Abstract

The objectivity of this study is to improve the challenging behavior among the children in early stages of the education and the impact of behavior modification therapy for improvement in the challenging behaviors due to dsygraphia. The hypothesis of the study the implementation of behavior modification techniques gives satiability in challenging behavior of children due to dsygraphia. The study will be conducted in the schools of twin cities of Pakistan (Islamabad and Rawalpindi). This study will helpful in improving handwriting skills and overcome to the behavior issues. For the evaluation the Functional Behavioral Assessment, Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children – 4th Edition (WISC-IV) and Handwriting Assessment by The McMaster Handwriting Assessment Protocol 2nd edition shall be used. The implementation of behavior modification techniques shall be applied after the evaluation.

Keywords: behavior modification therapy, challenging behavior, Dsygraphia,

Introduction

According to Ormrod J.E Students with learning disabilities have average or above average score on intelligence test. But sometime they experience difficulty with one or more specific aspects of information processing (2009). There are 30% to 40% primary and secondary school-aged students are usually facing handwriting problems. Because of emotional, social and academic, consequences that they can usually impose on the examination of such difficulties are important. These common problems are increasing the tendency of handwriting difficulties and behavior issues in children.

The dsygraphia is characterized as a writing disorder which is associated with the writing impairment. In children, the disorder generally emerges when they are firstly introduced to writing. The term behavior refers as person response internally and externally. The challenging behavior can be attention seeking tantrums, aggressiveness and uncooperative behavior. Handwriting difficulty or dysgraphia was defined by Hamstra-Bletz & Blote (1993) as a difficulty in the production of written language which is associated with of writing impairment. Challenging behaviors give the impression to the parents-child relationship and parents become very conscious while interacting with their children. The dsygraphia or written languages learning disability including problems are copying the correct words and letters, consistence and neatness while writing, spelling consistency and written organization. The challenging behavior of the children are faced by the families, teachers and other individual and even children themselves, when they are unable to behave in the peer group and in their surrounding they often become frustrated, defeated and overwhelmed.

Behavior modification is a using a principals of learning and cognition to understand and changing the behavior of an individual. Behavior modification is an empirically demonstrated of behavior change techniques. Behavior modification therapy is very beneficial for children and successful than in adults. Due to the reason children are in a stage of forming their self-identity. The term behavior modification firstly appears by Edward Thorndike in 1911. His article Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning makes frequent use of the term “modifying behavior. The principals of Behaviorism into the classroom setting and the individual with challenging behavior, there are group of procedures collectively known as behavior modification (Ormrod J.E, 2009).

When children are not facing academic problem orally but in the written expression such as, difficult spellings, word utterance and child wants to write but unable to write. There are some possibilities that, the child may be unable to think that’s why they are unable express in written expression. Usually the children with dsygraphia able to express themselves verbally, but unable to write at a level that reflects the complexity of their thoughts. It is the children themselves that feel challenged by the situation they find themselves in; feeling frustrated, misunderstood and sometimes made to feel lazy and unexpressive in the front of adults and also the teachers who should be supporting them. If the adults around these children change their own behavior towards the children and become empathetic and supportive then the child no longer needs to feel all those negative things.

Behavior therapy focuses on the changing desire behavior, it can involve the maladaptive behavior which can be modified with help of behavior modification therapy. The study conducted by Crouch & Jukubecy (2007), simple the address the dysgraphia on a single subject to intervention in literacy instruction and motor skills. The researchers implemented handwriting and letter naming drills, as well as occupational therapeutic techniques for improvement the fine motor skills. As a results written expression slightly improved.

Another study conducted by B. E. Yeger, L.N.Yanuv and S. Rosenblum (2009) based on children perceived self- efficacy self-reporting and handwriting performance due to the dsygraphia. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between children’s performance about the writing skills and self reports, their handwriting expression and motor-perceived self-efficacy. The study conducted on Twenty-one children with dsygraphia for evaluation through Computerized Penmanship Evaluation Tool and Questionnaire for Handwriting Proficiency (CHaP) and the Perceived Efficacy and Goal Setting System (PEGS). After the evaluation of the children were able to identify and report the handwriting deficiency which and facilitated with occupational therapy intervention in class.

Behavior Modification is a type of behavioral therapy, in which principles of Operant Conditioning are used to eliminate some type of unwanted, maladaptive, behavior. Its treatment procedures and techniques are ways of rearranging an individual’s environment, to help individual function more fully in society. For example, a child is showing tantrum while writing, so every time a favorite piece of candy can use as reinforcement, for modifying the behavior with maladaptive behavior replaced. Every time child throws tantrum candy use as reward.

The behavioral therapy plays a vital role in the field of psychotherapy, the cognitive behavioral therapy one of them. Jafari A.S.A and Heidari.F (2012) investigated the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the improvement of self-perception among gifted students with learning disorder. They focused on the cognitive-behavioral therapy efficiency and the improvement of self-perception among the gifted students with learning disorders. They evaluated the learning disorder through Wechsler intelligence scale for children on twenty eight students. Experimentation was conducted and cognitive-behavioral therapy administered on experimental group. The finding of experimentation was that the cognitive-behavioral therapy plays an important role for the improvement of self-perception among gifted students with learning disorder.

