This study presents a set of data analysis approaches for single subject designs (SSDs). The primary purpose is to establish a series of statistical models to supplement visual analysis in single subject research using Bayesian estimation. Linear modeling approach has been used to study level and trend changes. I propose an alternate approach that treats the phase change-point between the baseline and intervention conditions as an unknown parameter. Similar to some existing approaches, the models take into account changes in slopes and intercepts in the presence of serial dependency. The Bayesian procedure used to estimate the parameters and analyze the data is described. Researchers use a variety of statistical analysis methods to analyze different single subject research designs. This dissertation presents a series of statistical models to model data from various conditions: the baseline phase, A-B design, A-B-A-B design, multiple baseline design, alternating treatments design, and changing criterion design. The change-point evaluation method can provide additional confirmation of causal effect of the treatment on target behavior. Software codes are provided as supplemental materials in the appendices. The applicability for the analyses is demonstrated using five examples from the SSD literature.

While the number of students with learning disabilities entering the postsecondary environment is rising, many of these students have not yet acquired the skills to help them request necessary academic accommodations. Students with learning disabilities need to recognize how their disability affects their academic learning, and need to have the strategies and skills known as self-advocacy, so that they can request and obtain these accommodations. Unfortunately, many of these students, particularly Latino students, have not been given the opportunity to acquire advocacy skills prior to entering the postsecondary education setting. Trainor (2005) identified that Latino male students' plans for life after high school were not reflected in their individual transition plans. While the number of Latino males graduating with college degrees is declining (Sáenz & Ponjuan, 2009), Hurtado, Sáenz, Santos, and Cabrera (2008) have identified an upward trend among Latino males' self-rated academic abilities and desire to achieve. Due to Latino males avoidance of help-seeking behaviors, even when they are aware of academic resources that are available (Cabrera, Rashwan-Soto, & Valencia, 2016), they are a population that would benefit from instruction in these skills. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a self-advocacy intervention on Latino male college students' abilities to request academic accommodations. Findings demonstrated a functional relationship between the self-advocacy intervention and students' abilities to request academic accommodations in a role-play situation. In addition, all students were able to fully generalize the target behaviors to the real life setting as well. Last, data obtained from social validity surveys revealed the significance of the effects of the intervention on the dependent variables.

This study examined the effect of intervention involving a humanoid robot on challenging or tantrum behaviors of four children with low-functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The current work was part of a larger study involving the effect of the robot on functional communication skills on a variety of different interactions with different communication partners. All participants took part in a single-subject, multiple-baseline design with various session types including baseline, traditional play-based treatment, treatment including the robot, and follow-up sessions. For the purpose of this study, only the sessions including treatment with the robot where the robot interaction occurred at the beginning or the end of a 50-minute session were analyzed. Six different categories of tantrum behaviors were analyzed during the sessions including: crying/screaming; self-distracting behaviors; biting, hair pulling, squeezing or pinching; throwing/shoving; and hitting/kicking. Results indicate that for 3 out of the 4 children, tantrum behaviors decreased when the robot interaction came at the beginning of the session. The fourth child showed minimal change in tantrum behaviors. To improve understanding of the influence of a robot on children with ASD, future research should be conducted to determine what aspects of the robot interaction would be most effective on reducing these behaviors.

Parents who have children with challenging behavior may feel stressed, overwhelmed and at a loss for solutions. Challenging behavior can cause problems with children’s relationships with others and their school success. There are many resources for schools and children with special needs; however, resources for parents for young children (ages 3 to 5) with challenging behavior are limited. This study examined the impact of a 6-week intervention to coach parents to use strategies that encouraged children to develop skills that helped them to express frustration and solve problems in positive ways. Parents were better able to understand what the children were communicating with their behaviors, and what supports they needed in order to get their needs met in an appropriate way. Challenging behavior decreased for the children who participated. They also were better able to communicate their needs and handle disappointment.

Being a teacher is not an easy job. There is an increased emphasis on evidence-based methods. Teacher praise is an effective classroom management tool. Behavior specific praise statements is a low intensity teacher delivered strategy where teachers say or write the precise behavior exhibited and how it met an expectation or affected academic/social achievement. This study aimed to increase Behavior Specific Praise Statements among three teachers in Mathematic, English and Social subject studies on student’s social behavior as a group. An intervention consisting of an hour of counseling, post-it notes, and self-registration was given. The teachers decided their own pre-set criteria. Two teachers sat a criterion of three and one teacher sat a criterion of six. The results showed that the intervention had an effect on the teachers use of BSPS. However, one teacher did not reach the pre-set criteria. Practical implications are discussed.

