Georgia PBS Interventions - Florida's Positive Behavior Support ...

Time OutTime out was originally designed as “time out” from reinforcement. This meant that the child wouldnot be receiving reinforcing input from the environment in the way of attention or access to materials.Sadly, it has become an exclusionary practice because when a child misbehaves this is what we want todo to them:The child misbehaves and we want them out of there. Many times, this is exactly what the childwanted. Time out should not be an exclusionary practice. Time out should mean time away fromsomething fun. Many of the schools I have visited, time out is a room down the hall (sometimes thesize of a closet) with a locking door.The rule of thumb for time out is one minute for every year of age of the child. I have been in schoolsat 8:00 in the morning and left at 2:30 hearing the same child screaming from time out the entire timeI was in the building. This is the activity we want to avoid.For students with more severe disabilities, time out could just be refraining from smiling or makingsocial interaction with the child for five minutes. Time out could be removing a preferred reinforcerfor three minutes.I’ve actually overheard conversations between educators and children with emotional behaviordisorders. The conversations sounded like this:Adult: “Do you want me to drop you to the floor and take you time out?”Child: (calmly) “Yes.”Adult: “If you don’t go to Reading Class, I’ll have to drop you to the floor and take you to time out.”Child: (calmly) “Okay.”Adult: (drops child who had it together to the floor and gets another adult to help transport the childto time out about 75 feet down the hallway.)Would it not have been better to find out why the child didn’t want to go to Reading Class in the firstplace? Because I’m a curious person, I discovered that the young lady didn’t want to go to ReadingClass that day because she had just broken up with her boyfriend and he was in Reading Class. A littleempathy would have gone a long way in relationship building that day.The isolation room idea is supposed to be a voluntary place where children can go to calm themselvesdown when they need a little time to themselves. A bean bag in the corner of the room would be justas effective if it were used properly.Positive Interventions and Effective Strategies Riffel -© 2005 - 93 -