The Tip of the Iceberg - A Deep Dive into Understanding and Addressing Behaviors

As SLPs, we often encounter challenging behaviors in our sessions, and it's tempting to address them with traditional compliance based strategies. Hello sticker charts!

But what if I told you there's a better way? One with no rewards or punishments. 

When I started viewing behavior as just the tip of the iceberg and began looking more at what lies beneath the surface, everything changed for me. 

So let’s put on our scuba gear, dive deep into the icy waters of “managing behavior”, and explore why looking beneath the surface, beyond the tip of the behavior iceberg, can revolutionize the way we approach behavior in our practice.

The Research Behind the Behavior Iceberg:

I was first introduced to idea that we should view behavior as an iceberg after reading the book Beyond Behaviors by pediatric Psychologist, Mona Delahooke. Her concept of the behavior iceberg provides a valuable metaphor. Just like an iceberg, where only a small portion is visible above the waterline, behaviors are merely the surface manifestations of deeper, underlying issues. When we only address the behavior, we are not getting to the root cause of what is causing the behavior to occur. 

Beyond "Managing Behaviors":

Shifting our mindset from merely "managing behaviors" to understanding and addressing the root causes is a game-changer. Instead of focusing on surface-level interventions, we should strive to uncover the reasons behind the behaviors. 

Effective Strategies for Understanding & Addressing Behaviors:

Once we start looking beneath the surface and we know why the behavior is occurring, we can start using strategies to address what we are seeing in our sessions. And no, I don’t mean sticker charts! Instead we can start looking at the child’s sensory needs, emotional regulation, anxiety levels, etc to help the child be more comfortable in our sessions. 

As SLPs, embracing the concept of the behavior iceberg allows us to shift our focus from surface-level management to profound understanding of the behaviors we are seeing in our sessions.

If you want more information on how I address behavior in my sessions, check out this episode of my live show, Making the Shift, Episode 57: Why We Shouldn’t Manage Behavior & What To Do Instead.