Many students with mild disabilities display off-task behaviors during academic content classes. The off-task behaviors can negatively impact their academic progress. In primarily clinical settings, specific interventions derived from the theory of sensory integration have been shown to increase on-task behaviors in students with mild disabilities. Using a single subject A-B-A-B withdrawal design, the researcher investigated the effects of hand fidgets on on-task behaviors demonstrated by a middle school student with mild disabilities who typically displayed off-task behaviors when participating in an inclusive, academic content class (language arts). Social validity was assessed to evaluate student and teacher perceptions regarding the intervention. During baseline and withdrawal (A phases) participants followed their typical classroom routine and were not exposed to the intervention - hand fidgets. During the intervention (B phases) participants were provided with a hand fidget for use during the class period. Results indicated substantial increases in the percentage of on-task behaviors demonstrated by the participant, when presented with the opportunity to use a hand fidget, during activities in which listening to a lecture was the primary task expectation. Social validity findings indicated that both the students and classroom teacher preferred the use of hand fidgets to the condition of no hand fidget present. This study provides preliminary support for the use of hand fidgets to increase on-task behaviors by students with mild disabilities who present tendencies for off-task behaviors during classroom lecture situations.

Single-case interventions allow for the repeated measurement of a case or participant across multiple time points, to assess the treatment¡͞s effect on one specific case or participant. The basic interrupted time series design includes two phases: baseline and treatment. Raudenbush and Byrk (2002) demonstrated that a meta-analysis of large group designs can be seen as a special case of multi-level analysis with participants (level-one) nested within studies (level-two). Raw data from a set of single case design studies have a similar structure. Van den Noortgate and Onghena (2003) illustrated the use of a two-level model to analyze data in primary single-case studies. In 2008, Van den Noortgate and Onghena later proposed that if raw data from several single case designs are used in a meta-analysis, scores can be varied at each of the three levels: over occasions (level-one), across participants from the same study (level-two), and across studies (level-three). The multi-level approach allows for a large degree of flexibility in modeling the data (Goldstein & Yang, 2000; Hox & de Leeuw, 1997). Researchers can make various methodological decisions when specifying the model to approximate the data. Those decisions are critical since parameters can be biased if the statistical model is not correctly specified. The first of these decisions is how to model the level-one error structure--is it correlated or uncorrelated? Recently, the investigation of the Van den Noortgate and Onghena¡͞s (2008) three-level meta-analytic model has increased and shown promising results (Owens & Ferron, 2011; Ugille, Moeyaert, Beretvas, Ferron, & Van den Noortgate, 2012 ). These studies have shown the fixed effects tend to be unbiased and the variance components have been problematic across a range of conditions. Based on a thorough literature review, no one has looked at the model in relation to the use of fit indices or log likelihood tests to select an appropriate level-one error structure. The purpose of the study was two-fold: 1) to determine the extent to which the various fit indices can correctly identify the level-one covariance structure; and 2) to investigate the effect of various forms of misspecification of the level-one error structure when using a three-level meta-analytic single-case model. This study used Monte Carlo simulation methods to address the aforementioned research questions. Multiple design, data, and analysis factors were manipulated in this study. The study used a 2x2x2x2x2x5x7 factorial design. Seven experimental variables were manipulated in this study: 1) The number of primary studies per meta-analysis (10 and 30); 2) The number of participants per primary study (4 and 8); 3)The series length per participant (10 and 20); 4)Variances of the error terms (most of the variance at level-one: [¦Ò2=1;¡¼ ¦²¡½_u = 0.5, 0.05, 0.5, 0.05; ¡¼ ¦²¡½_v = 0.5, 0.05, 0.5, 0.05] and most of the variance at the upper levels: [¦Ò2=1;¡¼ ¦²¡½_u = 2, 0.2, 2, 0.2; ¡¼ ¦²¡½_v = 2, 0.2, 2, 0.2]); 5) The levels for the fixed effects (0, 2 [corresponding to the shift in level]; and 0, 0.2[corresponding to the shift in slope]) 6)Various types of covariance structures were used for data generation (ID, AR(1), and ARMA (1,1); and 7) The form of model specification [i.e. ID, AR(1), ARMA (1,1)], and error structure selected by AIC, AICC, BIC, and the LRT. The results of this study found that the fixed effects tend to mostly be unbiased, however, the variance components were extremely biased with particular design factors. The study also concluded that the use of fit indices to select the correct level-1 structure was appropriate for certain error structures. The accuracy of the fit indices tend to increase for the simpler level-one error structures. There were multiple implications for the applied single-case researcher, for the meta-analyst, and for the methodologist. Future research included investigating different estimation methods, such as Bayesian approach, to improve the estimates of the variance components and coupling multiple violations of the error structures, such as non-normality at levels two and three.

