Barbara S. Mitchell

Tier Two Interventions Implemented within the Context of a Tiered Prevention Framework.

Despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating the value of Tier 1 and Tier 3 interventions, significantly less is known about Tier 2 level treatments when they are added within the context of a tiered continuum of support. The purpose of this article is to systematically review the existing research base for Tier 2 small group intervention studies conducted within a tiered prevention framework. Results indicated that few studies documented fidelity of Tier 7 implementation prior to the addition of Tier 2 interventions. Methods for identifying students to receive Tier 2 supports varied across investigations, but included teacher nomination, use of student data, and/or screening score results. More than half of the reviewed studies demonstrated use of the Behavior Intervention Program: Check-in/Check-out (BEP/CICO), although social skill instructional groups and academic instructional groups were also employed as Tier 2 interventions. Overall, positive results for reducing problem behavior were reported. In addition, school-based personnel implemented the Tier 2 intervention in nearly half of the investigations. Among studies that reported measures of social validity teacher and student perceptions of the treatments were largely positive. Implications for future research are evaluated using criteria from the Society for Prevention Research (Flay et al., 2005).

A Tier 2 Framework for Behavior Identification and Intervention

B ecause educators are called to meet all students’ academic and behavioral needs in a comprehensive, systematic way, thousands of schools across the country have implemented multitiered systems of support such as response to intervention and positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS). Central to these proactive, tiered systems is the use of a problem-solving protocol for assessing student response to highquality instruction and intervention. The goal is that data will be used to guide educational programming that matches students’ needs and abilities through multiple tiers, or levels, of support. In PBIS, the Tier 1 level of prevention involves explicit teaching of three to five schoolwide behavioral expectations. Once these expectations have been taught, modeled, and practiced, students earn reinforcement (e.g., praise, tokens) for meeting or exceeding behavioral expectations. When implemented with fidelity, approximately 80% of a school’s student population should have their behavioral needs met by the system’s schoolwide, Tier 1 level of support (Lewis & Sugai, 1999). A student support team (SST), often comprising a few teachers, a school psychologist, and an administrator, uses data to determine which students are making adequate progress with exposure to Tier 1 only. Students who are not making adequate progress or demonstrate problems meriting further support beyond well-implemented Tier 1 programming may be eligible for a Tier 2 intervention in addition to Tier 1 supports. Tier 2 interventions, which usually apply to 10% to 15% of the school population, include smallgroup social skills instruction, selfregulation strategies, and, most commonly, ‘‘check-in/check-out’’ (CICO). Tier 2 interventions are designed to be highly efficient, and generally they are provided to small groups of students exhibiting comparable problems. Progress is monitored more frequently in Tier 2 than in Tier 1 to efficiently determine student responsiveness to core plus intervention programming. Approximately 5% of the school’s student population may require individualized Tier 3 supports due to more complex problems and extensive behavioral histories. Function-based interventions, a Tier 3 support, require data gathered from a variety of people (e.g., parents, teachers, student, school psychologist) using multiple methods (e.g., interviews, direct observations, rating scales) to guide development of a multicomponent intervention. This process is time-, resource-, and labor-intensive, as are other Tier 3 supports such as mental health counseling and wraparound services. Therefore, schools must first ensure that effective, evidence-based Tier 2 interventions are being implemented with fidelity in an effort to ensure that resources are allocated appropriately. One critical component of effective PBIS frameworks is the implementation of data-based decision making. Collecting data serves multiple purposes including (a) determining the effects of an intervention or instruction; (b) providing formative and summative evaluation; (c) making decisions about the allocation of school-based services; and (d) promoting communication among parents, teachers, students, and other school personnel (Alberto & Troutman, 2009). At Tier 1, data such as the number of office discipline referrals (ODR) and/or scores from universal screeners may be used to identify students who need more targeted interventions. Within Tier 2 and 3 supports, more frequent assessment occurs to help determine students’ response to intervention. The idea is that when data are used to guide intervention and instructional decisions, students are more likely to experience positive outcomes. In this article, a framework, or step-by-step process, for data-based decision making within Tier 2 is presented with the goal of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Tier 2 identification and intervention for students with challenging behavior. The suggested framework is predicated on (a) the provision of high-quality Tier 1 prevention efforts implemented with integrity and (b) the use of a psychometrically sound behavioral rating scale, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997), for identifying specific areas of need. The logic of the framework is that to accurately place a student in a Tier 2 intervention, the SST must consider the nature and intensity of the student’s behavior and use data to match the student to an appropriate intervention. In the following section, the five-step process and additional considerations for implementing this framework are described.

School-wide Positive Behavior Support and Response to Intervention: System Similarities, Distinctions, and Research to Date at the Universal Level of Support

Problem behavior is unfortunately a universal challenge in schools. While several evidence-based strategies are widely available to address problem behavior, educators continue to rely on ineffective strategies including exclusionary options and fail to build comprehensive school-wide systems necessary to truly realize effective intervention potential. A parallel challenge is to embed effective strategies at the first indication of risk to prevent problems from becoming chronic and intensive to the point specialized instruction is necessary. This chapter provides an overview of School-wide Positive Behavior Support (SW-PBS) within the context of building systems of early intervention/prevention that incorporate evidence-based practices and the potential of SW-PBS as a possible element of a social-behavioral response to intervention (RTI) framework that might allow for an improved special education evaluation process under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act category of seriously emotionally disturbed. The history and logic of SW-PBS, essential features, research to date, and implications for practice are discussed.

