Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology
Critical Issues Affecting the Field of Behavior Disorders
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- Positive Behavioral Support Intervention Approaches
- Analysis of Teacher Interactions With Students With Behavior Disorders
- Critical Issues Affecting the Field of Behavior Disorders 517
- The Relationship Between Language Deficits and Conduct Disorder
- Analysis of Office Discipline Referrals as a Screening and Program Evaluation Tool
- Resistance to Intervention as a Tool for Determining Eligibility and Treatment Selection
- What Is Wrong With Behavior Disorders
- Referencing BD Interventions and Results to Societal Issues and Problems
Critical Issues Affecting the Field of Behavior Disorders 515 (mentioned earlier). Descriptions of some of these advances and seminal contributions are briefly described below.
The development and validation of functional behavioral as- sessment (FBA) techniques and approaches stands as perhaps one of the most important advances in the field of behavior disorders (O’Neill, Horner, Albin, Storey, & Newton, 1997). Functional behavioral assessment (a) provides a usable methodology for identifying and validating the motivations that drive maladaptive forms of student behavior in applied settings, (b) allows for the identification of the factors that sustain such behavior over time, and (c) provides a prescrip- tion for intervening on these sustaining variables with the goal of producing fundamental, enduring changes in the rate and topography of problem behavior. Functional behavioral assessment, which is based on oper- ant learning theory and its application to the learning and be- havioral difficulties of children and youth, is derived from the field of applied behavior analysis. The dominant theoretical orientation of the BD field has historically been applied be- havior analysis, and its many contributions to BD date back over 30 years. They were chronicled in the edited volume titled Behavior Analysis in Education (Sulzer-Azaroff, Drabman, Greer, Hall, Iwata, & O’Leary, 1988). In 1997 the amendments to IDEA required use of both FBA and positive
and intervening with students having a possible disabling con- dition. Prior to this landmark legislation, many BD profes- sionals and behavior analysts considered FBA and PBS to be best practices, but federal law did not mandate their use. Based on a valid FBA, PBS programming has much to offer the BD community in fulfilling the mandates of IDEA. The 1997 IDEA amendments do not specify what constitutes a valid FBA, nor do they state the essential components of a positive behavioral support plan. However, in the few years since the passage of this law, the BD field has vigorously responded in developing a range of feasible FBA and PBS models and approaches. FBA methods can be categorized as (a) indirect, using interviews, historical-archival records, checklists, and rating scales; (b) direct or descriptive in nature, using system- atic behavioral observations in naturalistic settings; and (c) experimental, employing standardized experimental pro- tocols that systematically manipulate and isolate contingen- cies that control the occurrence of problem behavior using primarily single-case experimental designs (Horner, 1994; O’Neill et al., 1997). Despite the methodological rigor of functional analysis approaches, there are limitations regarding the external validity of its findings as well as the amount of time and expertise required to conduct a valid functional analysis (Gresham, Quinn, & Restori, 1998; Repp & Horner, 1999). Many of the studies using functional assessment proce- dures over the past decade were based on low-incidence dis- ability groups, thus limiting the applicability of these results to high-incidence groups. Walker and Sprague (1999) argued that there are two generic models or approaches to the assessment of behavior problems. One model, termed the longitudinal or risk factors
antisocial behavior (Loeber & Farrington, 1998) and seeks to identify molar variables that (a) operate across multiple settings and (b) put students at risk for long-term, negative out- comes (e.g., drug use, delinquency, school failure). The sec- ond model, called the functional assessment approach, seeks to identify microlevel variables operating in specific situations that are sensitive to setting-specific environmental contin- gencies. Both models are useful in school-based assessment processes, but they answer quite different questions. If your goal, for example, is to understand and manage problem be- havior in a specific setting, the FBA is valuable and should be the method of choice. However, if your goal is to understand the variables and factors that account for risk status across multiple settings and what the student’s future is likely to in- volve, then knowledge about the student’s genetic-behavioral history (risk factor exposure) is required. Admittedly, the FBA model (primarily functional analysis) suffers from several threats to its external validity; one should not assume that the same results could be generalized to other populations, meth- ods, settings, and behavioral forms. Despite these limitations, FBA methods represent a valu- able tool for the BD professional working in school settings. They hold the potential to