STAR Approach

What is the STAR Approach?

The STAR approach was designed to address what are described as distressed behaviours or Physically Aggressive Behaviour (PAB) in settings. The approach recognises that all behaviour is communication and acknowledges the importance of identifying triggers to develop solutions.

The STAR approach involves several interrelated strategies:

• ‘Unlearning’ an appropriate behaviour that is preventing the current behaviour from achieving positive results for the child and finding a way of communicating to the child that the behaviour is unacceptable.
• Often, distressed or Physically Aggressive behaviours (PAB) are unacceptable ways of achieving quite acceptable outcomes (e.g. the child screams because he wants a toy another child has taken from him, or the child hits others to get attention). Often, the child does not have the right skills for achieving these outcomes (e.g. hits because they don’t have the language skills to gain attention in a verbal way). Therefore, it may be necessary to teach acceptable alternative behaviours which achieve the same outcomes for the child as the behaviour you want to This can be done by finding ways of encouraging any existing appropriate behaviours which he or she does not use much and Teaching new skills.
• It may be necessary to find ways of helping a child with a personal problem (e.g. earache, illness, side- effects of medication, emotional upset).
• Often, it helps if we can change any aspects of the environment and routines which may be contributing to the occurrence of the behaviour (e.g. room is too crowded, too much noise, too many distractions).

The STAR approach offers a mix of principles and strategies and involves analysis and intervention at the following levels:

Gathering the information

The first crucial step is to clearly describe observable behaviours which are causing concern (the target behaviour). This maybe an individual behaviour, a cluster or sequence of behaviours.

Observations and discussions with parents/carers and key workers are used to gather information to help explore and understand the function of the child’s behaviour. This is explored by looking at what the behaviour appears to achieve/gain for the child and/or the triggers which seem to set it off.

The STAR observation chart has four columns headed Settings, Triggers, Actions and Results. There are also columns for Date and Time. Each time the target behaviour occurs you should note the situation at the time and the context (Setting), what occurred just before the behaviour (Trigger) and what happened just after (Results) as well as the behaviour itself (Action). Please download template below.

Understanding the information

In addition to use the table above, it is helpful to use the discussions and observations of the child to also develop a strengths list (Zarkowska and Clements, 1994).

A list of strengths should show:

• the child’s skills and relative strengths in their development tracker
• the child’s preferences and strong motivators
• the conditions which evoke positive behaviour from the child
• the conditions in which the child learns

The next step is to arrive at a formulation or an understanding of what the behaviour is communicating, or the function it has for the child. This will include details about:

• the behaviour(s) that cause concern
• the results the behaviour appears to achieve
• apparent triggers for the behaviour
• environmental triggers (things that happen in the environment around the child)
• skills the child needs support to develop which will reduce reliance on current behaviours to communicate or meet their needs (e.g. language, emotional expression, play skills, motor skills).

The download below provides a template for recording the STAR process of information gathering and analysis.

Creating a support plan

Targets should be set based on the skills the child needs as identified through the STAR process. Targets need to be SMART targets (i.e. they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-related). The management of behaviour usually involves support at several levels. First, focus on changing the results of behaviour/s, so less wanted behaviours are discouraged and alternative behaviours are encouraged and rewarded. This often requires support to teach and help the child practice the new skills needed to engage in the appropriate behaviour. Risk factors are reduced by being aware of the triggers and being able to avoid these where possible, until the child has better developed skills, or put extra support in place or respond at an earlier stage when triggers can’t be avoided.

It is important to involve the child’s family at all stages and involve them in reviews of the child’s support plan, highlighting and celebrating small steps of progress and achievements as they occur.

References

Clements, J. and Zarkowska, E. (2000) Behavioural Concerns and Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Explanations and Strategies for Change London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Zarkowska, E. and Clements, J. (1994) Problem Behaviour and People with Severe Learning Disabilities: the S.T.A.R. Approach. London: Chapman and Hall. 2nd Edition.