A Comparison of Functional Behavioral Assessment and Functional Analysis Methodology among Students with Mild Disabilities

Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and functional analyses (FA) are grounded in the applied behavior analysis principle that posits problem behavior is functionally related to the environment in which it occurs and is maintained by either providing access to reinforcing outcomes or allowing the individual to avoid or escape that which they find aversive. Previous research has pointed to the limitations across FBA methodologies in comparison to the direct experimental trials used in FA. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the degree to which hypotheses generated by common FBA strategies (i.e., interview, rating scale, and direct observation) match hypotheses generated through FA trials. Results of a multiphase descriptive study indicated that traditional school personnel with behavioral expertise were able to generate FBA hypotheses that were later confirmed by independent review and largely aligned with FA outcomes. The impact of the findings for the field and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Enhancing Effective Classroom Management in Schools: Structures for Changing Teacher Behavior

Effective classroom instructional and behavior management is essential to ensure student academic and social success. Foundational strategies such as clear expectations and routines, specific feedback, and high rates of opportunities to respond have strong empirical support, yet are often missing from educator repertoires. In this article, the authors provide a brief rationale for the inclusion of evidence-based practices accompanied with recommended resources to identify current and future practices. In addition, they also provide an overview of effective in-service educator professional development, to ensure evidence-based practices are implemented with fidelity, and recommended systemic strategies that schools and school districts can adopt to support teacher learning. Implications for teacher preparation programs also are discussed.

Curbing Our Enthusiasm: An Analysis of the Check-In/Check-Out Literature Using the Council for Exceptional Children's Evidence-Based Practice Standards.

Check-in/Check-out (CICO) is an intervention designed to improve behavioral outcomes for students identified as at-risk for school failure. Core principles of the intervention include clearly defined behavioral expectations and rules, precorrections for meeting behavioral expectations, high rates of feedback and reinforcement for demonstration of desired behavior, use of data to monitor outcomes, and a system for school-to- home communication. The purpose of this investigation was to use the 2014 Council for Exceptional Children’s quality indicators and standards for establishing evidence-based practices in special education to review the existing research for CICO. Implications regarding the use of different sets of quality indicators to evaluate extant research are provided, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Schoolwide Systems of Positive Behavior Support: Implications for Students at Risk and With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders:

The use of schoolwide multitiered systems of support to address challenging social and emotional behavior has been established in >20,000 schools across the United States and 19 other countries worldwide. The systems approach of schoolwide positive behavior support is guided by implementation science and embeds evidence-based behavioral interventions across a continuum based on documented student need. The extant research base to date, including randomized controlled trials, is robust with respect to universal or Tier I interventions and supports. Less is known about the impact on students who are at high risk for manifesting a disability, as well as those currently served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The purpose of this article is to provide a rationale for, and overview of, schoolwide positive behavior support as a comprehensive framework to support children and youth with emotional/behavioral disorders and review the research to date across a continuum of supports. Research, professional development and implementation, and policy implications are discussed.

Essential Features of Tier 2 and 3 School-Wide Positive Behavioral Supports

Chronic and increasingly intense behavioral challenges continue to vex educators from pre- through high school. While early intervention and prevention are essential to alter these patterns, schools are still responsible for ensuring student success regardless of their prior learning history. Unfortunately to date, educators have had limited impact with students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Response-to-intervention research has documented that early identification of high-risk learners coupled with a continuum of empirically validated instructional practices can both reduce the numbers of students requiring intensive supports and lead to improved learning outcomes among students with disabilities. A parallel process of school-wide positive behavior support (SW-PBS) also applies the logic of early identification of risk coupled with research-based supports to reduce the numbers of students requiring intensive supports as well as provide more comprehensive and integrated supports for students with disabilities. This chapter provides an overview of SW-PBS with a specific emphasis on essential features of tier 2/3 systems within the context of a complete multi-tiered system of support. Research to date on both the individual practices as well as integrated tier 2/3 supports is discussed. Implications for practice are also provided.

A responsive Tier 2 process for a middle school student with behavior problems

ABSTRACT Students requiring Tier 2 behavioral supports frequently display behavioral deficits in multiple domains (e.g., emotional symptoms and peer problems). The Tier 2 framework developed by McDaniel, Bruhn, & Mitchell (2015a) is a responsive structure for identifying and intervening at Tier 2. This process is described with a practical case example of a student with multiple areas of risk. Stacking Tier 2 behavioral interventions for students who score in the “abnormal” range in multiple areas on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire is described. A description of this process for delivering Tier 2 supports and the results from the case example are presented.

An Examination of the Evidence-Base of School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Through Two Quality Appraisal Processes:

Thousands of schools across the United States, and worldwide, implement School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS provides a framework whereby teams of educators engage in data-based decision making to select, implement, and monitor a continuum of behavioral supports and build sustainable systems to promote implementation fidelity among school staff. To date, a large body of research supports both the essential practices included in a SWPBIS framework as well as the larger systemic approach. Recently public policy and professional organization guidelines have outlined clear appraisal processes to review the extant literature in an effort to designate interventions as “evidence-based.” This review applied both the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) standards to evaluate existing group experimental design studies of SWPBIS. Results identified five unique, group design studies conducted by four separate research teams. Four of the studies met the WWC design standards “without reservations” and findings from three of those studies were characterized as positive. Outcomes from the reviewed studies indicated that when provided with training in components of SWPBIS, school teams met minimal implementation standards. In addition, schools that met implementation criteria also saw positive changes in school climate, staff perceptions, and/or student behaviors. However, application of the CEC standards resulted with a rating of “insufficient evidence” because none of the five studies met all CEC quality indicators. These studies lacked report of implementation fidelity for the SWPBIS training provided, which was the independent variable. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.