Each course in the Behavior Support Specialist Certificate Program is designed to be completed in four months, although participants are provided the freedom to work more quickly or slowly. Participants who work quickly and accurately may move to the next course as soon as they are ready. Participants with special circumstances may be permitted to take up to six months to complete a single course.
Instructional materials for each Lesson are included in a textbook Functional Behavioral Assessment and Function-Based Intervention and as part of online activities. Each Lesson has an Assignment in which the participant is required to demonstrate understanding and application of the principles included in that Lesson.

Knowledge is cumulative from Lesson to Lesson and across Courses. Each Lesson builds on previous information and Assignments require incorporation of previously learned skills. Lessons are mastery-based. Participants must demonstrate competence in, and application of, each concept before they can move to the next Lesson or to the next Course.


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Course 1:
Introduction to Positive Behavior Support, grounds participants in the basic behavioral principles and techniques needed to successfully complete effective Functional Behavior Assessments (FBA), function-based interventions, and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIP). Competencies include: defining and measuring behavior, principles of reinforcement, teaching new behavior, weakening behavior, and identifying antecedents. In the final six lessons, participants complete an FBA, develop an intervention based on the results, and design a BIP. The intervention is designed using a straight forward decision model and questioning technique that we have successfully taught to hundreds of behavior support personnel over the past 6 years.

Course 2:
Extending Positive Behavioral Support addresses environmental factors that affect student behavior and continues to develop competency in FBAs, function-based interventions, and effective BIPs. Competencies address classroom organization, effective instruction, social skills instruction, ethical issues, generalization/maintenance, School-wide Positive Behavioral Support (SWPBS), and factors that affect effectiveness (including social validity and treatment integrity). Participants complete a second FBA, develop and test a function-based intervention, complete a BIP, implement and monitor the intervention, and make data-based decisions about whether to continue or revise the intervention based on their data.

Course 3:
Implementing Positive Behavior Support addresses other factors that can affect development and implementation of interventions. Competencies focus on legal issues, crisis intervention, and teaming and collaboration issues. Participants complete two FBAs and develop and monitor two function-based interventions and BIPs.