Schoolwide positive behavioral support for improving the social skills and reducing the problem behavior of students with special needs in a secondary school: Action research

The aim of this research is to increase the social skills, develop peer relations and social acceptence by reducing problem behaviors of students with special needs through schoolwide positive behavioral support and primary and secondary positive behavioral support interventions in a secondary school. The participants of the research are students, teachers, school staff, administrators, families and the researcher. The research is an action research. In the situation determination process, it was aimed to determine the social skills, problem behaviours of students with special needs through data describing the problem situations encountered at school. In the application stage, the action plan prepared with various collaborations for the problems determined in the situation determination process was applied. Some of the primary interventions realized include determining the school-wide problems, visualizing the rules and establishing reinforcement systems. Within the secondary intervention, Check-in Check-out was applied. In the post-application process, data were collected to determine the changes on the participants of the interventions carried out during the application stage. The findings of the research showed an increase in the social skill levels of the students with special needs and at risk who received education in a mainstreaming environment with application of schoolwide positive behavioral support, a decrease in their problem behavior levels and that their peer relationships improved positively.