Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS)

PBIS stands for Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports.  It is a framework for defining, teaching, and sustaining student behaviors across school settings (Kincaid, Childs, Blasé, & Wallace, 2007; Turnbull, et al., 2002).  PBIS is meant to prevent or reduce challenging behaviors in order to produce positive outcomes. The focus is on positive reinforcement for desired behavior and less on problem behavior.

According to Brusnahan and Gatti (2008), there are three basic assumptions of PBIS:

1. Identifying and teaching expected behaviors.
2. Reinforcing and rewarding expected behaviors.
3. Enforcing consistent meaningful consequences when violations of the expected behavior occur.