Topic 10: Function-Based Interventions

Topic 10
Function-based Interventions for Schools

The Basics
• Foundations in behavioral theory, applied behavior analysis, & positive behavior support
• Attention to environmental context
• Emphasis on function of behavior
• Focus on teaching effective, efficient, & relevant behaviors
• Attention to behavior of implementers


Federal Policies and Legislation
According to IDEA 2007, as presented by the Council for Exceptional Children, a functional behavior assessment is conducted when a behavior is determined to impede the learning of him/herself and others. A function-based intervention is put into place when the student is non-responsive to primary and secondary positive behaviors supports. The behavior should first be identified; data collected to show that current interventions are not successful, and finally the plan will contain a replacement behavior that can replace the current behavior. The function refers to why the student is doing what they’re doing. There are two major functions; to obtain something or avoid something. The function-based intervention is put into place and monitored to determine if it has replaced the original behavior with a positive or more acceptable behavior that still allows the student to acquire their needs.

ERASE Problem Behaviors

Explain - What is the problem?
Reason - What is he/she getting out of it or avoiding?
Appropriate - What do you want him/her to do instead?
Support - How can you help this happen more often?
Evaluate - How will you know if it works?

* I thought that this was a very creative mnemonic device to help remember how to help a problem behavior

Websites to See
www.Kipbs.org
www.pbis.org




Additional Resources
Competing Behavior Diagram: The competing behavior diagram is used to determine the setting events, antecedent, and the behavior. From there the team determines what the desired behavior is and the replacement behavior. This allows the team to document what they hypothesize and the effectiveness of the interventions.

FBA Team Steps
Collect information.
Develop testable hypothesis or summary statement.
Collect direct observation data to confirm summary statement.
Develop “competing pathways” summary statement.
Develop BIP.
Develop details & routines for full implementation of BSP.
Develop strategies for monitoring & evaluating implementation of BSP.

Topic 9: Parent Involvement

Topic 9
Involving Parents and Community Members




Federal Policies and Legislation
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB Act) reauthorized the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), and is based on four principles that provide a
framework through which families, educators, and communities can work together to
improve teaching and learning. These principles are accountability for results, local control and flexibility, expanded parental choice, and effective and successful programs that reflect scientifically based research. The parental involvement provisions in Title I, Part A of the ESEA reflect these principles. Specifically, these provisions stress shared accountability between schools and parents for high student achievement, including expanded public school choice and supplemental educational services for eligible children in low performing schools, local development of parental involvement plans with sufficient flexibility to address local needs, and building parents’ capacity for using effective practices to improve their own children’s academic achievement.
New reporting provisions added by the NCLB Act offer parents important insight into their children’s education, the professional qualifications of their teachers, and the quality of the schools they attend. The new legislation ensures that parents have the information they need to make well-informed choices for their children, more effectively share responsibility with their children’s schools, and help those schools develop effective and successful academic programs. Parents now will know their children’s academic strengths and weaknesses and how well schools are performing, and they will have other options and resources for helping their children if their schools are identified in need of improvement.

Terms to Know
Accountability: No Child Left Behind holds schools and school districts accountable for results. Schools are responsible for making sure your child is learning.
Public School Choice: No Child Left Behind may let you transfer your child to another public school if the state says that your child's school is "in need of improvement." Your school district may pay for transportation for your child. Contact your child's school district to find out if your child has this opportunity.
Extra Help with Learning: No Child Left Behind may also provide your child with free tutoring and extra help with schoolwork if the state says your child's school has been "in need of improvement" for at least 2 years. This extra help is often referred to as Supplemental Educational Services. Contact your child's school district to find out if your child qualifies.
Parental Involvement: No Child Left Behind requires schools to develop ways to get parents more involved in their child's education and in improving the school. Contact your child's school to find out how you can get involved.
Supplemental Educational Services (SES): This is the term No Child Left Behind uses to refer to the tutoring and extra help with schoolwork in subjects such as reading and math that children from low-income families may be eligible to receive. This help is provided free of charge and generally takes place outside the regular school day, such as after school or during the summer.

