Douglas E. Kostewicz

Effectiveness of Decoding and Phonological Awareness Interventions for Children with down Syndrome

Many children with intellectual disability, including children with Down syndrome, have teachers who are unsure what type of reading instruction is likely to increase outcomes for their students. Effectiveness of two commercially available, evidence-based reading interventions was evaluated through 3 multiple baseline across participants, single-subject research design studies involving 15 children with Down syndrome between the ages of 5 and 13 years. School staff implemented the phonological awareness and decoding interventions for an average of 25 sessions across approximately 12 weeks. Results indicate improvements in the reading of taught phonetically regular and high frequency words associated with the decoding intervention, but no generalization to oral reading fluency. No reliable gains were associated with the phonological awareness intervention. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Consequence Choice and Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities: Effects on Academic Engagement.

The difficulties students identified with emotional and behavior disabilities present sometimes strain inclusive educators. General education teachers often find themselves ill equipped to provide effective support for both students with and without disabilities. An effective intervention that may hold promise for included students with academic and behavior problems involves the use of choice; more specifically, consequence choice, which provides students with the ability to select their own reinforcement. The current study examined the effects of choice of reinforcement via a single-subject multielement design with baseline for four students with emotional disturbance or behavior disabilities educated in an inclusion setting. With an increase in task difficulty, the behavior of two students indicated a functional relation between engagement and choice and two additional students demonstrated a functional relation between the presence and absence of reinforcement. Students did not distinguish academic behavior across the course of the study. The difficulty level of the instructional material, as well as the perceived preference of the reinforcers may play a role in study outcomes. Future directions follow study limitations and implications for inclusion practitioners.

An Initial Survey of Fractional Graph and Table Area in Behavioral Journals

This study examined the fractional graph area (FGA), the proportion of page space used to display statistical graphics, in 11 behavioral journals and places behavior analysis on a continuum with other natural, mathematical, and social science disciplines. The composite FGA of all 11 journals puts behavior analysis within the range of the social sciences, whereas the composite FGA of the most established and preeminent behavioral journals positions behavior analysis within the range of the natural sciences. In addition, fractional table area (FTA), the proportion of page space used to display tables, generally is higher in behavioral journals with lower degrees of FGA, a result that replicates previous research.

Choice-Based Stimulus Preference Assessment for Children with or at-risk for Emotional Disturbance in Educational Settings

Students with or at-risk for emotional disturbance (ED) frequently receive interventions that include a direct manipulation of consequences. The ability of educators to identify reinforcing stimuli that may function as powerful consequences determines the success of reinforcement-based strategies. Choice-based stimulus preference assessments provide a systematic means of identifying potential reinforcers that have been well researched with children and adults with severe disabilities. However, research concerning the effectiveness of choice-based stimulus preference assessments for students with ED remains limited. Therefore, the current literature review examines the experimental context and effectiveness of choice-based stimulus preference assessments in identifying reinforcers for students with ED in educational settings and the advantages of these procedures over preference surveys. While reinforcers identified through choice-stimulus preference assessment increased the target behaviors of the participants, choice-based preference assessment methods did not unequivocally improve upon preference surveys. Implications for practitioners and future research directions are discussed.

Graph and table use in Special Education: a review and analysis of the communication of data

Abstract An emerging line of research demonstrates a distinction between social and natural sciences; natural sciences devote more page space in journals to data graphics than social sciences. The present survey asked how the subdiscipline of Education, Special Education, compares to other disciplines of science. Also, how do the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) disability category subfields use data graphics and tables? And last, has the use of data graphs and tables changed over time within Special Education? After reviewing 29 representative journals and over 8500 graphics and tables, the results show that Special Education ranks near the bottom of the natural and social sciences. As a field, the IDEA disability category subfields use tabular displays of data more often than data graphics. The results also demonstrate that over a 15-year time span the use of data graphics and tables used in journals to communicate data has remained stable.

Increasing positive and decreasing negative teacher responses to student behavior through training and feedback.

Teachers tasked with educating students in an inclusive environment must effectively work with ongoing behavior issues in the classroom. Increasing teacher praise statements while reducing negative statements provides one method for increasing appropriate student behavior and reducing and potentially preventing inappropriate student behavior. The current study examines the effects of professional development and daily e-mail feedback on teacher-initiated positive and negative behaviors in an inclusive elementary school setting. Four elementary teachers in a rural school district participated. Teacher behavior-specific praise increased and negative statements decreased for 3 of 4 teachers, maintaining results 2–3 weeks after intervention ended for 3 of 4 teachers. E-mail feedback was introduced as a novel component of changing teacher behavior. Limitations to the study, implications for professional development, and future directions for research are discussed.

General Outcome Measures for Verbal Operants

A general outcome measure (GOM) can be used to show progress towards a long-term goal. GOMs should sample domains of behavior across ages, be sensitive to change over time, be inexpensive and easy to use, and facilitate decision making. Skinner’s (1957) analysis of verbal behavior may benefit from the development of GOM. To develop GOM, we conducted a review of the literature on mands, tacts, echoics, and intraverbals. The four areas reviewed included (a) an examination of the participant’s response form (i.e., vocal or nonvocal), (b) the type of prompt used, (c) types of materials used, and (d) timing of responses or sessions. Based on the review of the literature, we developed GOM for mands and tacts. This paper attempts to bridge the concept of GOMs with Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior.