Positive behavioural support for children and young people with developmental disabilities in special education settings: A systematic review

Abstract

Background: Positive behavioural support (PBS) can be effective in supporting children and young people (CYP) with developmental disabilities. This systematic review focused on describing the components and nine characteristics of PBS that have been used with CYP with developmental disabilities in special education settings, and the evidence for PBS effectiveness in these settings. Additionally, facilitators and barriers to PBS implementation, and experiences of stakeholders, were investigated. Method: Systematic searches followed a registered protocol, and 30 studies were identified, narratively synthesised, and critically appraised.Results: From the 30 studies included, 10 reported the presence of all 9 PBS characteristics, 17 reported on 8 PBS characteristics, and 3 reported on 7 characteristics.Overall, 28 studies demonstrated significant decreases in behaviours that challenge and increases in alternative behaviours, if increasing alternative behaviours was part of the interventions.Conclusions: There was a lack of evidence on facilitators and barriers, and a lack of qualitative studies exploring experiences of stakeholders with PBS in special education settings. The available evidence suggested that not all studies reported on all PBS characteristics when describing the approach followed. In addition, available evidence suggested that most studies demonstrated effectiveness of PBS regarding the measured outcomes. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Increasing Face Mask Wearing in Autistic Individuals Using Behavior Analytic Interventions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…The final domain (i.e., other sources of bias) is rated as either low or high risk. The SCED RoB has been used in a number of SCED systematic reviews to date (Beqiraj et al, 2022;Chawner et al, 2019;Germansky et al, 2020), providing additional insight into the validity of conclusions drawn from reviewed studies (see Tables 1 and 2).…”

Creating effective teaching and learning environments: Building a positive behavioural support (PBS) model for UK special schools

“…With a few exceptions, experience of PBS within UK schools has focused on interventions used to address the behaviours that challenge specific pupils (Jackson Brown et al., 2014), and in many cases, these interventions have been conducted in special school settings (Paris et al., 2019). A recent international systematic review of PBS in special education contexts identified significant decreases in behaviours that challenge and increases in alternative behaviours, if increasing alternative behaviours was part of the interventions, across all PBS intervention research (Beqiraj et al., 2022). Increasingly, schools with some experience of PBS are beginning to look at academic and behavioural interventions across the whole school setting, adopting key elements of the SW‐PBS model adapted to their own environments.…”