Aphasia is acquired language disorder due to brain damage. Rapp.B and Glucroft.B (2009) had been done a little research on the behavioral therapeutic techniques can useful for the aphasic with the dysgraphia. The Individuals with the aphasia has a language impairment which id directed associated with written language impairment. The main objective of this study was to evaluated the role and impact of behavioral intervention for dysgraphia because of primary progressive aphasia. The conclusion of this study was that the first time the behavioral intervention can give benefit to improvement in dysgraphia due to primary progressive aphasia.

Dysgraphia is an important aspect which is responsible in some contexts of challenging behaviors in the children. When they feel handwriting disorder become fun in front of their peer group and become an embracement for their parents children usually throw the tantrum and attention seeking behavior.

Another unique study by Adi-Japha, Shalev, Landau, , Gross-Tsur, Teicher, & Frenkel (2005) conducted an experimental design on ADHD students with the writing and spelling deficiencies and also identified dysgraphia. In the study the sample used for an experimental group alone with 20 male students diagnosed ADHD and in the control group 20 non-ADHD male students. The test applied, for speed, fluency and letter naming were given as a Reading tests, along with a spelling test. The analysis of the tests was for motor pattern errors, graphemic errors, and spatial disorders. Motor production was tested by having students write words with repetition. The Results indicated that both experimental group and control group performed same in speed, reading letter naming and phoneme manipulation. The experimental group performed well on the reading assessment as compared to spelling. They also omitted and transposed letters in all tests. The writing skills were inconsistent in letter and word production and font size. The experimenter concluded that word formation and spelling deficiency was due to non-linguistic deficiencies in processing and attention, and only minor affected by motor skill deficiency. The ADHD students required a special attention and additional instructional help on written expression. The use of spell-check programs for spelling deficiencies and an implementation of word processing software to aid in letter formation were suggested.

The children facing emotional difficulty in writing during class room settings, they often face emotional factors. Things are getting worse for them day by day. Usually during school work, when the child is unable to copy from board and class work remains unfinished and incomplete, usually the child experience frustration.

Methodology

Problem statement:

Can the techniques of behavior modification therapy play a vital role for improvement of challenging behavior in children with dsygraphia?

Objectivity

Due to these academic, emotional and social consequences the children are facing difficulties in learning abilities and having behavior issues. The purpose of this study is to help children for investigation and improvement in their behavior issues due to dsygraphia or poor handwriting with the help of techniques of behavioral modification therapy. It is also helpful for the teachers whose are dealing with these behaviors, they can improve their skills for handle these challenging behaviors in classroom setting and improve the handwriting in children with the help of behavior modification techniques.

Significance of this study

The Significance of this study is helpful for children’s improvement in the handwriting skills and overcome the behavior issues. It also helps children to learning the coping strategies of overcoming their behavioral issues by themselves. They come to know about their capabilities in written communication and convert the thoughts into the written expression.

Hypothesis

The implementation of behavior modification techniques gives satiability in challenging behavior of children due to dsygraphia.

The implementation of behavior modification techniques does not give satiability in challenging behavior of children due to dsygraphia.

Procedure

This study will be conducted in different schools of Islamabad and Rawalpindi (Pakistan). Through the participant Observation Functional Behavioral Assessment, behavioral intervention plans, and positive intervention will be use for the evaluation the challenging behaviors. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children – 4th Edition (WISC-IV) and Handwriting Assessment of The McMaster Handwriting Assessment Protocol 2nd edition shall be use for evaluation of dsygraphia.

The structured interview will be conduct with parents and teachers. After the diagnosis the behavioral modification therapeutic techniques will be applied on children with challenging behavioral issues due to dsygraphia. There shall be total 10 school finalized. From each school 10 students shall be taken 5 girls and 5 boys from third grade to sixth grade. After the assessment only 10 students shall be a part of therapeutic sessions for three months. The re-evaluation also will be conducted in the end for assessing the improvement in behavior and hand writing skills.

Participants

Ten different students of third grade to sixth grade shall be randomly select for the assessments from ten different schools of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Ten girls and boys shall be part of this study from different schools. After the completion of evaluation, the therapeutic sessions for three months 5 boys and 5 girls shall be a part of the further study.

Setting

The study will be conducted within the regular classroom and separate room for therapeutic implementations.

Research design

The design of a study will be descriptive, based on identification and implementations of the behavior modification techniques.

Results

The results shall be explained in the description.

Discussion

Behavior modification is very useful and empirically demonstration of behavior change techniques. It is usually used to modify the behaviors according to the environment. The behavior of an individual can be modified through the positive and negative reinforcement. All behaviors have some set of consistent rules. Behavior modification techniques can develop method of defining, observing, and measuring behaviors, and it can also design an effective interventions. Behavior modification techniques always has solutions for managing challenging behavior and those behaviors can be change , shaped and maintained by the consequences of that behavior.

Due to the dsygraphia the effective teacher training shall be very useful for these individuals. The various activates such as, an active listening, communication and interpersonal skills training for individuals who are very helpful for those whose are facing learning difficulties. The teachers should know about the students who have handwriting difficulties. The children can experience the fearful situation and become very insecure. They can also experience failure, and shameful attitudes from parents and adults. Children usually hide their academic weakness and start cheating. The parents need counseling and training in application of behavioral techniques for modification and changing their own behavior towards their children.

The skinner’s theories of reinforcement play a large role in the education discipline and for the student achievement. An impact on education his theories have been utilized for many years and play a useful role in behavior modification. Reinforcement is a positive way to achieve the goal in classroom setting and even individually if the individual facing is learning difficulties.