STRUCTURED FREE-PLAY TO REDUCE DISRUPTIVE ACTIVITY CHANGES IN A HEAD-START CLASSROOM

An intervention was developed to decrease the number of inappropriate activity changes in a Head Start classroom. In addition, this enabled children the opportunity to play in previously unused areas during fre e-play. The intervention was an adaptation of ''switching'' and respon se cost systems involving multiple components that stressed rule-gover ned behavior. A timer was used to signal the end of a play interval an d time to clean up. As long as students followed the rules in the prev ious interval, they had a chance to choose an activity from a special area for the next interval. If classroom rules were not followed, a le ss desirable alternative activity was chosen from among those typicall y available during the next interval. Measurement of the rate of activ ity changes was taken for 2 target children and comparison children. T he intervention was able to reduce inappropriate activity changes by a dding relatively unobtrusive classroom structure to activities.