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UCSB Koegel Autism Center

Journal of

Positive Behavior Interventions

Volume 10, Number 2, April 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS AND ABSTRACTS

Editorial
Robert H. Horner and Robert L. Koegel

Articles

Choice-making as intervention for public disrobing in children with developmental disabilities.
Jane I. Carlson, James K. Luiselli, Amy Slyman, and Andrea Markowski.

The authors describe a choice-making intervention with two children who had developmental disabilities and demonstrated public disrobing in school settings. The children also urinated in their clothing, apparently to gain access to new and more preferred apparel. The intervention gave the children a choice to change into high-preference clothes at scheduled opportunities during the day. Evaluated in a multiple baseline design, intervention decreased and eliminated incidents of public disrobing and urinary incontinence with both children. Scheduling acceptable opportunities to change clothes appears to have functioned as an abolishing operation that lessened each child's motivation to disrobe. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Validation of the Contextual Assessment Inventory for problem behavior.
Edward G. Carr, Mara V. Ladd, and Christine F. Schulte.

Problem behavior is a major barrier to successful community integration for people with developmental disabilities. Recently, there has been increased interest in identifying contextual factors involving setting events and discriminative stimuli that impact the display of problem behavior. The authors previously developed the Contextual Assessment Inventory and evaluated it for efficiency, comprehensiveness, comprehensibility, and reliability. This study further evaluated this inventory with respect to convergent and predictive validity. Convergent validity was examined for 17 participants with developmental disabilities through a review of community residence log entries that included a record of the contextual events associated with each episode of problem behavior. Predictive validity was evaluated for a subset of 5 participants through direct observation of contextual events. Results indicated that the inventory had both convergent and predictive validity. Implications for extending contextual assessment and using such information to develop intervention strategies are explored.

Maryland statewide PBIS initiative: Systems, evaluation, and next steps.
Susan B. Barrett, Catherine P. Bradshaw, and Teri Lewis-Palmer.

There is growing interest in positive behavior supports among state departments of education and local school systems as an efficient and effective strategy for addressing students' increasing and intensifying discipline needs. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is one whole-school prevention strategy that alters the school environment by creating improved systems (e.g., discipline, reinforcement, and data management) and procedures (e.g., collection of office referral data, training, team-based decision making) to promote positive changes in student and teacher behaviors. This article describes a statewide systems approach to the implementation of PBIS. An overview of the PBIS Maryland multilevel implementation model is presented with a focus on school- and district-level structures that support implementation. Preliminary results are presented from the state's summative and formative evaluation being conducted in 467 schools trained in PBIS. The evaluation findings suggest that the state has developed an efficient statewide structure for promoting high-fidelity implementation of PBIS.

Context-sensitive cognitive-behavioral supports for young children with TBI: A second replication study.
Timothy J. Feeney and Mark Ylvisaker.

This study produced a second replication of an investigation of the effects of a multicomponent cognitive-behavioral intervention on the challenging behavior of young children with growing behavioral concerns after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The participants were two young elementary-age children with escalating behavior problems after severe TBI. Single-subject reversal designs were used to document the effects of the combined behavioral, cognitive, and executive function intervention on the following: frequency and intensity of aggressive behaviors and amount of work accomplished. The intervention included integrated components of positive behavior supports, cognitive supports (e.g., graphic organizers), and an executive function routine (goal-plan-do-review). Results included reduced frequency and intensity of challenging behaviors and increased quantity of work completed. These two successful single-subject experiments replicated four previously published single-subject experiments demonstrating the potential for successfully treating behavior disorders in young children with TBI using a support-oriented intervention that combines behavioral, cognitive, and executive function components.

Forums

Systems change with school-wide positive behavior supports: Iowa's work in progress.
Robin L. Galloway, Marion V. Panyan, Carl R. Smith, and Suana Wessendorf.

This study reports evaluation data from the statewide School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports (SWPBS) initiative in Iowa. The study shows initial positive results over a 3-year period. The School-Wide Evaluation Tool, Team Implementation Checklist, and office discipline referral data were monitored to assess progress. Suggestions for connecting these implementation efforts to intensive individual supports are proposed.

Examining the agreement of direct behavior ratings and systematic direct observation data for on-task and disruptive behavior.
T. Chris Riley-Tillman, Sandra M. Chafouleas, Kari A. Sassu, Julie A.M. Chanese, and Amy D. Glazer.

The purpose of this study was to replicate previous findings indicating a moderate association between teacher perceptions of behavior as measured by direct behavior ratings (DBRs) and systematic direct observation (SDO) conducted by an external observer. In this study, data regarding student on-task and disruptive behavior were collected via SDO from trained external observers and via DBRs from classroom teachers. Data were collected across 15 teachers and three observation sessions, and the agreement between the two methods was compared as a way to examine concurrent validity. Results supported previous work suggesting that DBRs are significantly correlated with SDO data, thereby suggesting that the DBR might be used as a compatible tool with SDO. Implications for practice, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.