<p>Bland den äldre befolkningen är det relativt vanligt med någon form av sväljsvårigheter, dysfagi. Tidigare studier har visat att mellan 30 och 70 procent av boende inom äldreomsorgen har sväljbesvär. I dagsläget har de flesta äldreboenden i Östergötland inte tillgång till logoped. I föreliggande studie användes metoden Single Subject Experimental Design med upplägget ABB. Flera måltidsobservationer utfördes på de två deltagarna. I dessa observationer studerades tecken på s såsom hostningar, rosslingar, upprepade sväljningar och trögutlöst sväljreflex. Pulsoximeter användes för att öka säkerheten i mätningarna. I interventionsfaserna hölls två föreläsningar om dysfagi för personalen på det berörda äldreboendet. Syftet var att undersöka huruvida dessa föreläsningar förbättrade deltagarnas sväljförmåga. Dysfagi fanns hos båda deltagarna, dock med olika slags symtom. Personalen på boendet konsistensanpassade viss mat som primärt sväljfrämjande åtgärd redan innan studiens början. När detta utfördes hade det en positiv effekt hos båda deltagarna i form av färre tecken på dysfagi vid måltidsobservationerna. Vid föreläsningarna var deltagarantalet lågt, vilket kan ha bidragit till att ingen markant förändring hos deltagarna kunde observeras. Det kan konstateras att ett interventionsupplägg i form av två föreläsningar inte är tillräckligt för att göra skillnad när det gäller dysfagi. Tydligt är dock att behovet av kunskap om dysfagi på äldreboenden är stort.</p>

Bland den äldre befolkningen är det relativt vanligt med någon form av sväljsvårigheter, dysfagi. Tidigare studier har visat att mellan 30 och 70 procent av boende inom äldreomsorgen har sväljbesvär. I dagsläget har de flesta äldreboenden i Östergötland inte tillgång till logoped. I föreliggande studie användes metoden Single Subject Experimental Design med upplägget ABB. Flera måltidsobservationer utfördes på de två deltagarna. I dessa observationer studerades tecken på s såsom hostningar, rosslingar, upprepade sväljningar och trögutlöst sväljreflex. Pulsoximeter användes för att öka säkerheten i mätningarna. I interventionsfaserna hölls två föreläsningar om dysfagi för personalen på det berörda äldreboendet. Syftet var att undersöka huruvida dessa föreläsningar förbättrade deltagarnas sväljförmåga. Dysfagi fanns hos båda deltagarna, dock med olika slags symtom. Personalen på boendet konsistensanpassade viss mat som primärt sväljfrämjande åtgärd redan innan studiens början. När detta utfördes hade det en positiv effekt hos båda deltagarna i form av färre tecken på dysfagi vid måltidsobservationerna. Vid föreläsningarna var deltagarantalet lågt, vilket kan ha bidragit till att ingen markant förändring hos deltagarna kunde observeras. Det kan konstateras att ett interventionsupplägg i form av två föreläsningar inte är tillräckligt för att göra skillnad när det gäller dysfagi. Tydligt är dock att behovet av kunskap om dysfagi på äldreboenden är stort.

Background: The current study investigated the efficacy of a novel virtual reality-cognitive rehabilitation (VR-CR) intervention to improve contextual processing of objects in children with autism. Contextual processing is a cognitive ability thought to underlie the social and communication deficits of autism. Previous research supports that children with autism show deficits in contextual processing, as well as deficits in its basic component abilities: abstraction and cognitive flexibility. Methods: Four children with autism participated in a multiple baseline single-subject study. The children were taught how to see objects in context by reinforcing attention to pivotal contextual information. One-on-one teaching sessions occurred three times per week for approximately two weeks. Results: All children demonstrated significant improvements in contextual processing and cognitive flexibility. Mixed results were found on the control test. Changes in context-related behaviours were reported. Conclusions: Further studies using virtual reality to target specific cognitive impairments in children with autism are warranted.