Presession pairing is an antecedent intervention that has shown to decrease problem behavior of elementary school children with autism, whose problem behavior is maintained by social reinforcement. It has also shown modest increases in academic responding. However, the research on presession pairing has not examined its efficacy or acceptability in the natural classroom setting when implemented by the teacher. Therefore, this study used teacher training and a multiple baseline across participants design to test the potential efficacy of teacher-implemented presession pairing in increasing on-task behavior and reducing problem behavior of four students with problem behavior in inclusive public elementary school classrooms. The results indicated that the presession pairing successfully increased on-task behavior and decreased problem behavior for all participating students. The social validity assessment indicated that the teachers found the presession intervention contextually fit, easy to implement, and effective for all students in the classroom.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 163 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-126).

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a source of diagnostic and intervention confusion and uncertainty for practitioners and parents. Questions creating some of the confusion were answered in a series of three studies. The sample was parent and teacher behavioral ratings for 389 children and 502 adolescents with ADHD and 3131 children and 3161 adolescents without ADHD in public and private schools and mental health clinics in forty states. In the first study, data was derived from participant T-scores on the Behavior Assessment System for Children (2nd ed.) to evaluate the construct validity using first and second order factor analyses. Sufficient construct validity was established. In the second study, descriptive discriminant analyses (DDA) and item level ANOVAs were used to investigate whether behaviors that discriminate between the target (i.e., ADHD) and comparison groups were associated with the primary symptoms, comorbid conditions, functional impairment, or some combination of the three. Analyses were completed using subscale T-scores and individual item scores from the target and comparison groups. Results were compared to determine if the behaviors that discriminated between the groups were consistent across developmental stages and between parents and teachers as raters. Primary symptoms, comorbid conditions, and functional impairment explained the variance as rated by parents and teachers. Primary symptoms were found to be the strongest discriminators of children and adolescents as rated by parents. Atypicality explained the largest variance (72.25%) between children and learning problems explained the largest variance (64.32%) between adolescents when rated by teachers. The third study was a literature review of intervention studies to increase the academic performance of youth with ADHD in light of the statistical significance controversy. Fifty-one single subject and group design studies of academic, behavioral, multimodal and parent training were found. Both sides of the statistical significance controversy were summarized. The method of result reporting for 23 group design studies was investigated. Seventy-seven percent of the studies reported results as ?significant? with 26% reporting effect sizes. Researchers are encouraged to report effect sizes and explicitly compare results to previous studies in order to establish replicability for ease of educator interpretation.

Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) is a collaborative, standardized process that was developed as a way to address identified barriers to completing effective functional behavior assessments (FBAs) in public schools. Current research literature documents the effectiveness of the PTR process in decreasing problematic behaviors and increasing social skills and academic engaged time for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. In addition, PTR demonstrates high acceptability by school personnel implementing the process. While PTR has demonstrated success in schools, questions still exist regarding variables that impact the effectiveness of this process. Therefore, the current study investigated the moderating effect of prior teacher training in managing challenging behavior on the effectiveness of the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) process. Data regarding students' social skills, behavior problems, and academic engagement were analyzed through a series of mixed factorial analyses in order to determine the effectiveness of the PTR process. Results indicate that teachers' previous preparation in dealing with behavioral problems did not moderate the effectiveness of PTR, thus indicating that the process is equally beneficial to all teachers. However, time and the implementation of PTR were found to be significant in altering trends in student outcomes. Academic engaged time was found to be significantly altered more frequently than social skills or behavior problems. Implications of the findings for using the PTR process to address problematic student behavior in schools are discussed.

The purpose of this dissertation was to compare two methods of assessing challenging behavior in young children in the home setting and to determine if the two methods could result in the same outcome. Results indicated that there was full correspondence between the two assessment methods for three out of five participants, and among 19 comparisons, 16 agreements were made (84%). Future research should validate latency functional analysis via treatment evaluation with this population. / text

This study examined the effectiveness of a school-based intervention process known as Prevent-Teach-Reinforce for children with a combination of externalizing and internalizing behaviors compared to children with only externalizing behaviors. The dependent variables examined were social skills, problem behaviors, and academic engaged time. Data for the current study were taken from archival data collected by the Florida Mental Health Institute that included students in kindergarten through 8th grade. A series of repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to identify differences in improvement on the dependent variables for the two groups of students. Research questions focused on the main effects as well as interaction effects between the type(s) of behavioral problems displayed (i.e., externalizing only, combination of externalizing and internalizing). Behavior problem classification was determined by calculating students' individual subscale scores on the Social Skills Rating Scale. The current study found support for the use of the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce intervention for children with varying behavioral profiles. Significant improvements were found in social skills, behavioral problems, and academic engaged time for students. Additionally, results of this study indicate that internalizing behaviors did not serve as a moderator to treatment effectiveness for students with externalizing behavior problems who received the PTR intervention. That is, improvements were similar for both groups, demonstrating that PTR is a process that can be used in an equally-effective way for both populations.

