Academic and Behavior Combined Support: Evaluation of an integrated supplemental intervention for early elementary students

A Single-Case Design Study of Collaborative Interpersonal Strategy Building With Audio Reflection for Improving Social Communication Following Acquired Brain Injury

PURPOSE

This article reports the results of a single-case experimental multiple-baseline study across participants aiming to evaluate treatment effects of a metacognitive, joint reflection intervention package for social communication after acquired brain injury (ABI).

METHOD

Four adults with a history of ABI and their everyday communication partners (ECPs) participated in a novel intervention, the Collaborative Interpersonal Strategy Building with Audio Reflection (CISBAR), incorporating collaborative goal setting, metacognitive strategy instruction, and joint audio reflection. Primary participants and ECPs engaged in 6- to 7-min conversations on opinion topics during the baseline, intervention, and follow-up phases. Raters scored turn-taking behavior (interruption, length of speaking turn) in each videorecorded conversation sample in random order without knowing study phase. Pre-/post-intervention questionnaires captured client and partner perspectives of communication changes.

RESULTS

All four participants achieved personal communication goals. Visual analysis of specific communication targets supported a treatment effect in the two participants targeting interruption, but not in the two participants targeting verbosity. Design-comparable effect size analysis showed a medium effect size for decreasing interruption. Communication skills of all participants improved following CISBAR according to self- and partner-report questionnaires. Improvements in communication target behaviors maintained at 1-month follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

Results suggest that CISBAR shows promise as a treatment package for improving social communication post-ABI. The discussion considers the complexities of measuring changes in social communication, the treatment ingredients and candidacy considerations for CISBAR, and the emphasis on shared decision making in the therapy process.

Using a naive Bayesian approach to identify academic risk based on multiple sources: A conceptual replication

The purpose of this study was to conduct a conceptual replication of Pendergast et al.'s (2018) study that examined the diagnostic accuracy of a nomogram procedure, also known as a naive Bayesian approach. The specific naive Bayesian approach combined academic and social-emotional and behavioral (SEB) screening data to predict student performance on a state end-of-year achievement test. Study data were collected in a large suburban school district in the Midwest across 2 school years and 19 elementary schools. Participants included 5753 students in Grades 3-5. Academic screening data included aimswebPlus reading and math composite scores. SEB screening data included Academic Behavior subscale scores from the Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener. Criterion scores were derived from the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests of English Language Arts and Mathematics. The performance of each individual screener was compared to the naive Bayesian approach that integrated pre-test probability information (i.e., district-wide base rates of risk derived from prior year MAP test scores), academic screening scores, and SEB screening scores. Post-test probability scores were then evaluated using a threshold model (VanDerHeyden, 2013) to determine the percentage of students within the sample that could be differentiated in terms of ruling in or ruling out intervention versus those who remained undifferentiated (as indicated by the need for additional assessment to determine risk status). Results indicated that the naive Bayesian approach tended to perform similarly to individual aimswebPlus measures, with all approaches yielding a large percentage (65%-87%) of undifferentiated students when predicting proficient performance. Overall, the results indicated that we likely failed to replicate the findings of the original study. Limitations and future directions for research are discussed.

Academic and behavior combined support: A single-case practice-based replication study

The purpose of this research was to conduct a practice-based replication of Academic and Behavior Combined Support (ABC Support), a previously developed and experimentally evaluated supplemental intervention that merges a combined focus on reading fluency and academic engagement. In the present study, a school-based interventionist and data collector had access to implementation resources online and participated in virtual training and coaching. Four Grade 2 students received the ABC Support intervention for 6 weeks in their school. Students' oral fluency on training and non-training reading passages, as well as occurrence of engagement and disruptive behaviors during universal reading instruction, were measured repeatedly across baseline, intervention, and follow-up phases in a multiple-baseline design. In concert with prior empirical findings on ABC Support, analyses revealed improvement from baseline to intervention for both reading and behavior outcomes, as well as from baseline to follow-up assessments. Empirical contributions of the study are offered within the context of replication research and an implementation science perspective. We also emphasize the importance of telecommunication for practice-based research evaluation of interventions.

Measuring social-emotional development in schoolchildren: A national-level analysis of ECLS-B cohort data

The present study examined the social-emotional development items assessed by kindergarten teachers in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort to determine the optimal factor structure underlying the items as well as the reliability and validity of the resulting factors. This study identified an empirically derived factor structure for teacher-reported social development, investigated whether there was evidence of bias in teacher assessments of social-emotional constructs, examined factor invariance across demographic characteristics (i.e., race and ethnicity, sex, and poverty status), and examined the external validity of the derived factors by determining the extent to which they were associated with well-established measures of early childhood competencies. Findings suggested a 4-factor solution was optimal, consisting of (a) Interpersonal Skills, (b) Externalizing Behavior, (c) Approaches to Learning, and (d) Perspective Taking. Findings offer suggestive evidence of teacher biases in assessments and some, although not conclusive, support for the invariance of social-emotional dimension across demographic characteristics. Results provide a useful next step toward documenting reliable and valid social-emotional measures for use in early childhood research and challenges users of national datasets to think critically about the use of "scales" without a priori attention to important psychometric properties.

Single-case intervention research design standards: Additional proposed upgrades and future directions

Single-case intervention research design standards have evolved considerably over the past decade. These standards serve the dual role of assisting in single-case design (SCD) intervention research methodology and as guidelines for literature syntheses within a particular research domain. In a recent article (Kratochwill et al., 2021), we argued for a need to clarify key features of these standards. In this article we offer additional recommendations for SCD research and synthesis standards that have been either underdeveloped or missing in the conduct of research and in literature syntheses. Our recommendations are organized into three categories: expanding design standards, expanding evidence standards, and expanding the applications and consistency of SCDs. The recommendations we advance are for consideration for future standards, research design training, and they are especially important to guide the reporting of SCD intervention investigations as they enter the literature-synthesis phase of evidence-based practice initiatives.

Examining and Enhancing the Methodological Quality of Nonconcurrent Multiple-Baseline Designs

In this article we respond to the recent recommendation of Slocum et al. (2022), who provided conceptual and methodological recommendations for reconsidering the credibility and validity of the nonconcurrent multiple-baseline design. We build on these recommendations and offer replication and randomization upgrades that should further improve the status of the nonconcurrent version of the design in standards and single-case design research. Although we suggest that the nonconcurrent version should be an acceptable methodological option for single-case design researchers, the traditional concurrent multiple-baseline design should generally be the design of choice.