Abstract
Introduction
The book Prevent Teach Reinforce for Young Children: The Early Childhood Model of Individualized Positive Behavior Support (Dunlap, Wilson, Strain, & Lee, 2013) is published by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company in Baltimore, Maryland. The first purpose of the book is to describe the Prevent Teach Reinforce (PTR-YC) model for supporting social behavior outcomes for toddlers and preschool children with challenging behaviors. The authors state,
The PTR-YC model includes universal strategies for promoting the social-emotional competence of all young children; secondary strategies for children who are at-risk for or have some level of social, emotional, or behavioral issues; and tertiary interventions for children with ongoing, persistent problem behavior. (p. viii)
The second purpose is to provide a manual (including forms and resources) necessary for implementing the PTR-YC model. The book is comprised of seven chapters, references, appendices (including case examples and interventions), and an index. The book also includes a CD-ROM containing reproducible forms to implement PTR-YC procedures. The target audience includes individuals working with young children (i.e., 30 months to kindergarten) displaying challenging behaviors in preschools, early education, and childcare settings. The primary goal of the book is to provide a resource for an evidence-based assessment/intervention approach that is tailored to the unique needs of toddlers and preschoolers with chronic patterns of challenging behaviors. The authors state that individuals developing individualized behavior support plans in early childhood settings as well as those who teach others how to effectively support outcomes for young children can use the manual as a resource.
Content and Structure
The PTR-YC procedures are clearly drawn from research foundations provided by applied behavior analysis and positive behavior support. These research foundations are embedded within the authors’ stated guiding beliefs for supporting early childhood development. These beliefs appear consistent with developmentally appropriate early childhood guidelines and include healthy social development as an essential foundation, in addition to inclusion, prevention, comprehensiveness, and family centeredness. The authors emphasize prevention and highlight the importance of establishing high quality environments that are safe, structured, predictable, and stimulating with clearly stated expectations and interventions provided along a continuum of intensity to increase the likelihood young children experience positive social-emotional development. The authors then provide three principles for understanding challenging behaviors that are clearly aligned with an applied behavior analysis theoretical framework: (a) challenging behaviors are communicative, (b) challenging behaviors are maintained by their consequences, and (c) challenging behaviors occur in context. The PTR-YC process includes five steps: (a) teaming and goal setting, (b) data collection, (c) PTR-YC Functional Behavioral Assessment, (d) PTR-YC intervention, and (e) using data for next steps.
The book is organized across seven chapters, which include an introduction chapter, a chapter involving families, and chapters for each of the five steps in the PTR-YC process. The introduction chapter provides an overview of the PTR-YC’s guiding beliefs, principles, research foundations, and steps in the process. Chapter 1 also includes sections on factors that promote the effectiveness of PTR-YC, limitations and accommodations, a summary, and an appendix of key terms. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the importance of involving families of young children exhibiting challenging behavior in the PTR-YC process. The chapter also provides five specific steps for engaging parents. The appendix of this chapter introduces the reader to four fictitious case examples that are based on the authors’ actual experiences. Each subsequent chapter is similar to the “Families” chapter in that they include an overview of the chapter topic(s), steps to complete the process (including presentation of relevant forms), and an appendix of the four early childhood case studies that are continued from the previous chapter, including completed forms for each of the case examples. This provides readers with four complete case examples of the PTR-YC process embedded throughout the chapter appendices.
The final appendix at the end of the book provides general strategies for prevention (Appendix A), teaching (Appendix B), and reinforcement interventions (Appendix C). The prevent intervention appendix is composed of seven “common, evidence-based interventions that can be used in preschool classroom settings . . . for the prevent component of PTR-YC” (p. 159). A consistent organization is followed for presenting each of the seven strategies. First, the strategy is listed and described, next a rationale is presented, then steps for implementing the strategy across routines (e.g., arrival/dismissal, small group, large group, transition) are shared. The last sections consist of implementation considerations and supporting evidence (i.e., peer-reviewed studies). Following the same format as Appendix A, six “teach” interventions are presented in Appendix B, and four reinforcement interventions are presented in Appendix C.
Critique
The chapters are well written and include a balance of informational content with research citations as well as specific actions to complete the process and examples appropriate for a broad audience. The text is clear, precise, and interesting; it contains a nice balance of information: research, personal, and case examples to enhance readability while maintaining objectivity. The layout is user-friendly, and the margins are large enough for a reader to take notes if desired. The authors clearly state their guiding beliefs and assumptions as well as the research foundation for the PTR-YC approach in the introduction. The inclusion of definitions of key terms at the end of the first chapter increases readability for those less familiar with some behavioral terminology. Each chapter is clearly organized with headings, bullet points, relevant forms, highlighted text boxes, and summaries. The consistent format of the chapters makes them easy to follow, and the authors include helpful additional information such as “implementer’s tips,” suggestions for beginners (e.g., working in a team first and then having experts fade their support), strategies for problem solving, and key points to remember that review main points concisely. The chapter appendices include additional relevant descriptive information for each sample case as well as completed sample forms from each chapter. The inclusion of the same four early childhood student case examples at the end of each chapter highlights how the information from the chapter applies to each of the four cases, allowing a succinct presentation of the chapter content while providing four different examples of the complete PTR-YC process.
