Comprehensive Program Plan for Acme Inc.
For this Assignment, you will act as a behavior consulting intern for Acme, Inc., one final time and create a comprehensive program plan to help a clinic that provides services to children with autism. You will create a program plan based on the scenario below.
Scenario:
The work you have done during your internship at ACME has been recognized and now there are many agencies in your area looking for a comprehensive plan using behavior analytic principles and research methods. This is your chance to apply what you have learned about Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) to create an effective, evidence-based intervention for an organization.
The following organization has requested the creation of a behavior analytic program to assist with some concerns:
Stars ABA provides clinic-based, ABA interventions for children with autism. Stars uses discrete trial training to teach children skills and appropriate replacement behaviors. Stars also creates systematic behavior intervention plans to decrease interfering behaviors. The following are some of the issues Stars has encountered:
- Staff is not delivering reinforcers on a frequent basis when children are engaging in appropriate behavior.
- Staff is providing a lot of attention and reacting emotionally when children engage in inappropriate behavior.
- Many Stars’ staff arrive late for their scheduled shifts.
- Stars has experienced a high turnover rate. They have had 3 of 15 staff leave in the last 6 months.
After your initial evaluation, you have determined that the staff have many skill deficits in the areas of basic behavior analytic principles. Additionally, through observation, you notice that the amount of feedback delivered at all levels is very low and, when delivered, is not specific or timely. Stars wants to decrease the number of inappropriate behaviors exhibited by all clients and increase the mastery of target skills.
Your task is to create a plan to address the issues that Stars is having with regard to staff behavior. You should create a plan detailing a behavior analytic process and solution for Stars’ concerns. Include a brief explanation of the research strategies used to support your ideas. Your paper should contain all of the following and should be separated into sections covering each step:
1- Pinpoint & Measure:
- Identify the results that are to be accomplished at Stars in objective and observable terms.
- Identify and operationally define at least 1 staff behavior to change. Include current behavior and desired results.
- Describe how the results and behaviors will be measured, e.g., measurement type, data collection type, who will be responsible for collecting the data, and specific data sheets or graphing methods to be used.
- Discuss potential contingencies that may be impacting the staff behavior at Stars ABA.
. Include a discussion of reinforcement and punishment as they relate to staff behavior.
2- Select and Describe Your Intervention
- Describe how you would create a staff training procedure utilizing one of the evidence-based methods discussed throughout the term. Your staff training should include the following elements:
. Describe the specific method to be used for staff training, including all key steps.
. Discuss who will be responsible for implementing the program and how it will be implemented at Stars
. Identify the measurement criteria for determining successful completion of training.
- Include a procedure for delivering feedback related to staff behavior.
. Describe a system for maximizing the effectiveness of feedback delivered to the staff at Stars. Include options for delivery of feedback, e.g., graphing, written, and/or verbal.
. Use creative license to create specific scenarios at Stars in which staff display both the target and undesired behavior and include:
An example of feedback that should be given by a supervisor to a staff who demonstrates the desired behavior.
An example of feedback that should be given by a supervisor to a staff who does not demonstrate the desired behavior.
3-Identify Program Question and Research Design
- Create a program question that will be used to evaluate your interventions.
- Select and describe the research design you will use to demonstrate the effectiveness of your program.
- Discuss the strength and weaknesses of your selected research design and why it is the best choice for your selected intervention.
4-Program Evaluation
- Discuss how data will be evaluated, including:
. Schedule of observation: how often will staff be observed engaging with client?
. How will results for the organization be measured?
. What factors will be considered when evaluating the data?
How will the data be evaluated?
Visual Analysis
Calculations
- Discuss how you will use data to determine effectiveness of the intervention.
. Using data, how will you conclude that your intervention is effective?
- Describe the steps to be taken based on the effectiveness of the intervention.
. Include a discussion of the variables that could impact the success of the intervention, with consideration of staff support for the intervention.
Your Assignment should follow current APA formatting and citation style and include:
Title Page
Reference Page
Main body of the evaluative paper should be 6–8 pages and double-spaced
Included APA headings that are: left aligned, bold face, and contain upper case and lower-case letter for each section of your plan
At least three academic references
The essay should be written using standard paragraph structure and 12-point Times New Roman font.
