Behavior Analysis and School Psychology PDF

# Behavior Analysis and School Psychology ## What is a School Psychologist? - A school psychologist brings a psychological perspective to bear on the problems of educators and the clients educators serve. - They have a broad base training in educational and psychological foundations as well as sp...

# Behavior Analysis and School Psychology ## What is a School Psychologist? - A school psychologist brings a psychological perspective to bear on the problems of educators and the clients educators serve. - They have a broad base training in educational and psychological foundations as well as specialty preparation. - The definition is broad, but suggests the unique aspects of school psychology training and practice. - School psychologists are practitioners with specialty training in psychology and education that provide comprehensive psychoeducational services to clients. ## The Primary Purpose of this Chapter - The chapter explores the contribution of behavior analysis to the general services that school psychologists provide, including: - Consultation - Assessment - Intervention (direct and indirect) - Supervision - Research - Program evaluation. ## Professional Practice in School Psychology ### Behavior Analysis Has Influenced School Psychology - The field can be conceptualized as a system of service provision designed to help remediate school-based problems of children. - The system should be preventative and incorporate explicit efforts to resolve problems. ### Behavioral Model of School Psychology vs Traditional Model - The behavioral model of school psychology differs fundamentally from the traditional model, which is best conceptualized as the psychometric model. - The psychometric model views the school psychologist's primary function to be that of diagnostician. - Behavioral school psychologists are much more than diagnosticians. - They are involved in: - Consultation - Assessment - