An Ecobehavioral Analysis of Child Academic Engagement: Implications for Preschool Children Not Responding to Instructional Intervention

Abstract

Early educators in their professional practice are expected to use data-based decision making when deciding which children may be at risk, and make changes in interventions based on data (Akers et al., 2015a, 2015b; Division for Early Childhood, 2014). While these concepts and practices are promoted in early intervention and early childhood special education (Division for Early Childhood, 2014), only recently have measures designed for use by practitioners engaged in universal screening and progress monitoring emerged in early childhood (Kaminski, Abbott, Bravo-Aguayo, Latimer, & Good, 2014; McConnell, Wackerle-Hollman, Roloff, & Rodriguez, 2014). These measures are very good at identifying children who are and are not making progress in the curriculum. However, because they are focused on learning outcomes, little information is available about what the instructional problem conditions are, the most likely treatment adaptations needed, and how such decisions should vary given a child with a weak literacy skill level (literacy risk) and/or an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). The implications of this information gap crosscuts nationally and locally reported trends in (a) low levels of instructional supports provided to children by preschool teachers in early education (Justice, Hamre, & Pianta, 2008) and inclusive early childhood special education classrooms (Carta & Driscoll, 2013; Guo, Sawyer, Justice, & Kaderavek, 2013), and (b) the high rate of expulsion of children struggling to adhere to classroom routines (Gillam et al., 2008). Children who are not responding to intervention are not learning from the experiences arranged for them by the teacher. Several approaches exist that seek to identify instructional problem conditions surrounding a child's lack of response, and suggest change in instructional intervention, including functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and ecobehavioral assessment (EBA; Watson, Gable, & Greenwood, 2010). The goal of both approaches is to investigate response contingencies (environment-behavior interactions) that are 741968T ECXXX10.

Filling an Information Gap in Preschool MTSS and RTI Decision Making

“…Teachers organized children's preschool day with the activities reflected in the "Total" column of Table 3. This distribution was similar to that reported by Greenwood et al (2018).…”

“…The probability of CAE varied significantly given variations in the activities (χ 2 = 1067.7, df = 4, p < .01; see Table 4, upper panel). CAE was significantly more likely to occur during story time, individual activities, and large group compared to small group, center, and other activities (see Table 4), replicating Greenwood et al (2018).…”

“…Personal risk characteristics did moderate instruction-behavior dependencies differentially. Children in the three risk groups (literacy, DLL, and IEP) were divergent in GRTR literacy skills (Table 1), replicating Greenwood et al (2018). Children in the high-literacy-risk group received less TLF and CAE overall (Table 6).…”

“…Children in the high-literacy-risk group received less TLF and CAE overall (Table 6). Literacy risk status was the only risk factor that moderated conditional probabilities negatively, as in Greenwood et al (2018). For example, children at high literacy risk were 1.0 times more likely to not be academically engaged given TLF (β = .04, p < .01) than children not at risk.…”

“…Both the initial report (Greenwood et al, 2018) and the current investigation used extant data samples in secondary analyses.…”