Attention seeking behaviors tend to occur frequently in young children. From screaming, crying, throwing, temper tantrums, pinching, and pushing, there are a variety of ways a child will try to get the attention of an adult. This is even more accurate when working with nonverbal children who may be unable to communicate their wants and needs effectively. They have learned that the best way to gain attention from others is to engage in problem behaviors. That’s why we at Steinberg Behavior Solutions believe if faced with attention seeking behavior, and a therapist’s assessments has corroborated an attention seeking function, the following three techniques may be helpful in teaching new behaviors that result in positive attention.
Reduce Motivation
First, it will be necessary to reduce the child’s motivation to engage in attention maintained problem behavior by providing a lot of positive attention during periods when they are engaging in appropriate behavior. This could include positive praise, high fives, tickles, or sitting with the child and talking with them for short period. This simple process of providing much more attention throughout the day will help to prevent the problem behaviors from occurring in the first place. One procedure that is helpful is to set a timer for a specified amount of time, and ensure that attention is provided each time the timer goes off.
Withhold Attention
Secondly, ensure that the attention seeking behaviors no longer results in access to an adult’s attention. This means that when the behavior occurs, those in the child’s surroundings (e.g. teachers, therapists, other students) have been instructed to not respond to attention seeking behaviors. This often means not doing the following when behaviors occur: providing reactions, reprimanding, lecturing, asking them what is wrong, or taking them aside to talk with them. Withholding attention typically looks like an adult pivoting their attention away from the child and attending to something different (e.g., another child, another task such as a book, phone, etc.). When the child calms down, we pivot back and provide high quality attention. When utilizing this procedure, the basic rule is to reinforce appropriate behaviors as frequently as possible with attention, while ensuring that the inappropriate behavior does not result in attention.
Offer Alternatives
Finally, it is important to teach the child more appropriate behaviors that result in positive attention. More suitable behavior that could be taught includes tapping someone one the shoulder, raising their hands, presenting an “attention” card to caregivers, or using a hand sign to request attention. As with the other aspects of the intervention discussed above, it will be important to emphasize that the appropriate behavior results in access to attention, while the problem behavior does not result in access to attention.
Negative attention seeking behaviors grow and foster because when they are used, whether it is all the time or some of the time, they result in attention from others. They are also the most frequently observed behaviors in children with disabilities. By reducing the student’s motivation to engage in this type of conduct, withholding reinforcement for inappropriate behaviors, and teaching new skills that result in attention, attention seeking behaviors will reduce in frequency and severity. The final result will be that the more appropriate behaviors will begin to increase in the child.