Contextual Fit

Description

Since the early 1990s, contextual fit has emerged as a key consideration in the development of behavioral interventions and supports for persons who engage in problem behavior in home, school, and community settings. Contextual fit is defined as the extent to which the elements of a behavior support plan are consistent with the values, skills, resources, and administrative support of those individuals who must implement the plan. A behavior support plan is said to possess good contextual fit, or to be contextually appropriate, when key implementers and other stakeholders (e.g., target student, parents, teachers, administrators) identify the procedures in the plan as acceptable, doable, effective, and sustainable within the implementation settings. The concept of contextual fit emphasizes elements of behavioral intervention that may influence treatment integrity, generalization across settings, and maintenance over time. A behavior support plan that possesses good contextual fit is likely to be implemented with fidelity, used across trained and nontrained settings, and sustainable over a long period of time.

Contextual fit has been developed as a core part of positive behavior support (PBS), a collaborative, assessment-based approach to developing evidencebased and proactive interventions resulting in durable behavioral and quality-of-life outcomes. Within the PBS framework, a behavior specialist works in partnership with key stakeholders to develop a multicomponent behavior support plan based on functional assessment results and customized to the needs and preferences of the focus person. Implicit in this [Page 1230]process is recognition that for any behavior support situation, an array of different support plans can be identified that may achieve the targeted behavioral and lifestyle goals. Contextual fit emphasizes the need to select intervention options that are not only effective but likely to be implemented and sustained.

Behavior support is understood as a long-term process that requires change and adaptation due to natural changes in the target person, key stakeholders, and implementation settings. Contextual fit is a logical extension of this reframing of behavioral support and adds an important dimension to a behavior support plan. The concept of contextual fit emphasizes variables related to implementers and implementation settings. For example, parental values and beliefs may interfere with the implementation of positive reinforcement strategies in the home. A school setting may lack the resources necessary to implement visual support strategies throughout the school day. Contextual fit provides a useful framework for including relevant stakeholder and context variables into the behavior support planning process and has led to a new standard for the design of behavior support plans. Not only is it important to design a technically sound plan, it is equally important to design a plan that is contextually appropriate.

Three sources of variability are relevant to developing behavior support plans that possess a good contextual fit: (a) the focus person who engages in problem behavior and the variables related to his or her problem behavior, (b) the stakeholders who are primary implementers of a behavior support plan or in key supervisory or administrative roles, and (c) the specific settings and larger systems in which behavior interventions and supports are to be used.

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