Websites to See
www.Nea.org/parents

www.ncpie.org




Additional Resources
Given a list of concerns that might impede parent involvement in schools, the barrier named by the highest percentage of schools was lack of time on the part of parents (87 percent) (figure 12).
Lack of time on the part of school staff created barriers for 56 percent of schools, and 48 percent indicated that lack of staff training in working with parents was a significant barrier.
Lack of parent education to help with schoolwork, cultural/socioeconomic and language differences between parents and staff, parent and staff attitudes, and safety in the area after school hours were considered barriers in a higher percentage of schools with poverty concentrations and minority enrollments of 50 percent or more than in schools low on these characteristics.
Resource: www.nces.ed.gov

Topic 8: Collaboration

Topic 8
Strategies for Encouraging Group Collaboration

The Basics
Collaboration is working together for a common goal. In education, teachers, parents, students, and administration, work together to benefit the students. The most common type of collaboration lately has been special education teachers going into the general education classroom and working with their students in the classroom instead of pulling them out for services.


Also, in cooperative learning small groups provide a place where:
learners actively participate;
teachers become learners at times, and learners sometimes teach;
respect is given to every member;
projects and questions interest and challenge students;
diversity is celebrated, and all contributions are valued;
students learn skills for resolving conflicts when they arise;
members draw upon their past experience and knowledge;
goals are clearly identified and used as a guide;
research tools such as Internet access are made available;
students are invested in their own learning.

Federal Policies and Legislation

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that a continuum of placement options be available to meet the needs of students with disabilities. The law also requires that:
"to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities ... are educated with children who are not disabled, and that special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be attained satisfactorily." IDEA Sec. 612 (5)
One of the educational options, that is receiving increasing attention, is meeting the needs of students with disabilities in the regular classroom.

Resource: http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/Including.Students.html

Terms to Know

FAPE: Free Appropriate Public Education; special education and related services provided in conformity with an IEP; are without charge; and meets standards of the SEA.
IFSP: Individualized Family Service Plan
LRE: Least Restrictive Environment; requirement to educate special needs children with children who are not disabled to the maximum extent possible.




Additional Resources
Characteristics of a Collaborative Classroom
1. Shared knowledge among teachers and students
2. Shared authority among teachers and students
3. Teachers as mediators
4. Heterogeneous groupings of students

Challenges of Collaboration
1. Classroom Control
2. Preparation Time
3. Individual Differences
4. Individual Responsibilities
5. Conflict of Values



References
http://www.arp.sprnet.org/admin/supt/collab2.htm

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/coopcollab/index.html

Topic 6: PCP and Wrap-Around

Topic 6

Person-Centered Planning and Wrap-Around

The Basics

PCP
is a process designed to assist someone to make plans for their future. It is used most often as a life planning model to enable individuals with disabilities or otherwise requiring support to increase their personal self-determination and improve their own independence. This ultimately leads to greater inclusion as valued members of both community and society.

Wrap-Around

Wraparound services are family and child-centered, and they can take place in variety of settings, not just one place. Services are defined by the Behavior Treatment Plan, or Behavior Care Plan. Progress is monitored with data, updated regularly and reevaluated every three months. Also, wraparound services are often very personal. Some families may need to adjust to new persons actively joining their daily activities.

Resource: www.dpw.state.pa.us

Federal Policies and Legislation

The transition services that school districts are required to provide under Chapter 285 continue to be defined by the federal IDEA 2004. IDEA 2004 defines transition services as a "coordinated set of activities designed to be within a results-oriented process that is focused on improving the academic and functional achievement of the child with a disability to facilitate the child's movement from school to post-school activities."2 Under IDEA 2004, transition planning must take place for the student who is 14 years of age and, if needed, the IEP Team must include appropriate goals related to postsecondary training, education, employment, and independent living skills in the student's IEP.3

Popular Person Centred Tools (PPCT)

*PATH- For people who are indecisive on what to do in life.
1. The dream
2. One year on
3. Now
4. Enroll
5. Growing stronger
6. Actions
7. First steps

*MAPS- It is a tool which builds a shared commitment to help the focus person move towards their dream and away from their nightmare. MAP can be used when we want to learn from a person’s past to help shape their future.

*One-Page Plans- provide a capacity description of a person focusing on what others like and admire about them, what’s important to them and what we need to know or do to provide good support.

*Living Descriptions include:
How to communicate with the person
Who supports the person best
Routines and rituals
Staff roles and responsibilities
Dreams
Decision making agreements
Health information
Relationship circle

Resource: www.inclusive-solutions.com


Websites to See

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/edi/pcp/index.html

www.kipbs.org

Person-Centred Checklist

Kansas Rehabilitation Services

Journal 4

Topic 4

Assessment and Screening

The Basics

Testing and assessment is ongoing with children in special education programs. Some are formal, normed and standardized. Formal tests are used to compare populations as well as evaluating individual children. Some are less formal and used for ongoing assessment of a students progress in meeting his or her IEP goals. These can include curriculum based assessment, using chapter tests from a text, or teacher made tests, created to measure specific goals on a child's IEP.

www.specialed.about.com

Federal Policies and Legislation
IDEA 2004 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) outlines specific guidelines for screenings and evaluations. Including:
“3. Clarify that screening for instructional purposes is not evaluation.

