The effectiveness of school-wide positive behavior support model in early childhood

The behaviors of a child in his childhood are the basis of his behavior and social development of the later years. For this reason, it is extremely important to support children's appropriate behaviors and social skills and to extinguish problem behaviors at early stage as possible as. Therefore, researchers are in search of effective evidence-based interventions to deal with problem behaviors of children. There have been many early childhood special education programs on problem behaviors and social skills, but among these programs the "Positive Behavior Support (PBS)" approach seems to be the most widespread intervention program since 2000s. PBS aims to increase the quality of life of the child by making positive changes in the environment of the child, the education system, and the educators' attitudes and to encourage the child to behave positively and reward the positive behaviors of the child. On the other hand, "School-Wide Positive Behavior Support" is the planning and implementing of these applications within the scope of PBS in a whole school environment. The purpose of this study, exploring the effectiveness of school-wide positive behavior support model on problem behaviors and social skills in early childhood. The intervention was carried out in four main stages and 14 steps. The study was conducted with the school managers, teachers, staff, primary caregivers and all children with and without disabilities in an independent preschool/kindergarten in Eskisehir. The research is a mixed method research, designed as a single group pretest and posttest experimental research model. Since quantitative and qualitative data were collected at the same time in the research process, the "parallel convergent research" models of mixed method research has been adopted. The quantitative and qualitative findings of the study shows that significant decreases in the problem behaviors of children with and without disabilities and increases in the social skills level. Keyword: Behavioral problem, Emotional and behavioral disorder, Positive behavioral support, School wide positive behavioral support, School wide positive behavioral support in early childhood.