identify setting-specific causal fac- tors that account for problematic student behavior, and their use may enhance the power and sustainability of behavioral interventions. However, this latter outcome remains to be demonstrated empirically. Although FBA has its share of critics (see Nelson, Roberts, Mathur, & Rutherford, 1999), this assessment methodology has been widely adopted by BD researchers and professionals and by other disciplines (e.g., school psychology). Positive Behavioral Support Intervention Approaches The development of PBS approaches is another significant contribution of the BD field in the area of creating well disci- plined, orderly schools with positive school climates. Sugai and Horner (in press) along with their associates have been leaders in this effort and were recently awarded a 5-year cen- ter grant from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs to investigate and promote the adoption of PBS approaches 516 School-Related Behavior Disorders nationwide (see the ERIC/OSEP Special Project, winter, 1999 issue of Research Connections in Special Education for an ex- tensive treatment of PBS). This approach has the advantages of (a) targeting all students within a school; (b) coordinating the implementation of universal, selected, and targeted inter- vention strategies; and (c) focusing on positive, proactive ap- proaches as opposed to punitive, reactive interventions. Sugai and Horner (in press) developed the EBS program, which is a combined universal-selected intervention that teaches behavioral expectations in both schoolwide and spe- cific contexts (i.e., classroom, playground, lunchroom). EBS is a systems approach to creating and sustaining effective and orderly school environs, and it has now been implemented in over 400 schools nationwide. The program teaches generic behavioral expectations such as being responsible, respect- ful, and safe and requires complete buy-in from all personnel within the school. Full implementation of the EBS program usually requires 2 or more years. Office discipline referrals from teachers has been the pri- mary means used to evaluate the schoolwide impact of EBS. In one of the earliest evaluation studies of EBS, Taylor-Green and Kartub (2000) found that the number of disciplinary referrals in an at-risk middle school decreased by 47% in 1 year; after 5 years the initial number of office referrals had been reduced overall by 68% from the pre-EBS level. A study by Lewis, Sugai, and Colvin (1998) found that the EBS pro- gram also reduced problem behavior within specific school settings including the lunchroom, playground, and hallways. Hunter and Chopra (2001) recently reported a review of pri- mary prevention models for schools, in which they endorsed EBS as a universal intervention that works. Positive behavioral support is a popular intervention ap- proach with regular educators, and PBS models will likely have a substantial school adoption rate over the next decade. Most significantly, PBS has been incorporated as a required best practice into the reauthorized legislation supporting the 1997 IDEA amendments for students suspected of having a behavior disorder or disability. When used in concert with more special- ized intervention approaches that address secondary and tertiary prevention goals, PBS models have the potential to in- tegrate qualitatively different interventions that will compre- hensively impact the behavior problems and disorders of all students within a school setting (Walker et al., 1996). This is indeed a rare occurrence in the field of general education.
Two important lines of work have recently developed in the BD field relating to the interactions that occur between BD students and their teachers in classroom settings. Together, they shed considerable light on the interactive dynamics and processes occurring in these teacher-student exchanges wherein the behavior of each social agent is reciprocally con- trolled by the actions of the other. The resulting effects can damage the teacher-student relationship, disrupt the instruc- tional process, and reduce allocated instructional time for everyone. Colvin (1993) developed a conceptual model that captures the phases of behavioral escalation that a teacher and an ag- itated student typically cycle through in a hostile confronta- tion. It begins with the teacher’s making a demand of an agitated student who appears calm but is not. The teacher’s approach serves as a trigger that accelerates the agitation. This acceleration process typically occurs through a recipro- cal question-and-answer exchange between the teacher and the student. There is an overlay of increasing hostility, emo- tional intensity, and anger during these exchanges until the interaction hits a peak, usually expressed as teacher defiance or a severe tantrum. This is followed by a rapid de-escalation and recovery of the calm state. However, seething anger is the usual by-product of this type of interaction, on the part of both teacher and student, which, as a rule, plays out in less than 60 s. These escalated interactions are usually modeled for and learned by BD students in the family context as dysfunctional families often use a process of coercion to control the behav- ior of family members (see Patterson, 1982; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). These same types of negative, destructive interactions typically occur between students with challeng- ing behavior patterns and their teachers. They resemble be- havioral earthquakes that come out of nowhere, do incredible damage, and require long periods for recovery. This behav- ioral escalation game is one that teachers should not play for two primary reasons: (a) Even if the teacher gets the better of the student in this public exchange, he or she will likely have created an enemy dedicated to revenge; and (b) if the reverse occurs, the teacher’s ability to manage and control the classroom will be severely compromised and even damaged. It is best to avoid and escape from such escalated interactions whenever possible. Colvin explained how to recognize these developing episodes and how to avoid and short-circuit them (see Colvin, 1993; Walker, Colvin, & Ramsey, 1995). Shores, Wehby, and their colleagues (see Shores, Gunter, et al., 1993; Shores, Jack, et al., 1993; Wehby, Symonds, Canale, & Go, 1998) have designed and conducted a series of observational studies that spotlight the interplay of precipitat- ing stimuli, setting events and behavioral actions occurring within many of the interactions between BD students and their teachers that occur on a daily basis. Their work confirms
Critical Issues Affecting the Field of Behavior Disorders 517 key parts of the Colvin escalation model and should be re- quired reading for all prospective teachers, and especially for teachers of students with behavior disorders. The results of their studies also replicate the findings of Patterson et al. (1992) and Wahler and Dumas (1986) with families who pro- duce antisocial children; in these families family members learn to control each other’s behavior through aversive means including punishment and coercion. This same coercive process spills over into the school setting and is replicated with teachers by these behaviorally at-risk children. That is, the effect of the student’s behavior on the teacher is highly aversive, leading to reduced levels of praise, negative student recognition, and less instructional time. Ultimately, both teachers and students come to view these exchanges, and the classroom environment, as punishing. This can lead to escape and avoidance forms of behavior by both parties. Wehby et al. (1998) developed a set of teaching recommendations, based on results of this work, that should be incorporated into preservice teacher preparation programs and adopted by experienced teachers as well.
Hester and Kaiser (1997) investigated the relationship be- tween conduct disorder and language deficits and examined the conjoint risk factors (impoverished language environs, poverty, social stressors, and coercive family dynamics) that produce children who are both highly aggressive and very unskilled in their functional use of language. These investi- gators have developed an intriguing social-communicative perspective on the prevention of conduct disorder using early language intervention. This work involves both descriptive and experimental studies and has the potential to be a seminal contribution to the BD knowledge base relating to our under- standing and accommodation of at-risk children having con- duct disorders. Analysis of Office Discipline Referrals as a Screening and Program Evaluation Tool For the past decade a group of researchers at the University of Oregon have been investigating the metric of school discipline contacts or referrals to the principal’s office for student infrac- tions (teacher defiance, aggression, harassment, etc.) that merit more than just classroom-based sanctions (Sugai, Sprague, Horner, & Walker, 2000; Walker, Stieber, Ramsey, & O’Neill, 1993). Discipline referrals can be used to profile an entire school, small groups of students, and selected individual students within a school. Walker et al. (1993) found discipli- nary referrals to be a powerful variable in discriminating low- risk from high-risk antisocial students. Tobin and Sugai (1999) reported that discipline referrals are associated with the out- comes of identification for special education, restrictive place- ments, and later school dropout. Walker and McConnell (1995) found a moderately strong relationship between discipline con- tacts and later arrests in a longitudinal study of a sample of high-risk boys. Loeber and Farrington (1998) cited research showing a similar relationship of moderate strength between these two variables among antisocial youth. In addition to profiling a school and selected students therein, aggregated discipline contacts across school years can be a sensitive measure of effective schoolwide interven- tions that address disciplinary issues (see Sprague, Sugai, Horner, & Walker, 1999). One of the clear advantages of this measure is that it accumulates as a natural by-product of the schooling process and can be culled unobtrusively from the existing archival student records of most schools. Currently, there is a need to establish normative databases on this mea- sure at elementary, middle, and high school levels. In our view, this is a very promising measure that will prove attrac- tive to BD researchers, scholars, and practitioners in the future. Readers should consult Wright and Dusek (1998) for a recent critique of the advantages and limitations of this measure.
