Including Family Voice in Positive Behavior Support
摘要
Family voice is part of the origin story of the applied science of Positive Behavior Support (PBS). Listening and learning alongside parents and caregivers of individuals with disabilities is in part where PBS practices got their start, as Anne Turnbull and her family, among others, integrated personal and professional experiences to pioneer family-centered PBS (Turnbull et al., 2011). Originally, PBS practices were developed to support families who had children with developmental disabilities and challenging behaviors through an approach focused primarily on improving quality of life, with reduction of problem behaviors as a valuable side effect (Lucyshyn et al., 2002). Family members were leaders of the process rather than passive participants or recipients of the intervention. Family voice continues to be an important element to enhance contextual fit, social validity, and overall success of PBS practices, although it seems that this concept is not as central to home and school applications as it once was.