Exploring Relational Communication Patterns in Prereferral Intervention Teams

Evaluating problem-solving teams in K–12 schools: Do they work?

“…Problem-solving teams demonstrate characteristics of both types. Their life span generally extends the entirety of an academic year (and oftentimes several years), yet many of their members are transitory, changing from meeting to meeting, based on the student being discussed (Bennett, Erchul, Young, & Bartel, 2012; Burns, Peters, & Noell, 2008). These teams in some ways are intact, but the phenomena of transitory members can impact their stability, which has parallels to an ad hoc team.…”

Including the Family Member in Interdisciplinary Team Meetings

“…Following the F-RCCCS coding scheme, domineeringness was calculated by dividing the number of an individual’s one-up messages by his or her total number of messages. Dominance was calculated by taking the total number of one-up messages from Group Member A that are directly proceeded by a one-down message from Group Member B and dividing it by the overall number of one-up messages spoken by Group Member A (Bennett et al, 2012).…”

“…Coding schemes have been used to explore communication among members of interdisciplinary teams in a range of settings. For example, while coding schemes have been applied to client–professional dyads (e.g., Beyebach & Carranza, 1997; Opel et al, 2013), participants in family therapy groups (e.g., Doba, Pezard, Berna, Vignau, & Nandrino, 2013; Heatherington & Friedlander, 1990), and communication among professionals (e.g., Bennett, Erchul, Young, & Bartel, 2012; Sheehan, Robertson, & Ormond, 2007; Wittenberg-Lyles, Gee, Oliver, & Demiris, 2009), coding schemes have not been commonly applied to teams consisting of interdisciplinary professionals and clients/family members. Moreover, studies considering client or family-inclusive interdisciplinary teams’ communications seldom explore the interdisciplinary professionals’ relationships with clients/families, focusing instead on the team as a whole or on each possible dyad within the team (Erchul et al, 1999).…”

“…Selecting the coding schemes to apply in the current study involved an in-depth review of the research on coding schemes and identifying which would be most relevant given the constructs of interest. Coding schemes exist that examine many components of communication, including the level of agreement and disagreement within a group conversation (Galley, McKeown, Hirschberg, & Shriberg, 2004), positivity and engagement within a group (Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2013), language similarity (Niederhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002), control/power (Heatherington & Friedlander, 1990), and problem solving (Bennett et al, 2012; Pazos, Micari, & Light, 2010). The latter three constructs (i.e., similarity, control/power, and problem solving) were measured in the current study using three coding schemes, respectively, Language Style Matching (LSM; Niederhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002), Family Relational Communication Control Coding System (F-RCCCS; Heatherington & Friedlander, 1990), and an internally developed, competency-based problem-solving coding scheme.…”

“…The second coding scheme applied to the interdisciplinary team problem-solving discussions was the F-RCCCS (Heatherington & Friedlander, 1990) due to its ability to measure the constructs of power, dominance, and domineeringness, which influence the dynamics in the team problem-solving process (Bennett et al, 2012). The F-RCCCS is a modified version of the relational coding scheme developed by Rogers and Farace (1975).…”