This study examined the effectiveness of function-based interventions applied within a school for the deaf. The participants were elementary-aged males diagnosed as deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) who exhibited chronic off-task behaviors throughout the school day. This study was conducted across two phases: (a) a descriptive functional behavior assessment (FBA) was conducted for each participant and (b) individualized function-based interventions were developed based on the results of the FBAs followed by the implementation of the interventions in each classroom using a single-subject, ABAB reversal design. The function-based interventions significantly improved each participant's on-task behavior in his classroom environment. Furthermore, social validity ratings by each teacher revealed that the interventions were effective, easy to implement, and appropriate for each participant. Implications for application of the procedures used in this study with the D/HH population, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to test the construct validity of the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC), Parent and Teacher Rating Scales (PRS and TRS). Six samples were considered, including the Normative General and Clinical Samples for each measure (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992). Another pair of samples were taken from a database of a Georgia hospital (PRS n = 130, TRS n = 108). The Normative Clinical Sample of TRS scores was multicollinear, and was not used.Five models were designed for each measure: a single factor solution, the theoretical model of the BASC, and three adaptations of the scoring system. Using AMOS, these models were fit to the samples. Only the theoretical model met minimum standards for adequate fit. Multi-sample analyses with different combinations of parameter restrictions were conducted to determine which aspects of the theoretical model's factor structure accounted for the most sample variance. When fit to both normative samples of PRS scores, all aspects of the factor solution were found to contribute. For all other runs, it was found that error, unique, and factor variances contributed the most to the factor solution. This suggests that the relationship of variables/scales to the factors/composites in this model could be improved. It is suggested that practitioners disregard composite scores, and that the authors/publishers of the BASC consider using regression weights to formulate composite scores in the scoring program. / Department of Educational Psychology

Thesis (MPsychology(Clinical))--University of South Australia, 2001.

Orientador: Jair Lopes Júnior / Banca: Aline Maria de Medeiros Rodrigues Reali / Banca: Nelson Antonio Pirola / Resumo: A literatura admite a relevância de diferentes modalidades de saberes ou de conhecimentos envolvidos nos processos de aprendizagem profissional da docência. Nesta pesquisa admite-se que repertórios comportamentais que definem a execução de análise funcional descritiva se contituiriam em exemplos de saberes docentes. Esta pesquisa avalia a quisição desta modalidade de saber docente por professoras com distintas formações pedagógicas e que ministram conteúdos de matemática no ensino fundamental. Participaram 2 professoras: P1, licenciada em Matemática (8ª. série) e P2, em Pedagogia (4ª. série). O procedimento foi dividido em 3 etapas. Na Etapa 1, ocorreram: a) entrevista inicial, b) registros, em vídeo, de aulas referentes a duas unidades didáticas (UD1 e UD2), c) entrevista na ausência de episódios das aulas gravadas da UD1 e d) entrevista na presença de episódios de vídeo das aulas da UD1. Na Etapa 2, ocorreram: a) apresentação de um modelo de análise funcional descritiva pela professora; e d) apresentação do modelo de análise funcional da pesquisadora sobre esses episódios. Na Etapa 3, houve: a) registro, em vídeo, das aulas da UD3; e diante dos episódios das aulas da UD3, b) solicitação de elaboração de análise funcional descritiva e, c) solicitação de elaboração de análises comparativas entre as interpretações das aulas das UDs 2 e 3. Verificou-se, nas Etapas 1 e 2, consistências entre as ações registradas em vídeo (práticas transmissivas e a liberação de reforços independentes da manifestação das relações de controle de estímulo previstas) e os relatos das professoras (ênfase na obtenção da resposta correta, desvinculadas das condições nas quais foram emitidas). As características foram registradas, tanto na presença, quanto na ausência dos episódios das aulas da UDI e mostraram-se distantes... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The literature admits the importance of different knowledge models or concepts in learn process of professional teacher. This research is based in behavior concepts that define the execution of descriptive functional analysis are based in samples of teacher knowledge. This research evaluates the aquisition of teacher knowledge models by teachers with distenctive pedagogic formation and to minister mathematics contents in elementary school. Two teachers are studied: P1, mathematics formation (8ª grade) and P2, Pedagogic formation (4ª grade). The experiment had three steps. Step 1: a) initial report; b) record, in tape, of class about two didatic units (UD1 e UD2); c) absent report; e d) report in presence of class tapes in UD1. Step 2: a) exposition of a descriptive functional analyze model by research about episode show in UD1 class; b) exhibition of episode in UD2 class; c) solicitation of descriptive functional analyze work by teacher; e d) research exposition of a descriptive functional analysis model about this episodes. Step 3: a) record, in tape, of UD3 class; and in front of the UD3 class episodes, b) solicitation of descriptive funcional analyze work and, c) solicitation of comparative work analysis between the 2 and 3 UDs class interpretation. In Steps 1 and 2 are founded consistencies between the actions records in tape (transmission practices and liberation of reinforcements independent of the relations of control manifestation of preview stimulus) and teachers reports (emphasis in correct answer, independent of condition that she was emited). The characteristics were recorded, as in presence, as in absence of UD1 class and show distance of the definition of the descriptive functional analyze. In step 2, properties of student performance were related with the properties of adopted practices. In step 3, P1 evidenced re-incidence... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre