Behavioral Assessment in School Settings



Fig. 2.1
Narrative ABC record



This recording can be rich in detail and allow a focus on multiple behavioral sequences prior to treatment planning. Although this method requires little actual observer training, it may be time consuming and not amenable to observations of multiple students. Anecdotal recording is a briefer narrative account describing a single incident of a student’s behavior that is of interest to the observer, i.e., physical fight with a peer. Often written after the incident, the anecdotal record describes (a) what happened, (b) how it happened, (c) when and where it happened, and (d) what was said and done in response. This narrative is certainly less time consuming and helps focus on behaviors of interest and no special training is needed. It is suggested that a standard incident form be used and collected throughout the school year.

Once an observer has completed this preliminary observation, initial functional hypotheses can be developed relative to target behaviors and the antecedent and consequent events thought to be related to the maintenance of these behaviors across time. Home-based or school-based observations are designed to more naturalistically capture particular child behaviors of interest within the context of routine daily activities. Usually, a trained observer watches and codes any number of a student’s behaviors during predetermined structured observation sessions. This will help to establish baseline frequencies of target behaviors and correlates and will help to develop treatment strategies. The main two methods of direct observation used by school personnel are Time Sampling and Event Sampling . Both first require complete behavioral definitions of each behavior to be observed in the natural environment. These definitions must be objective, clear, and reliable across observers. In Time Sampling the observer records the frequency of the behavior’s occurrence over specific time intervals, i.e., during 15 min of snack time. This is an easy way to measure the occurrence of high-frequency, easily observable behaviors for one or more children. However, context-specific information (i.e., antecedents and consequences) is not obtained. In Event Sampling , the observer waits for and records a specific preselected behavior and the subsequent events and associated behaviors (i.e., temper tantrum). This can be used to study low-frequency behaviors as well as setting events, which may have direct implications for treatment planning. The Event Sampling method will help to further the functional assessment of specific target behaviors each time they occur in a far more detailed fashion than Time Sampling. However, the burdens of both of these direct observation methods for either the participant teacher or an outside observer are many and may not be easily implemented in a school setting. Most behavioral intervention research studies have relied upon direct observation of behaviors in the natural environment to examine fluctuations in responding during various treatment conditions repeatedly across time. This is referred to as idiographic time-series measurement rather than snapshot measurement at any single point in time and is the hallmark of the behavioral assessment approach. This will provide continuous feedback across time to aid in treatment decisions.

The emphasis on the response to intervention (RTI) model highlights the necessity for a greater need for easy and frequent monitoring methods, perhaps daily, so that intervention efforts can be designed, implemented, and evaluated more efficiently. Often, in the school setting, there are limited resources for such methods of data collection across multiple observation times. DBR ( Daily Behavior Rating) refers to a class of behavioral observation methodologies that can be used to document the effects of a behavioral and/or academic intervention. The recent advancement of DBR research is the analysis of the assessment potential of these methods. DBR, like systematic direct observation, may also fulfill educational accountability standards because the data provide valid and reliable information about the effects of behavioral interventions (Schlientz, Riley-Tillman, Walcott, Briesch, & Chafouleas, 2009). DBR methods require that behaviors to be observed are specified and operationally defined as with SDO methods. Ratings or Likert-type scores are then entered at the end of some predetermined observation period (e.g., 5 min, 1 h, half day, or daily) in specific settings. The data can be easily charted and summarized to share with parents, counselors, school psychologists, or administrators.

Riley-Tillman, Kalberer, and Chafouleas (2005) provide a comprehensive overview of one such DBR, the DBRC: Daily Behavior Report Cards used to rate both academic (such as on task, hand raising, work completion) and social (such as disruptive or aggressive) behaviors. The parameters they note about the DBRC are similar to the recommendations for conducting direct observations:

1.

The behavior of interest is operationally defined.

 

2.

The observations should be conducted under standardized procedures to ensure consistency in data collection.

 

3.

The DBRC should be used in a specific time and place with a predetermined frequency .

 

4.

The data can be scored and summarized in a consistent manner across raters, settings, and even across students.

 

Also included in their review is a conceptual flowchart model which will help determine the appropriateness of using the DBRC to monitor student behaviors that are not severe or frequent enough to warrant immediate intervention. Behaviors are clearly defined and each is given a Likert-type scale rating. For example, if hand raising was a target behavior, the assessor would rate either a “1” (0 times), “2” (1–2 times), “3” (3–4 times), “4” (5–6 times), or 5 (7+ times). The range would be based upon baseline observations and the goals of the intervention. The assessor, usually the teacher, would complete this either at a specific time point each day or at multiple predetermined data points across the day. As such, multiple behaviors can be assessed via a single DBRC. A case example that illustrates the method is available from Riley-Tilman et al. (2005). An available resource in the development of student specific monitoring tools is found at Intervention Central: the Report Card Generator (http://​www.​jimwrightonline.​com/​php/​tbrc/​tbrc.​php).

DBRs have several advantages when compared to other methods of direct behavioral observation. First, a natural participant, the teacher, is used as the observer which may result in less reactivity from those observed than the use of an outside observer which is often required when using other direct observation methods. Second, DBRs are quite socially acceptable among teachers: over 60 % of the teachers contacted via a national database reported using DBRs periodically (Chafouleas, Riley-Tillman, & Sassu, 2006).



Analogue Assessment


Since it is often impossible or impractical to observe students’ behavior in the natural environment, analogue assessment methods have been developed to help understand the functional relationships associated with target behaviors and to obtain baseline levels of responding prior to intervention implementation. Analogue assessment provides the opportunity to directly observe the students’ behavior in a contrived setting that approximates the natural environment (Gold & Marx, 2006). The assessment situation can be standardized and designed to elicit the behaviors of interest in a far more efficient way than naturalistic observation. The method relies on the assumption that behavior in a contrived environment approximates what would occur naturally. In addition to observation, alternative methods include the students’ responses to audio or videotaped scenarios and role-play enactments usually with a confederate child or adult. Most recently, researchers and clinicians have incorporated virtual reality simulations of feared situations to help in assessment, but few reports extend this to child samples. According to Mori and Armendariz (2001), analogue methods offer potential advantages such as tracking multiple behaviors simultaneously, accommodating variability across behavioral domains, ensuring the target behavior of interest, and being less intrusive than naturalistic observation.

Analogue methods have most commonly been used to assess fears, phobias, academic functioning, and social behavior. The Behavioral Avoidance Test (BAT) requires the student to enter a room that contains the feared object (snake, dog, the dark, etc., either real or fake) and to approach and interact in tasks that increase the anxiety potential. Behavioral measures of avoidance (proximity to the feared object, time spent in presence of object, etc.) and ratings of internal distress provide the assessment data. This can also be extended to include other situations that provoke intense anxiety, such as heights, enclosures, injections, and even school situations. These situations can be either contrived (i.e., dogs) or natural (i.e., elevators) but can be standardized across assessment time points for comparative purposes. Silverman and Serafini (1998) include the use of a graphical “fear” thermometer to obtain a subjective and relative rating of fear while in the contrived situation. Reported some time ago, a unique approach was developed by Glennon and Weisz (1978) for the assessment of separation anxiety in preschoolers. Using the Preschool Observation Scale of Anxiety (POSA), observers recorded 30 indicators of anxious behavior as they watched a preschooler complete tasks from several cognitive assessments with and/or without the mother. The coding of anxious behaviors represents a detailed topography of how anxiety is exhibited in young children.

In terms of academic functioning, it is easy to see how a simulated educational or testing situation could be set up to assess a student’s frequency of attentional shifts, off-task behaviors, out-of-seat movements, etc., all indicative of ADHD or other learning difficulties. Early assessment attempts included an analogue playroom setting with a movement grid across the floor to determine locomotor activity in hyperactive children. Direct assessment of movement patterns at a pre- and then post-assessment point would help to determine effects of treatment components on motor behavior. Barkley (1990) developed an ADHD coding system to be used in an analogue academic setting. A child would be placed alone in a playroom and asked to complete a packet of math problems within 15 min. Further, the child was instructed not to leave the table or touch the toys. Observers recorded via a one-way mirror the time the child was off task or out of seat and how often s/he vocalized and played with objects. This was revised into the Restricted Academic Task (RAT) by Fischer (1998) which standardized the coding system for interval recording of the following behaviors: engaged in task, off task, fidgeting, task-relevant vocalization, task-irrelevant vocalization, and out of seat. Fischer reports the use of this assessment probe as a way to help optimize medication dose for ADHD children and as an adjunct to parent and teacher reports of treatment outcomes. It may be more practical to videotape the child in the academic situation for later coding as well as for the child, treatment provider, and parent to have a visual record of behavioral change across time. The coding systems described are usually time consuming and complex requiring observer training and thus may be impractical for the school environment.

Children’s social behavior might best be assessed using analogue methods to capture a description of the specific behaviors of interest and their functional relations. Shyness and social withdrawal can be observed in a contrived play setting in which familiar and then unfamiliar peers and/or adults can be included or in situations similar to those encountered every day. Behavior of interest might include shared play, verbal interactions, spontaneous comments, playing by self, or removal from others. The Behavioral Assertiveness Test for Children (BAT-C; Bornstein, Bellack, & Hersen, 1977) was developed for pre–post-assessment of children’s social skills programs. The format includes social scenarios to which a child responds. The scenes requiring assertive behavior (accepting help, giving and receiving compliments and negative assertion) are introduced by a narrator, followed by a prompt from a confederate child or adult. The behaviors recorded include six categories of verbal behavior and four categories of nonverbal behavior in addition to overall assertiveness. Scenarios particular to a given child’s social difficulties could be developed and used as an assessment probe prior to intervention and then as an outcome measure. A similar format was developed in the pre–post-assessment of adolescent anger management training wherein the scenario and the prompts were typical antecedents to angry and aggressive outbursts for target youth (Feindler & Ecton, 1986). Responses to these scenarios were videotaped and later coded for behaviors specific to anger management training (Figs. 2.2 and 2.3).

