Response-To-Intervention
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Response-To-Intervention
Response to Intervention, popularly known as RTI, assimilates assessment and involvement within a multi-level system of prevention which helps maximize the achievement of students as well as reduce conduct problems. After the Act of 2001 ‘No Child Left Behind’ was passed, RTI was made a vital strategy of intervention. This directed that educational professionals would use research methods that are scientifically based to instruct and intervene (Shepherd, 2015). RTI is progressively being used to find and offer interventions to students suffering from emotional and social disorders, even though it was originally established as an alternative of the model of discrepancy which used to identify learners with disabilities in learning. During the school board meeting at Jackson Elementary, there will be discussions on RTI and SWPBS, a school-wide positive behavior support plan as well as a clear explanation of how every Tier will be used.
Using No Child Left Behind as a mirror, Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004) indicates that there is no need for schools to use the discrepancy model any longer to discover a child with learning disabilities. Instead, they may use a method that determines if the particular child gives a response to interventions that are scientifically allowed for use as evaluation procedures as the law emphasizes. The vital elements of the SWPBS are comprised of teaching the students directly about proper social skills and arranging the context of the school whenever the need arises to prevent problem behavior as well as clearly stressing on how to identify and prevent problem behavior. Similarly, it will build a culture in the school, serving as a base for success in both social and academic fields as it uses a three-tiered continuum of conduct support observations to stop behavior problems. Besides, SWPBS will actively use data for decision-making (Gorski, 2007). In other words, the main purpose of the SWPBS is to ensure the improvement of the climate within the school and set up preventive measures for problem behaviours across all school settings.
Academic success, as well as the promotion of socially acceptable behaviours, can be supported through RTI and SWPBS for a better and conducive learning environment. Combination of academic and behavior supports can lead to enhanced outcomes because of a variety of reasons. To start with, research has shown that there is a connection between low grades and poor social behavior, which can be seen from as early as kindergarten, which however may grow with time as the student advances in learning. Also, there has been proven ideas that issues in a particular sector, like reading and behavior, can be used to forecast future issues in other areas. Often, students who have difficulties in reading tend to escape school so that they can avoid reading activities, projecting it as a problem behavior. Therefore, both academic and behavior problems are proven to be intertwined, and an integrated system of support may improve the success of the student in both areas.
The Addition of a Social Skills Program to Tier 2.
An additional layer of training for the socially significant behaviours in Behavior education can be provided by the SWPBS. For instance, an effective response- to -intervention program should be included in the SWPBS as part of Tier 2. As a result, the three tiers of RTI become a part of the Tier 2 set. In this case, when students are introduced to Tier 2, they start with the first RTI tier and moved to succeeding tiers in a case where they fail to respond to the preceding tier interventions. A lot of interventions related to RTI will have to be incorporated at numerous SWPBS levels if the response- to -intervention is not included in Tier 2.
School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Plan
Executing the right School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Plan within the school can greatly help students in their behavior drastically. In any inclusive school, it is important to encourage positive student behavior. Jackson Elementary school will begin by executing and implementing a Tier 1 universal intervention (Gorski, 2007). This will start by coming up with a set of culturally responsive rules to govern the school. Rule number one would be for the students to follow the directions given by the adults promptly while the second one would be for the students to ensure the use of kind words and actions. Also, students remaining in their seat and position as directed would be another rule to follow.
The probability of a behavior occurring in the future through attainment or evasion of a consequence is increased through reinforcement. Through positive reinforcement, the probability of a behavior being repeated following a preferred stimulus is increased. Coming up with strategies of positive reinforcement within a classroom helps the students in being able to comply with the rules. As for our case, allowing the students to have an extra fun time at the end of class would be used as a reinforcement strategy of the first rule of following the directions of adults. Meanwhile, when a student uses kind words with their peers, he or she will earn a star next to their name on the front of the class. Lastly, a student who remains in their seat as directed will be praised for their good behavior and showered with positive comments.
The consequences of a certain behavior can greatly influence the behavior that a child exhibit. Behavior can be modified positively or negatively as per the systematic manipulation of its consequences. Having consequences is vital for schools as they help increase student behavior. In our first rule, if the student does not follow the directions given by the adults promptly, he or she would be made to sit at the back of the class in the ‘think about your behaviour’ seat. Failure to observe the second rule of using kind words and actions would require a student to write 10 kind words on a piece of paper, and be made to read in front of the class. Similarly, when a student fails to follow the third rule of remaining in their seats during class as directed, he or she will have limited fun time after class (Bohanon, 2005).
Proper monitoring of the student’s behavior will require a teacher would choose a global skill such as independent seatwork and completion of homework. The teacher would then divide the particular skill into different sub-skills and prepare a checklist through a process known as discrete categorization. An observer, who can be the teacher, the student or an adult can then use the checklist to determine whether a student shows the various sub-skills in the checklist on a particular day. These checklists can be used by classroom teachers as suitable tools to determine if a student has the required range of skills that would enable their success in academics. This continuous progress monitoring procedure allows teachers to collect information about the student behaviours and be able to tell if interventions will be effective in adjusting them.
Tier 2: Targeted Interventions
NCRTI defines Tier 2 as an instruction of a small group that depends on interventions based on evidence that specify the procedures of the instruction, durational period as well as its frequency. Usually, Tier 1 is effectively used by 5-15% of students with behavior problems. These students are later moved to Tier 2 for other additional behavior supports. At Tier 2, the targeted interventions comprise of a small-group instruction, teacher-mediated and peer-mediated instructions as well as strategies of self-management. (Bohanon, 2005). Behavior Education Program and social skills training are some of the additional Tier 2 interventions that build on SWPBS. The inclusion of RTI into Tier 2 is vital in the intervention process transition.