A relatively new approach to making eligibility determinations and selecting or titrating interventions is based on the concept of resistance to intervention or, alternatively, lack of respon- siveness to intervention. Gresham (1991) defined this concept as a student’s behavioral excesses, deficits, or situationally- inappropriate behaviors continuing at unacceptable levels sub- sequent to empirically supported interventions implemented with integrity. Resistance to intervention is based on the best practice of prereferral intervention and allows school personnel to function within an intervention context rather than a psychometric eligibility framework in identifying BD students. Resistance to intervention results in a lack of change in target behaviors as a function of exposure to a proven inter- vention. This failure can be taken as partial evidence for a BD eligibility determination under auspices of the IDEA certification process. Moreover, this same concept can be used to modify, change, or titrate intervention procedures much like medications are titrated based on an individual’s responsiveness to a drug dosage or type. Third, resistance to intervention can be used as a cost-effective basis for 518 School-Related Behavior Disorders allocating treatment resources to those students whose lack of responsiveness indicates that they need more intensive intervention. A number of factors are related to resistance to inter- vention. Some of the factors that seem most relevant for school-based interventions are (a) severity of behavior, (b) chronicity of behavior, (c) the generalizability of behavior change, (d) treatment strength, (e) treatment integrity, and (f) treatment effectiveness. All of these factors have been iden- tified as being related to resistance of student behavior to in- tervention in past research (see Gresham, 1991, and Gresham & Lopez, 1996, for a discussion of these factors). The notion of resistance to intervention provides BD professionals with a powerful method for managing school- based interventions in a cost-effective manner and for indirectly assessing the relative severity of a student’s prob- lematic behavior. It stands as one of the most useful and valu- able innovations in behavior disorders within the past decade. This list of contributions by the BD field is selective and not representative in that it reflects our biased views. In addi- tion, it by no means exhausts the universe of innovative con- tributions of the highest quality and impact in the BD field. A perusal of the BD peer-reviewed journals over the past few years documents many varied examples of outstanding achievements by BD scholars, researchers, and on-line pro- fessionals. These contributions have led to many enhance- ments in the life quality of students with behavior disorders and their families and have improved the skills and compe- tence of those professionals who work with them. They pro- vide solid evidence about what is right with the BD field (see Walker et al., 2000, for a more detailed discussion of these contributions).
No discipline can claim to be virtuous and above reproach in its policy, directions, and management of its professional agenda. That is certainly true of the BD field. However, it is important to note that there is much more right about BD than wrong with BD. This section discusses some of the decisions, directional changes, and failures that have occurred within the BD field and that we believe have not served the field well. The fol- lowing topics in this regard are discussed next: (a) the BD field’s failure to reference its interventions and achieved out- comes to societal issues and problems, (b) the adoption of a postmodern, deconstructivist perspective by some sectors of the BD field, (c) the failure to identify and serve the full range of K–12 students experiencing serious behavioral and emotional problems in the context of schooling, and (d) the lack of evidence of BD leadership in developing a prevention agenda for behaviorally at-risk students. Referencing BD Interventions and Results to Societal Issues and Problems Recently, Walker, Gresham, and their colleagues provided commentary on some shortcomings of the BD field and sug- gested some new directions for its consideration (see Walker et al., 1998). These authors made the following major points in this commentary: 1. During the last several decades, the field of special educa- tion, of which BD is a subspecialty, has become politically radicalized and, unfortunately, fragmented as a result of internal strife and turf battles among professionals. 2. Due in part to this disciplinary conflict, special education is often perceived by professionals in other fields as strife- ridden, expensive, litigious, consumed with legislative mandates, bound by court orders mandating certain prac- tices, and ineffective.
aged its status and legitimacy, cast doubt on its ability to manage its affairs, and hindered its ability to pursue a pro- fessional agenda on behalf of individuals with disabilities and their families.
by association, has suffered from these generic, pejorative impressions about special education that have been widely disseminated in the public media and through the profes- sional networks of related disciplines. Though regarded as controversial, this article has stimu- lated an ongoing debate in the BD field regarding the role of science in its activities, ways of knowing, and the legitimate domains of influence that the field should seek to develop. A central point of this commentary was that the BD field has a specialized and well-developed knowledge base, much of which is empirically verified and reasonably well integrated, that deals with the adjustment problems of at-risk, vulnerable children and youth in the context of schooling. However, as a matter of practice, the BD field does not take advantage of opportunities to demonstrate its contributions to solving problems of great societal concern (e.g., school failure and dropout, preventing gang membership, addressing bullying and harassment, preventing school violence, participating in delinquency prevention initiatives, ensuring school safety, |
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