The authors successfully meet their stated goal of providing a resource for individuals working with young children engaging in challenging behaviors in the preschool setting. The content clearly draws from the fields of applied behavior analysis and positive behavior support, while embedding context that ensures the model is developmentally appropriate for young children. The authors present peer-reviewed research as evidence in the introduction of the text, and their presentation of research references in the intervention appendices is especially helpful. In fact, the intervention appendices are a very strong aspect of this text. Even for readers (such as caregivers or center teachers) who may not be implementing all aspects of the PTR-YC model independently, all practitioners are likely to value the interventions presented according to each of the components (i.e., prevent, teach, reinforce) of the model. Practitioners are likely to benefit from the organized presentation of each intervention: the strategy, description, steps, target routine, considerations (special and implementation), as well as the research evidence to support the strategy. Another strength of the text is the inclusion of reproducible forms on a CD-ROM. It is especially helpful that the forms and examples of how they can be used to support the PTR-YC process are integrated throughout the book. In addition to the user-friendly nature of the forms, this integrated presentation increases the likelihood that readers will understand how the forms can be used throughout the process. Lastly, even though the PTR-YC model and book is geared toward preschool settings, practitioners in primary elementary school settings may also find much of the book’s content helpful and relevant.
One challenge in writing a text that provides information, a model, and resources for implementing a specific procedure for supporting students with challenging behaviors in the early childhood setting is the unique backgrounds and variability in training of those working in this setting (both those specialists likely to be supporting caregivers and the caregivers themselves). The authors have attempted a lofty task of ensuring that the content is precise while approachable, but the true complexity of the functional behavior assessment and intervention development process will leave some readers without a clear understanding of the information and process. In particular, the chapter on data collection is probably “light” for more advanced readers (focusing on frequency counts as the primary data collection method) and too complex for novice readers (including multiple dimensions of behaviors and briefly mentioning rating scales). Therefore, anyone using this book for training should probably be prepared to supplement with either more advanced procedures for specialists and/or additional opportunities for novices to ask questions and obtain practice.
Although we believe that this type of text is somewhat unique to the early childhood context, it is likely that there is a significant overlap with the companion book, Prevent Teach Reinforce: The School Based Model of Individualized Positive Behavior Support, also first authored by Glen Dunlap. Of course, early childhood educators will appreciate the customized approach for their setting and the inclusion of existing early childhood research at the time of publication, but additional research and resources (e.g., companion videos for data collection practice) unique for the early childhood setting could be included in future editions. In addition, the authors briefly reference the importance of positive classroom climate and tiered systems of prevention and intervention support. Even though these concepts are increasingly understood in the school-age setting, there are still many misconceptions and much misinformation. Furthermore, tiered approaches and effective classroom behavior support practices are rarer in early childhood, which may necessitate an increased emphasis in texts devoted to this setting.
One observation when referencing the school-age text compared with the young child version is that different terms are sometimes used to refer to the same constructs. For example, in the PTR-YC text, “PTR-YC Intervention” is used rather than the term “Behavior Intervention Plan” used in the school text. This slightly different language is likely an attempt to increase the appropriateness for the young child audience, but this may inadvertently create confusion for interventionists or others who support students in preschool and school-age settings as well as those who plan transitions and navigate both settings. The authors sometimes use parenthetical reference to help readers make the connection between the differences in language use—for example, “PTR-YC Assessment (Functional Behavior Assessment)”—but it is possible that the synonymous terms could have been used across settings without alienating the early childhood audience. Because texts like this are likely to be used to supplement pre- and in-service training models, it might be helpful to consider additions such as review questions and/or scenarios with workspace for readers to practice transferring information into sample forms (rather than the forms already filled out for all four case examples as in the current edition). The authors could consider creating an instructor’s guide with supplemental resources and activities for advanced trainers/implementers.
In summary, the PTR-YC is a well-written and useful text that provides an important research-based foundation for supporting positive behavior change for young children with chronic challenging behaviors. This text and its companion CD-ROM of forms is likely to be a nice supplementary text for those teaching courses in behavior assessment and intervention as well as trainers in practice. Not only can instructors use the content in the text, but they also have access to blank forms that can be used for training and implementation of the procedures. Many professional groups who work in early childhood settings (e.g., school psychologists, teachers, behavior specialists, counselors) are likely to benefit from the content and approach provided.