The proper response-to-intervention program should be included in the SWPBS as part of Tier 2. In this case, when a student fails to show enough behavior progress after receiving multiple interventions in the primary tier, he or she is provided with more rigorous interventions in the secondary tier. The secondary tier focuses more on providing particular services for students that have academic, social and behavioural difficulties in smaller instructional groups than those of normal classroom. Other than the instruction group being smaller, four extra strategies increase the intervention intensity for students at the secondary tier. They include increased instruction duration, more frequent instruction, more teacher-centred instruction as well as the inclusion of educational personnel possessing excellent expertise in specific areas.
According to Scott and Eber (2003), the topic of building a system of reinforcement that is for appropriate behaviours should not be overlooked. Tangible rewards and acknowledgements would be an inclusion of the reinforcement system in Jackson Elementary school. For instance, when a student shows spectacular behavior, he or she will be recognized in an encouraging manner concerning their behavior. The Behavior Educational Program (BEP) is a part of the Tier 2 intervention that has been able to receive empirical support. This program offers a frequent response to social behaviours as well as reward students for showing proper behavior. The BEP program elements include daily check-in, classroom teachers’ feedback in an entire day, daily check-out, collection of data with continuous monitoring as well as parent feedback. Inclusion of a social skill program into the particular behavioural program would also be of great benefit to the intervention.
The program of the Stop & Think Social Skills Program lies on the theories of the development of ecological systems approach by Bronfenbrenner, cognitive behavior by Meichenbaum and social learning theory by Bandura. The program makes use of five social skills training components: modelling, direct instruction of social skills, rehearsal, feedback on performance and generalization. The program is divided into four developmental levels namely, prekindergarten-first grade, second-third grade, fourth-fifth grade and sixth-eighth grade. The program focuses on 10 core skills such as listening, reacting to teasing, apologizing and many others during each developmental level. It also focuses on 10 advanced skills like asking for permission, dealing with anger and avoiding trouble. The Stop & Think program will be executed into continuous steps where students will learn to verbalize, internalize, think about the particular situation, ensure implementation of the plan as well as self-reinforcement on appropriate behavior. A student would then be moved to tier 3 if the behavior intervention team determines through continuous monitoring that he or she is not responding to the interventions and supports in Tier 2.
The students that reach Tier 3 may be at higher risks for emotional and conduct disabilities as they have multifaceted behavioural and emotional difficulties. At this particular level, interventions are individualized and based on the specific student needs. Supports during this level include one-on-one counselling, rigorous small group interventions and specialists’ interventions like mental health counsellors and behavior specialists. Jackson Elementary will implement a type of system support that will consist of three elements. The first one will be comprised of a detailed action planning targets that will be beneficial to all students, administrators and staff while the second one will be that there will be a gathering of a team from all levels in the district and state, to come into mutually aligned actions. The last of the element will be agreements by all stakeholders including students, staff and leadership before the initiation of the action plan. Other than properly functioning behavioural assessment, Jackson Elementary will use functional behavior analysis as well as behavior intervention plans to help develop intensive supports for those students that are receiving various interventions and strategies at Tier 3. Functional behavioural assessment is usually used to define the target behavior as well as assess the intensity, duration, frequency and latency of the behavior. It determines the cause and function of the behavior. An individualized intervention plan of the behavior lies in the behavior function. (Scott and Eber, 2003).
The wraparound services will also be used to not only help the client but the family at large. These services are the components of a team-based intervention, which is vital for planning and implementing care services for students that are faced with emotional and behavioural difficulties as well as their families. As per the ecological systems model, the wraparound services usually consider the effects of the environment on the behavior. During the wraparound process, the manager explains the process to the family, regulates the family needs and helps the family in deciding who to include in the team. The family and the team then come up with desired outcomes based on the strength of the student and the family. The plan itself is implemented in the third stage by combining both natural events and traditional interventions to meet the needs of the students. Upon progress by the student, he or she transitioned to continuous monitoring through parent-teacher conferences.
The proposal for Jackson Elementary is therefore quite clear since everyone now has a better understanding of how the response to intervention program and School-Wide Positive Behavior Support complement each other. Also, The SWPBS plan will vital with three tiers namely, universal interventions, targeted interventions and individualized interventions. Besides, the student’s response will be easily determined through continuous progressive monitoring. This will determine if any changes need to be done. This proposal will be of great benefit to Jackson Elementary, making other schools envy the success of its students.
References
Andrzejewski, M. E. (2001, July 01). Technology transfer through performance management: The effects of graphical feedback and positive reinforcement on drug treatment counsellors’ behavior. Retrieved April 02, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11376922
Bohanon, H. (2005, December). Integrating Academic and Behavior Supports Within a RtI Framework, Part 1: General Overview. Retrieved April 02, 2018, from http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/behavior-supports/integrating-behavior-and-academic-supports-general-overview
Gorski, D. (2007, December). School-Wide Positive Behavior Support and Response to Intervention. Retrieved April 02, 2018, from http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/behavior-supports/schoolwidebehavior
Scott, T., & Eber, L. (2003). Functional assessment and wraparound as systemic school processes: Primary, secondary, and tertiary systems examples. Journal of Positive Behavior Supports, 5, 131–143.