The screening of a student by a teacher or specialist to determine appropriate instructional strategies for curriculum implementation shall not be considered to be an evaluation for eligibility for special education and related services.
[34 CFR 300.302] [20 U.S.C. 1414(a)(1)(E)]”
“5. Add a requirement that evaluation procedure be administered in form that is most likely to yield the most accurate information.

Each public agency must ensure that assessments and other evaluation materials used to assess a child under Part 300 are provided and administered in the child’s native language or other mode of communication and in the form most likely to yield accurate information on what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally, unless it is clearly not feasible to provide or administer.
[34 CFR 300.304(c)(1)(ii)] [20 U.S.C. 1414(b)(3)(A)(ii)]”


Terms to Know

1. Intelligence Testing- Intelligence testing is usually done individually, although there are group tests used to identify students for further testing or for accelerated or gifted programs.

2. Standardized Testing- tests used to evaluate large groups, such as schools or entire school districts.

3. Curriculum based assessments- are criterion based tests, usually based on what the child is learning in the curriculum.

4. Criterion-Refrenced Tests- A test in which questions are written according to specific predetermined criteria. Student is not compared to others.


5. Norm-refrenced Tests- This type of test determines a student's placement on a normal distribution curve. Comparing students to one another.

6. Reliabilty- a test is considered reliable if it allows for stable estimates of student ability.

7. Validity- refers to the extent to which a test's content is representative of the actual skills learned and whether the test can allow accurate conclusions concerning achievement.


Websites to See

www.rubrics4teachers.com

www.naep.org

www.nciea.org


Kansas Special Education Assessments

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)
BASC - Behavior Assessment System for Children
Woodcock Johnson III (WJ-III)

Response to Intervention (RTI) Tiers

Tier I- Interventions beginning in the classroom. All students are placed here in the beginning.

Tier II- Student that are identified and need an extra push with some accommodations.

Tier III- More intensive instruction. Some individual or small group sessions may be needed.

Journal 5- Functional Behavior Assessment

Functional Behavior Assessment Powerpoint

Link

Journal 3- Classrom Management

Topic 3
Classroom Management

The Basics
According to answers.com
Classroom management is the orchestration of the learning environment of a group of individuals within a classroom setting. A teacher's classroom-management system communicates information about the teacher's beliefs on content and the learning process. Everything a teacher does has implications for classroom management, including creating the setting, decorating the room, arranging the chairs, speaking to children and handling their responses, putting routines in place (and then executing, modifying, and reinstituting them), developing rules, and communicating those rules to the students.
www.answers.com/topic/classroom-management


Federal Policies and Legislation

IDEA requires teachers to implement universal design for learning (UDL) which helps teachers have more effective classroom management. Using UDL, helps reach more students needs and allows for modifications and accommodations for students who need the extra help.

Terms to Know

PBS-
Positive behavior support

Social Cue-
A cue given to students to assist them in identifying and internalizing appropriate social behavior.

Proximity-
A teacher’s physical movement throughout the classroom during instruction and independent practice. If the teacher is working with a small group, proximity is done through eye contact.

Signal-
1. Teacher signals – signals to students such as the teacher raising his/her hand when asking a questions so that students raise their hands to answer the question.
2. Student signals – a way for students to kinesthetically identify to their teacher that they are ready

Time Limit-
A time limit sets the limit to begin working. Time limits are most effective when combined with social cues. Time limits can also effectively be combined with signals.

Engagement-
Who is doing the work? 80% is the benchmark for engagement.
Direct Instruction: When teachers call on one student – only one student has to be engaged. How can all students think before 1 responds? (i.e. Whisper to your neighbor, raise a finger for each idea you have, write it in the air, note taking guide).

Expectations-
Do students know exactly what to do at any given time? Have expectations (procedures and student habits) been established, modeled and reinforced consistently through social cues, signals and reteaching with individual students?

Voice-
Teachers need to use a credible voice during instructions and expectations and an approachable voice during instruction. When students are working quietly, does the teacher take them off task by using a LOUD voice?

Resource: Ellen Williams/Annette Brinkman 2005

Websites to See
Behavioradvisor.com
http://www.pacificnet.net/~mandel/ClassroomManagement.html
pbis.org