Behavioral Literacy – A Theoretical Approach

Many children show a behavior, with regards to certain values or belief systems, in specific social situations, in specific social institutions that are labeled as "inappropriate". These youth are the focus of our concept. Our aim is to figure out whether the reason for the inadequate attitude towards social interactions might have to do with certain aspects we summarize in the construct of Behavioral Literacy. These factors include normative frames of social situations and social institutions, skills to act properly in those situations, the ability to perform a transfer, or the motivation to "fit in". We need to learn more about the background of the inappropriate behavior of children and adolescents in specific social situations to help them to succeed in an inclusive setting. In order to get this information, we started a project called "Behavioral Literacy". It is our understanding that the phenomenon "Behavioral Literacy" has to do with multidimensional factors such as rules, norms, situations, behavior of oneself and of others, and of the frames those factors are related to. Till now there have been several pilot and explorative studies. The first results indicate that some children and juveniles simply don't know about the demands of specific social situations and/ or social institutions. We need more knowledge driven by research results and we plan to expand our efforts. All over the world, adolescents with severe problems behave or act behaviorally literate in social situations. In this article we will describe in detail our preliminary theoretical framework of the concept "behavioral literacy". Before we conceptualize further studies we would like to share our great interest in this topic with colleagues in different countries.