PBIS is Just ABA with a Nicer-Sounding Name

Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports are no better

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PBIS and disabilities

A recent piece I published challenged PBIS’ claims that their programs are helpful and effective for supporting students with disabilities. At the end of that article, I promised to tackle PBIS and student mental health next, so here I am fulfilling my promise. If you haven’t read my previous articles on PBIS, I recommend doing that first. Enjoy!

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PBIS and student mental health

Another PBIS flyer claims “PBIS Improves Student & Adult Mental Health and Wellbeing”. It’s important to note that both of this flyer and the one on disabilities are one page long, but nearly identical. The actual information pertaining to the claims made in the titles is extremely minimal.

Screen shot provided by author from PBIS.org

The only differences are the three images and captions at the bottom of the flyer.

Screen shot provided by author from PBIS.org

Of the six references listed, three are circular references to other publications on their own website, one is the exact same previously-used reference about the economic benefit of implementing PBIS, and only one citation actually relates to student mental health.

The one source which PBIS uses to support their claim of improving mental health was actually a study of both the Interconnected Systems Framework and PBIS, and the only conclusion it made about PBIS was that it reduced office disciplinary referrals (I’ll come back to ISF in a moment).

The reduction in ODRs is a consistent finding, in part, because a core component of the PBIS model is the establishment of a system to track, monitor, and use ODR data. The PBIS program insists schools track ODRs, but has no requirement for schools to track indicators of student wellbeing.

A single 2022 study claiming to demonstrate that PBIS improves social-emotional functioning and prosocial behavior was based entirely on teacher ratings of student behaviours, which, as mentioned previously, are notoriously unreliable.