Instructional Accommodations for Adolescent Students with Severe Emotional or Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

A three-phase functional assessment was conducted to develop and test hypotheses about the relation between instructional accommodations in academic areas and behavior arob-Iems for three adolescents with severe behavioral disorders. In Phase 1, the researchers conducted descriptive analyses to identify when most behavior problems occurred at schools, and to interview teachers and students concerning those behavior problems. From the results of descriptive analyses, individualized hypotheses were developed regarding instructional accommodations that might result in improved academic and classroom behavior. Phase 2 included experimental analyses within alternating treatments designs to test these hypotheses within the classrooms. Phase 3 included extended interventions of the instructional accommodations within multiple-baseline (across academic subjects) designs for each participant. Implementation of one or more of the instructional accommodations resulted in improved academic productivity and accuracy, and behavior problems were reduced during the classes in which the instructional accommodations were implemented. In addition, for two participants behavior problems decreased throughout the school day.

An Examination of the Evidence Base for Function-Based Interventions for Students with Emotional and/or Behavioral Disorders Attending Middle and High Schools

“…Based on coding criteria, experimental effect was scored as absent if there was an insufficient number of data points in a phase (e.g., Ervin et al, 1998;Hoffet al, 2005;Ingram et al, 2005) or if there were only two or fewer demonsrrations evident (e.g., Liaupsin et al, 2006;Penno et a!., 2000). Only two studies (Gunter et al; Smith & Sugai) established internal validity according to the posed criteria.…”

Evaluation of the Class Pass Intervention for Typically Developing Students With Hypothesized Escape‐motivated Disruptive Classroom Behavior

“…Functional behavior assessment (FBA) represents a set of ABA methods that are used to uncover the relations between antecedents, behaviors, and consequences, with the purpose of developing a hypothesis that describes the antecedent events that trigger the target behavior and consequences that maintain it (Steege & Watson, 2009). Research has shown that FBA is an effective means of understanding the function of a student's problem behavior and designing behavioral interventions that address it (Ingram, Lewis‐Palmer, & Sugai, ; Kern, Delaney, Clarke, Dunlap, & Childs ; Newcomer & Lewis, ; Penno, Frank, & Wacker ). Using FBA methods, scholarly work has demonstrated that the two most common reasons why students exhibit disruptive classroom behaviors are to gain attention from others (i.e., positively reinforced attention‐maintained disruptive behavior) or escape/avoid aversive academic tasks (i.e., negatively reinforced escape‐motivated disruptive behavior) (Hawkins & Axelrod, ; McIntosh, Horner, Chard, Dickey, & Braun, ; VanDerHeyden, Witt, & Gatti, ).…”

Self-regulated strategy development instruction for writing an opinion essay: Effects for six students with emotional/behavior disorders

“…Despite the national attention on achievement based on formal assessment, academic intervention studies for students with EBD have used dependent measures such as classroom responding (Sutherland, Wehby, & Yoder, 2002) and overall work completion (Penno, Frank, & Wacker, 2000) rather than written assessments of students' performance. Constructed responses, such as written essays, are used rarely as dependent measures in research focused on students with EBD, even though notable researchers in the area see their value in evaluating independent student performance (Sutherland & Wehby, 2001).…”