Functional Analysis and Cognitive Information Processing

Functional Analysis:

Involves examining a student’s inappropriate behaviour as well as the antecedents, and its consequences to determine the functions of the behaviour might serve for the students.

A-     Antecedents- what brings up, or happens before the negative behaviour.

B-      Behaviour- the negative behaviour.

C-      Consequences- what happens after the fact?

Positive Behaviour Support:

After indentifying the purpose of the inappropriate behaviour we find other ways to deal with the needs in an appropriate way.

5 Strategies:

1.       Directly teach desirable behaviours

2.       Consistently reinforce new behaviours in a way the student appreciates.

3.       In the classroom try to identify predictable routines. This reduces anxiety and makes them feel comfortable.

4.       Provide frequent opportunities for choice, learning through doing.

5.       Provide adaptations to support academic success, to allow for change we remove barriers.

My Opinion:

I understand that by doing preventative measures it may reduce negative behaviours but it seems to be that this is just makeup on the problem, nothing is really solved it just prevents issues for the time being. I think people need outlets where they can deal with issues and fulfill their needs; these ideas seem a bit manipulative. Sometimes even if routines are in place it won’t always be an effective strategy.

Cognitive Information Processing Approach:

The brain acts like a computer, bringing information into the system and storing it there in an organized fashion.

Robert Siegler’s 3 Characteristics:

1.       Thinking:  Information processing.

2.       Change Mechanisms: How information and content changes in the system.

1.       Encoding:  Storage- bringing information into the system and storing it in a way the brain can understand.

2.       Automaticity: Process at which the cognitive activities becomes automatic. The way the brain works and changes.

3.       Strategy Construction: Creating more effective and efficient ways of processing information in a conscious way.

4.       Transfer: Apply something we learn and transfer it to another situation.

3.       Self Modification: Meta cognition, thinking about our own thinking. How people can reframe a situation. This is an active process asking the questions am I really getting it.

SQRRRR:

1.       S- Survey: What’s to come, prepares mind.

2.       Q-Question: Mode of active engagement.

3.       R- Read: Kind of obvious

4.       R-Recite: Say it out loud, mobilizing modalities.

5.       R-Relate: Relate what you are learning to what you know.

6.       R-Review: Go back and do another survey.

My Opinion:

This way of looking at the brain is really effective, but I dislike the terminology of the computer, I think that there is so much more going on than that. The SQRRRR method really does work, I use it all the time not when reading though but when studying flashcards, to me I think this is the most effective way of studying but at times it is not effective when reciting something you did months ago.  In many ways the characteristic of Transfer is used most often in psychology because that is the reason for the blog I think to take the information we have learned and be able to recite and apply it to something else we know, or how we think we might use information in a particular setting.