Association for Behavior Analysis International

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP, 2018), 44% percent of children under age 18 in the United States are considered economically disadvantaged. Research suggests that these children are more likely to experience academic challenges than children who are not economically disadvantaged. This presentation will describe the academic needs of economically disadvantaged learners, historical contributions of behavior analysis to improving educational outcomes, and the current needs that behavior analysis can address. Implications and recommendations for practitioners and researchers will be discussed.

This study used the observer effect as part of a teacher training package by evaluating the effects of peer observations on an observing teacher's implementation integrity of components of a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) system for four middle school teachers. The primary dependent variables were the number of praise and corrective statements made by the teachers to their students, and how closely the teacher approximated a ratio of three praise statements to every one corrective statement. Secondary dependent variables included the number of behavioral expectations set by the teacher for the students, and the number of office referrals written by the teacher. Results suggest that peer observations increased intervention integrity of target classroom management behaviors for three of four participants and that participants were highly satisfied with the procedure. Implications for teacher training in schools, and how the findings relate to the observer effect, are discussed.

Struggling older readers often have difficulty with early decoding skills (Tolman, 2005; Toste, Williams, & Capin, 2017). If they are unable to master decoding, they may have difficulty with more complex skills, such as passage reading fluency. The current study extends research on reading fluency for older students by evaluating the combined effects of a phonics procedure and a fluency-building strategy on their reading fluency. Participants were older students with below grade level reading performance who had deficits in oral reading fluency and decoding. Dependent variables were the number of correctly sorted word patterns and the number of correct words per minute read in a passage and on a word list. During the intervention, a modified word sort procedure was used to train students to sort and read words containing the target word patterns. Following the initial word sort procedure, fluency building was employed by training word reading to a fluency criterion. Connected text passages were used to assess participants’ fluency when reading passages that contained the word pattern. A multiple-probe design across responses was utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention on the decoding skills and oral reading fluency of participants. Results showed that participants’ decoding and oral reading fluency increased following the intervention.