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Fig. 2.2
Sample role-play scripts


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Fig. 2.3
Role-play coding sheet

Wakschlag and colleagues (Wakschlag et al., 2005, 2008) have developed the Disruptive Behavior Diagnostic Observation Schedule (DB-DOS). Designed as an analogue method to accompany typical parent interviews, the DB-DOS is a 50-min structured laboratory observation involving both parent and examiner along with the child. Problems in both behavior regulation and anger modulation are elicited by performance tasks, and the target child’s natural behavior is coded. Performance tasks may include simulations, tasks with the child alone, or tasks where the parental behavior is scripted to systematically elicit the full range of behaviors relevant to a particular diagnosis. The DB-DOS includes diagnostic observation, which is structured to allow for a wide range of clinically relevant behaviors to be observed, and clinical judgment may be used to rate behaviors on a continuum of atypicality, ranging from normative variation to clinically concerning. The DB-DOS demonstrates good inter-rater and test–retest reliability as well as strong predictive and concurrent validity . Their multi-informant, multi-method research has indicated that the DB-DOS is reliable and valid in terms of its utility for discriminating clinical levels of disruptive behavior in young children (McKinney & Morse, 2012). Other analogue assessments used in the examination of disruptive behaviors of older children include simulations such as a computer pinball competition with an alleged peer, to study cheating, responses to provocation, and aggressive behaviors.

Lastly, clinicians have reported on the use of an analogue paradigm to measure aspects of parent–child interaction and in particular child compliance to adult instructions. The Compliance Test (CT) was developed to determine interaction patterns between parents and their disruptive or noncompliant children. Usually, the parent and child are placed in a playroom situation with a variety of toys and containers. After a period of habituation, the parent issues a standard set of instructions related to task completion as well as cleanup, and observers note not only the child’s compliance/noncompliance but can also record the parent’s behaviors. The CT has been used to evaluate the outcomes of parent training programs and has shown good validity with other methods of noncompliance assessment (Filcheck, Berry, & McNeil, 2004). It would be easy to extend this paradigm for the assessment of teacher–child compliance issues in an educational setting. What might also be helpful in further understanding the variables that maintain children’s disruptive behavior, the school clinician could easily observe the parent and child completing a simple task together (such as a puzzle) and then cleaning up. A wealth of information about compliance and reinforcement contingencies is available in a relatively short observation of the dyad in this analogue situation. Some have extended this to include watching and coding (Parent–Adolescent Interaction Coding System ) a verbal interaction between parents and adolescents over a “hot topic” to get a fuller understanding of the communication dynamics with a conflicted family (Robin & Foster, 2002).

Since analogue situations are developed specifically for a particular assessment target and participant, it seems easily adapted to any age child. For the young child who may not be able to complete a questionnaire assessment or who is not yet able to self-reflect and accurately report on their experience, observation of natural behavior in a contrived setting might be the best possible assessment. When incorporating role-play scenarios or more simulated settings (i.e., the BAT), the reliability and validity of the assessment does depend on the child’s capacity for mental representation. Since students are asked to respond “as if” they were in the natural environment, their understanding of and flexibility with pretense and imagination will influence their responses.

Some have written about the methodological limitations and the psychometric concerns with analogue assessment (Mori & Armendariz, 2001), and others continue to examine issues of reliability and validity (Filcheck et al., 2004; DiLorenzo & Michelson, 1983). Overall the results are mixed for role-play assessments; the psychometric outcomes depend on how much the behavior in the analogue situation reflects real behavior. Often what children say they would do and what they actually do in a real-world situation do not correspond. There are demand characteristics in contrived settings that may exert influence on the child’s behavior. For example, most children know that the simulated feared environment (such as a darkened room) is made safer because of the person conducting the assessment. Further, since all analogue assessments only sample actual behavior, a question of adequate sampling arises. Do the chosen role-play scenarios or the compliance instructions represent enough of a range for a particular child to truly provide an accurate rating of the behaviors of interest? A recent study sought to examine the representativeness of parent–child analogue tasks usually used in the measurement of noncompliance. Rhule, McMahon, and Vando (2009) asked a community sample of mothers who were observed in 4 parent–child compliance tasks about their experience, and the majority rated the interaction as comparable to what would go on at home. The children however were young (4–6 years old) and might experience fewer behavioral constraints even in an analogue setting.

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Jun 29, 2017 | Posted by in PSYCHOLOGY | Comments Off on Behavioral Assessment in School Settings

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