Behaviour Intervention Planning
Outcomes and Perfomance Objectives: Explanation of Critical Component
Student Specific Outcomes 
The concept of student specific outcomes is well defined in the Individual Educational Planning: A Handbook for Developing and Implementing IEPs and in some of the materials provided on the Individual Educational Plan Resource site. They are defined as "outcomes that address individual needs. This is accomplished by writing outcomes with a child's current level of performance in mind. The scope and degree of specificity varies according to the needs of the child."
When developing Behaviour Intervention Plans, the team identifies an overall purpose for the plan and programming needs. This includes system needs, social-learning needs and personal/emotional needs. The outcomes should be consistent with the purpose of the plan and should result in behaviours that address system needs. For example, if a system need is for the child to stop biting other students, one outcome will be a reduction in biting or an increase in acceptable behaviours that replace biting. If the purpose is for the child to experience positive social interactions, the reduction in biting should be consistent with this.
When developing student specific outcomes it is helpful for the team to keep some general guidelines in mind. Whenever possible, the team should:
- Focus on what the child will attain, not on what s/he will eliminate. For example, the team may decide they want the child to quit fighting with other children. However, the answer to the question "what will replace the fighting?" requires some understanding of the purpose of the fighting. If it occurs to handle conflict, then the team may decide that the child will demonstrate verbal problem-solving strategies. If it occurs when the child feels threatened or overwhelmed, then the team may decide that the child will develop ways of recognizing the early signs of stress and remove him/herself from the situation. Our social-learning needs often define what these replacement behaviours will be since they include the skills we want to teach the child.
- Involve the child in the process of identifying outcomes. An outcome that fits with the child's view of what s/he needs is more likely to be attained and maintained than one that is decided without his/her involvement. Sometimes this is not attainable until the child has some sense of hope and some trust in him/herself and the adults who provide care. In this case, the "involvement of the child in planning" might become an outcome measure.
- Use the SMART criteria discussed in the IEP document and Individual Educational Plan Resource when developing outcomes. The acronym SMART is explained below using a table that is found in the IEP Tool Box.
Effective Student Specific Outcomes are:
Specific: written in clear, unambiguous
language
Measurable: allow student achievement to be
described, assessed, and evaluated
Achievable: realistic for the student
Relevant: meaningful for the student
Time-related: can be accomplished within a specific
period, typically one school year
Performance Objectives
Individual Educational Planning: A handbook for developing and implementing IEPs and Individual Educational Plan Resource site suggest that performance objectives are accomplished in a shorter time period (typically six to eight weeks). They provide greater detail as to the what, where, and how of instruction and assessment.
Steps in writing performance objectives include:- identifying essential components involved in achieving the student specific outcome
- organizing the components into sequences where appropriate
- writing the performance objectives. Performance objectives describe what the student will do, the conditions under which learning will occur, and the criteria for assessment and evaluation, and give an anticipated date of completion.
When addressing student specific outcomes that address social-learning needs, developing performance objectives can be helpful in breaking complex tasks into manageable teaching strategies. The team must keep in mind that social learning needs, although easy to identify, are quite difficult to teach. Team members who have some expertise in task analysis may provide the team with needed expertise. The team should also keep in mind that social-learning skills are taught by the social environment we create, not just by formal programs.
Addressing personal/emotional needs are one of the keys to helping children function within school environments. The team may plan to slowly remove some of the initial supports as the child learns more effective ways of dealing with his/her environment and begins to develop some sense of trust and hope. Performance objectives may be used to identify a systematic way to carefully remove these supports. The team should keep in mind that a child who responds to such supports may require them for an extended period of time. Given the extensive trauma and failure some children have experienced, removal should occur very slowly to allow positive experience to accumulate and normal social supports to develop.
Team Thinking for Sample BIP 
Return to Sample BIP 
