RTI and the Behavior – Response to What Intervention? (Part II) (CEC's RTI Blog )

By Doug Cheney, University of Washington, Seattle

In my last posting, I reviewed features of Tier 1 Universal prevention programs and then gave a few examples of assessment procedures for students who may need a Tier 2 behavioral intervention. I gave the example of Jered, who either may have had a few (3) office discipline referrals (ODR) or may have met the criteria/cut line on a behavioral screener. In either case, a behavioral support team (BST) could have enrolled Jered in a Tier 2 intervention. This lead to my final question on October 16: “What Tier 2 interventions might we use with Jered?”

Tier 2 interventions are typically considered to be easily accessible, evidence-based, systems-based approaches. Let's break that statement down. First, easy access refers to an approach that teachers can be confident is available and practiced on an ongoing basis within their school. Too often, teachers complain that when students are having difficulty, their BST asks them to conduct further assessments and observations. They are asked to complete behavior scales, schedule appointments with the school counselor, or complete more forms and return to the team in a few weeks. Then, the team may ask for further information, the teacher may leave feeling frustrated from the lack of support, and Jered is still having daily behavioral difficulties in the classroom. If a student meets the criteria for a Tier 2 intervention, s/he should be able to access Tier 2 support within 1-2 weeks in an efficiently running systems-based approach.

How is this possible? In systems-based approaches, evidence-based practices find a home within the school and are just as easily accessed as daily recess, physical education class, or a meeting with the school counselor. Some of the most often cited evidence-based approaches for students who are at risk of school failure due to their behavior are: (a) increased supervision and monitoring; (b) engagement with positive, mentoring adults; (c) clear daily social goals; (d) social skill instruction to assure social goals are met; (e) redirection during misbehavior and prompting of desired behavior; (f) reinforcement for meeting daily social goals; (g) self-monitoring of behavior by competent students; and (h) school-family communication and coordination of programs. At this point, you may wonder how these can all be put into an efficient, accessible, and systems-based approach? Let’s finish with one example based on some of the seminal work conducted by Sinclair, Christensen, and colleagues (http://ici.umn.edu/checkandconnect/) and Hawken and colleagues (see references).

These interventions have been used in the general case for Tier 2 work and been more specific and individualized for students in Tier 3 interventions. Here’s an example with the evidence-based approach in parentheses. When Jered and others begin such programs, they are given a daily behavior report card that states the school’s social expectations and has a 3-4 point rating scale for feedback on the expectations and is completed throughout the day (supervision, monitoring, social goals). A coach/mentor meets with Jered daily at the beginning and end of the day to review the goals, makes sure he can use appropriate social skills and has materials, and sets and checks daily goals (engagement, social skills, monitoring, feedback). Teachers and other adults then give Jered a rating on his performance at the end of each period in middle/high school or after every major activity in elementary school (reading, math, lunch; redirection, prompting, feedback). At the end of the day, the mentor/coach meets briefly with Jered, tallies points earned, and provides either verbal reinforcement, encouragement for improvement, or, when meeting longer-term goals, other social or tangible reinforcement. Jered then takes a copy of the daily report card home to share with his/her parents, family member, or guardian (reinforcement, feedback, communication with parents/families).

In this example, most of the evidence-based approaches are packaged into a systems-based approach that is efficiently delivered on a daily basis. In my next posts, I’ll discuss progress monitoring within Tier 2 interventions and outcomes reported from this approach. With that, I’ll leave you with a few citations for your reference, and I’ll look for your comments about this Tier 2 approach.

References

Crone, D.A., Horner, R.H., & Hawken, L.S. (2004). Responding to problem behavior in the schools: The behavior education program. NY: Guilford.

Hawken, L.S. (2006). School psychologists as leaders in the implementation of a targeted intervention: The behavior education program. School Psychology Quarterly, 21, 91-111.

Ryan, J., Pierce, C. & Mooney, P. (2008). Evidence-based teaching strategies for students with EBD. Beyond Behavior, 17(3), 22-29.

Sinclair, M. F., Christenson, S. L., Evelo, D. L., & Hurley, C. M. (1998). Dropout prevention for high-risk youth with disabilities: Efficacy of a sustained school engagement procedure. Exceptional Children, 65 (1), 7-21.

Sinclair, M. F., Christenson, S. L., & Thurlow, M. (2005). Promoting school completion of urban secondary youth with emotional or behavioral disabilities. Exceptional Children, 71, 465-482.

Comments

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I really liked your list of 8 tier 2 behavior interventions offered in this blog Doug. When you mentioned in a prior posting that Jered's last few fights had been on the playground, my first thought was to increase supervision - but this shows that there are many options. The PBIS project in my state (www.pbisaz.org) recommends many of these same interventions.

Another resource for specific evidence-based interventions is the April 2008 issue of Beyond Behavior, published by the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (available online for members at www.ccbd.net). An article by Joseph Ryan lists a ton of great tier 2 and tier 3 interventions to help manage behavior problems in school.

Posted by: Daniel Gulchak | October 27, 2008 at 01:14 AM

This Practice Guide, released by IES in September 2008, aims to help educators develop and implement prevention and intervention strategies that promote positive student behavior. The focus is building a plan so that education can be improved for individual students who might have behavior issues and the classroom as a whole. The guide presents recommendations and indicates the quality of the research base that supports them. It includes common questions and potential concerns that might arise with each recommendation and suggestions to help alleviate those concerns. Technical details about the studies that were used to generate the recommendations are also presented.

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Liza

Drug Intervention

Posted by: Account Deleted | March 09, 2009 at 03:56 AM