Association for Behavior Analysis International

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) present a range of academic, behavioral, and social needs (Ennis et al., 2017). In particular, students with EBD struggle to become effective writers (Ennis, 2016). One possible explanation for this underachievement is that writing requires skills in self-monitoring and self-regulation that are characteristically weak in this population (Gage et al., 2014). Moreover, students with EBD often demonstrate low levels of academic engagement (Wagner & Cameto, 2004). The current study examined the effects of an antecedent intervention to support students with EBD during writing instruction. Participants included four males in grades 5 and 6 served in a separate school for students with EBD, all of who had specific writing goals in their Individualized Educational Programs. Using a multielement design, researchers compared the effects of high-preference pre-writing organizers to traditional organizers on total words written. Data indicated that each student produced more wiring when using the preferred organizer versus the less preferred one. Results are discussed in terms of the adaptability of low-intensity antecedent interventions for use by behavior analysts and educators who teach students EBD.

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) consistently underperform in writing compared to their peers without disabilities. Most interventions for students with EBD focus on social behavior, and academic interventions are not prioritized. There is limited research on effective academic interventions, specifically in the areas of written expression, for students with EBD. In this study students with EBD received intervention—GO 4 IT...NOW! strategy instruction—to improve writing skills. Using effective techniques, such as feedback, self-editing, and self-correcting, students with EBD improved their writing and learned to write paragraphs about their goals as well as basic expository paragraphs. This study occurred over two school years in an urban alternative setting with middle school students. During intervention, instruction was provided in small group and one-on-one sessions over a 19-lesson sequence. By the end of these lessons, each student met mastery criteria based on a quality writing rubric. During the following school year, data were collected to measure maintenance, and booster sessions were delivered to students as needed. Results indicated a functional relation between the GO 4 IT…NOW! strategy instruction and improved paragraph writing. Students generally maintained some of the gains they made during the previous year but required booster sessions to return to levels comparable to their post-instruction scores.

Elementary students need proficiency in transcription skills (i.e., spelling and handwriting) to develop more advanced writing skills. Unfortunately, students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to have difficulty with several areas of written expression, including handwritten letter formation. A small number of prior studies have addressed letter formation for students with ASD through intervention which has targeted limited letter sets (i.e., within 3 or fewer words). Given the need for research addressing a broader range of letters (i.e., the entire alphabet), the goal of the present study was to evaluate the effects of the CASL (Center for Advancing Student Learning) Handwriting Program on the fluency of handwritten letter formation of three elementary students with ASD. Eighteen, 20-min lessons taught formation of the entire lowercase alphabet using explicit instruction and timed practice. Using a multiple baseline across participants design, all students experienced immediate increases in letter formation accuracy as measured by correct letter points and error letter points on a 1.5-min sentence copy task. Throughout intervention, all three students gradually improved their overall letter formation accuracy, and 2 of 3 students showed increased rates of letter formation. However, the observed gains fell short of levels expected from fluency as a learning outcome. Results extend prior research which has demonstrated the positive effects of CASL Handwriting for students with learning disabilities.

In this investigation, researchers used a concurrent multiple probe design to evaluate to effects of an autonomous technology-based writing package in teaching sentence construction to 8 students with ASD and ID. The package integrated innovative technological features and transfer of stimulus control procedures. Data suggest the package was effective but provide insight in to the need for future iterative research

Research in foreign language learning by students with specific reading disorder is based on the hypothesis that there is a close relation between the students’ skills in their first language and those in their second/foreign language. The aim of the present study is to investigate reading skills in primary and secondary school students with specific reading disorder and their equivalents with good reading skills, in Greek as a first language (L1) and in French as a foreign language (L2). Furthermore, a basic objective of the study is to examine whether reading skills in Greek could predict reading skills in French for both groups. The sample of the study consists of one hundred and eight (N=108) students with good reading skills and one hundred and eight (N=108) students with specific reading disorder, who are assessed for their decoding and comprehension reading skills in both languages. The results of the study revealed that students with specific reading disorder had a statistically significant lower performance than those with good reading skills, in all tasks in both languages. Furthermore, the results revealed that the deficits appeared in a specific task in one language were transferred analogically to the same task in the other language.

Teaching individuals with complex communication needs to communicate beyond basic requests is an essential outcome of our schools. Approaches for teaching language often rely heavily on modeling without direct teaching of specific concepts or vocabulary. These approaches often lack the systematization necessary to meet the unique instructional needs of learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and complex communication challenges. Approximately 30% of individuals with ASD experience significant challenges in the area of communication and are considered to be minimally verbal into adulthood (DiStefano, Shih, Kalser, Landa, & Kasari, 2016; Finke et al., 2017). While some individuals labeled as minimally verbal are able to make basic requests across settings, they do not have functional communication systems that support meaningful social communication interactions at school or work, at home. In this multiple baseline study across participants, a structured protocol was created to teach adolescents with significant ASD to comment using specific vocabulary (i.e., pronouns plus verbs) in both one on one and small group instruction using age appropriate activities. Data collected included a) pronoun use, b) verb use, and c)the the length of the utterances. All students demonstrated communication gains with pronouns post intervention. One student demonstrated gains in the use of verbs.

Direct Instruction (DI) is an evidence-based and empirically tested teaching method that has been found to be very effective in English-speaking countries. DI has been especially effective when combined with fluency building methods. These methods are not generally in use in Iceland although dozens of single-case experiments have indicated that they are very effective when psychology students have used the methods with special ed students. In this project, a group comparison was undertaken to study the effects of reading instruction with DI and fluency building in Icelandic by trained teachers on reading performance of students in 1st and 2nd grade in a traditional classroom. Participants were in total 72 students in 1st grade and 75 students in 2nd grade in two comparable elementary schools in Iceland, one had the experimental group, the other school had the comparison group. Performance in reading was evaluated and comparisons were made within the experimental and comparison groups at the beginning and end of each school year and between the experimental and comparison groups. Results show that students in the experimental groups showed more progress than students in the comparison groups and scored higher on 10 of the 11 variables tested at the end of the study.

The slower rate of learning for students with intellectual disabilities prompted the design of a reading package effective in accelerating decoding skills. Centered on the behavioral analysis of memory (Palmer, 1991), the design incorporated phonetic hand cues as an intermediate behavior, salience of the stimuli (letters) enhanced, competing responses controlled (errorless teaching and short intertrial intervals), and constant stimulus conditions maintained (systematic instructional sequence). The subject was taught to imitate a hand signal associated with the phonetic sound of a letter. Instruction systematically moved from isolated letters to whole word presentation for consonant-vowel-consonant words. Study 1 followed a 6-step instructional sequence across 4 participants (ages 9-10, Down Syndrome and Autism). Study 2 replicated only 3 of the 6 steps across the same 4 participants plus 1 new participant (age 14, Down Syndrome), evaluating the effectiveness of a shorter instructional sequence. A multiple baseline design across participants demonstrated discriminative control of responding by multielement stimuli for printed words in both study 1 and 2 for all participants. A steady increase in decoding words is observed from baseline to intervention. This supports stimulus control procedures as an effective way to enhance phonetic reading in students with intellectual disabilities.