5. Positive Programming: Teaching Skills That Matter

Positive support is not only about reducing behavior. It is about building skills, competence, independence, and opportunity.

Positive Programming focuses on longitudinal, systematic instruction designed to produce meaningful, durable behavioral change and greater social inclusion. Participants learn to distinguish among general skills development, functionally equivalent skills, functionally related skills, and coping and tolerance skills—and to select teaching priorities that address both immediate support needs and longer-term quality of life.   (Prerequisite: Module 1)

Key training topics

·      General skills development

·      Functional, chronologically age-appropriate, low-inference instruction

·      Functionally equivalent skills

·      Functional communication

·      Augmentative communication considerations

·      Independence

·      Functionally related skills

·      Discrimination

·      Choice

·      Predictability and control

·      Rules and stimulus control

·      Coping and tolerance skills

·      Desensitization

·      Shaping

·      Relaxation training

·      Generalization and maintenance