Verbal De-Escalation Overview

Verbal De-Escalation

Addressing challenging behaviors through establishing a positive classroom culture, recognizing triggers, and implementing behavioral strategies.

"[Teachers] have to deal with ever increasing numbers of students who are difficult to manage and teach. In addition, teachers are discovering management practices that have worked so well over the years with typical students do not seem to be very effective with these more [challenging] students." (Colvin, 2004)

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Response Interventions and Safety Strategies

Behavior as Communication

Behavior Chains

It is important to identify problem behavior chains so that they may be broken and/or interrupted.Effective management of behaviors during the early phases will reduce the likelihood of the later phases when more serious behaviors will occur.

"Thinking of behavior as a form of a communication forces us to shift our mindset and consider the purpose of a child’s actions by asking the critical question of why the child is using behaviors that are inconsistent with school or early childhood program expectations,”

Once problem behaviors have been identified, function based interventions can be implemented.

Introduction to the Acting Out Cycle

This video demonstrates the seven phases of the acting-out cycle—the trajectory experienced by most students who consistently exhibit challenging behavior. The acting-out cylce consists of the Calm, Trigger, Agitation, Acceleration, Peak, De-escalation, and Recovery Phases.

The acting-out cycle

A Seven Phase Model

According to Colvin and Scott (2015), there are seven phases in the acting out behavioral cycle. The goal is to be able to interrupt the cycle by being proactive in planning for students using specific interventions at each stage.

Behavior Chain Example

Marietta was sitting at her desk with a bad attitude and was not doing her work. She was given a reminder to get started. She then started arguing about the work, and I tried to give her explanations and offered to help. She would not quit arguing, so I gave her the choice of doing the work now or after school. She became belligerent and began shouting. I gave her a warning to settle down, or she’d have to go to the office. She threw her books on the floor and stood up. I directed her to the office and she swung her arm and could have hit me in the face. I then called security.

The behavior chain for the student based on information in this report consists of a series of behaviors of increasing intensity in this order: 1. Sitting, not beginning the designated work, and displaying a negative attitude 2. Arguing 3. Continuing to argue 4. Displaying belligerence and shouting 5. Throwing materials and standing 6. Swinging her arm toward the teacher