What is Positive Behaviour Support?
Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is an individualised and comprehensive approach that parents and carers can use to guide children towards new ways to behave. The approach makes challenging behaviour that negatively affects children or other people less likely to happen because it removes things that trigger, encourage or reward that behaviour. It also helps children learn new behaviour to replace the challenging behaviour.
Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is for anyone with behaviour challenges, including autistic children. The approach can also be used with people with intellectual, learning, developmental and social challenges.
Addressing Challenging Behaviour with Positive Behaviour Support
Challenging behaviour includes internalised (e.g. being withdrawn, non compliant, inhibited) and/or externalised (e.g. aggressive, destructive, anti-social) behaviour that is perceived to be socially or culturally undesirable in a specific context by the person and/or the environment, and is of such an intensity, frequency or duration that it is detrimental, stressful or harmful for the person and/or the social environment. Simply ignoring the challenging emotional and behaviour responses does not make them disappear and, in many cases, the behaviours become more extreme and firmly entrenched the longer they remain unaddressed. They also have a range of negative impacts for the individual.