Program Design
Name
Institutional Affiliate
Program Design
Organizational behavior management (OBM) has become an essential element for optimizing employees’ performance and increasing the value of organizations across different sectors of the global economy. The subfield of applied behavior analysis (ABA) plays the crucial role of increasing productivity by increasing employee satisfaction and improving the workplace environment for maximum capitalization of potentials CITATION Dan161 \l 1033 (Daniels A. C., 2016). It creates a platform for creating and encouraging a positive work culture by applying the principles of organizational behavior towards enhancing daily business operations for the overall improvement of the organization's performance. Performance management makes for one of the key areas of speciality for organizational behavior management. It features a frequent review of employees' performances and provides feedback on the same to inform the need for reinforcing or punishing the identified workplace behavior for optimal performance CITATION Dan14 \l 1033 (Daniels A. C., 2014). Effective application of key elements involved in the behavior analytic process in performance management achieves the desired behavioral changes leading to improved employee and customer satisfaction coupled with increased revenue generation and profitability. A practical application of the performance management specialty of OBM in the Stars ABA’s scenario makes for an excellent platform for exploring the concept’s core elements and their effective application to solve behavioral concerns in organizations for improved performances.
Pinpoint & Measure
The first step of behavior management process entails identifying the workplace behaviors and their results or implications on the performance of employees. It is also referred to as pinpointing and requires one to identify specific target behavior and the results to improve CITATION Dan161 \l 1033 (Daniels A. C., 2016). The identified target behavior to improve or pinpoints should be observable, measurable, active, under the employee’s or performer’s control, and impacting results. The results to be accomplished or desired outcomes at Stars include an increased number of appropriate behaviors among the autistic children at the facility, frequent delivery of reinforcement to children engaging in appropriate behavior, and punctuality among staff members in arriving for scheduled shifts. The organization also seeks to increase the employee retention rate or reduce the high turnover rate.
According to the Stars’ scenario, staff members are not providing frequent reinforcement to children engaging in appropriate behavior leading to a perceived high number of cases of inappropriate behaviors among clients. There is a need to master the delivery of frequent reinforcement to children engaging in appropriate behavior to decrease the number of inappropriate behaviors exhibited by all clients.
Progress on the provision of frequent reinforcement to children engaging in appropriate behavior will be measured by observing and counting the rate at which staff members reinforce clients’ appropriate behaviors CITATION Dan14 \l 1033 (Daniels A. C., 2014). Point Systems method of assessment will be used with the staff member’s delivery of reinforcement to clients’ appropriate behaviors rated as less frequent, average, and frequent CITATION Dan14 \l 1033 (Daniels A. C., 2014). In essence, the behavioral change intervention prompts staff members to increase their frequency of delivering reinforcement to the clients’ or children’s engagement in appropriate behaviors. The current ratings of the staff members’ behavioral performance on delivering reinforcement and their subsequent impact on the number of inappropriate behaviors exhibited by all clients will provide the bottom line for identifying the overall effect of the proposed behavioral change. The rate of reinforcement delivered will be measured against the clients’ behaviors on a line graph to determine the impact of the behavioral change intervention.
Some various contingencies or factors may be contributing to the staff members' failure to reinforce the children's appropriate behavior frequently. One of the factors leading to the undesired staff behavior may be their lack of skill, knowledge, or understanding of the need and effect of reinforcing the clients' engagement in appropriate behavior. Lack of motivation makes for another factor that may contribute to the negative behavior among Stars’ staff members. Stars may not be providing its employees with positive feedback and rewards or incentives for good performances including performance appraisals for their staff members. Poor remuneration in wages and benefits may also be a key factor in the staff members’ poor performance noted in the execution of their roles and responsibilities when dealing with clients. Other factors contributing to the perceived poor performance among the staff members may include a lack of supervision and disciplinary measures for failing to uphold the operational procedures and practices, such as delivering frequent reinforcement to client's appropriate behaviors. Lack of specified goals and targets, training, job aids, and task clarifications may also lead to poor staff behavior in executing their roles. The outlined factors may be categorized into either antecedent interventions or consequence interventions, with the former referring to those that offer positive encouragement leading to desirable staff behaviors. Consequence interventions are functions of the identified st...