bed. If he
sees that we like it when he behaves the way the way we would like him
to, he will be more likely to repeat the behavior. The other
reinforcement plan that we have is a sticker chart and that is going
to

help keep him doing what he is supposed to because he loves

stickers, and he especially loves Ninja Turtle stickers so if he
behaves he will get a sticker for each sleep time that he doesnt

have any tantrums. Once he is getting to the point of a reward each day
we will back up the sticker system so that he can still feel like he is
working up to it and he has a challenge.
F. we will include each of the parents by involving them in each part
of the process. As Korban's Mother I am writing the behavior plan so
there is no question as to how I will be involved but his father,
grandparents and Aunt Scoti will have to learn the sleep song, how

to give Korban his options, the appropriate responses if he doesnt

go to bed calmly and how the reinforcement plans work. Each
person will be very important to keeping him on track since if one person
slacks his plan could fall apart.
VI. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
A. Korbans plan isnt fail-proof. If everyone doesnt come together
there are sections of it that just wont work. For instance if anyone
forgets to reward him he can feel that his calm-ness and good
behavior is for nothing and we could be back at square one. Another
part of the plan that could come crashing down is his love for Turtles.
Like so many children do Korban could grow out of his Ninja Turtles
phase of his life before he gets settled into his routine for calm
healthy sleep times? Korban could decide that he hates the sleep
song and it could have the opposite effect that we are trying to
receive.