Contigency Maps
Why you need these in your special education life
Contingency maps are a great visual tool that we use in special education to show various consequences to behaviour (positive consequences or negative consequences). Contingency maps are all over my classroom, and serves as a guide and help to students in all kinds of different situations.
Keep reading below for some different ideas on how to incorporate a contingency map into your day, based on the specific needs of your students.
The first way you can use this strategy is with this color coded technique. In order to be able to do this you need to know what the function of the negative behaviour is. That’s the only way you would know what to put in the black box above. For this student, we were noticing a lot of hair putting and screaming, and we used our data collection to note that the function of that behaviour (what that student was trying to get out of that behaviour) was the attention or conversation with a peer or adult. Once we found that information, we were better able to make a plan of action of positive ways to get that persons attention, and negative ways. The goal is for students to WANT to make the green choices, because ultimately it would make them happier in the end.
Tip: Use symbols or visuals where needed
Boardmaker Online is a great place to start for universal visuals. It’s a great tool to use to bring visuals into your programming. Your school district may give you access to board-maker, or you can purchase your own licensing. There are some other licensing to keep in mind if you are going to use board-maker visuals within your digital products though, so beware of that.
You can use a contingency map for anything and everything. You can target all behaviours. Remember to think positively, rather than thinking about how you can reduce the negative behaviour, think about how you can increase the positive behaviour that you want to target. This way you are approaching your classroom from a position of strengths based, rather than deficit based. In my experience, this way tends to fare better for all as well.
If you want more information, come find me on instagram or tik tok– I share a ton of daily videos and learnings there as well.
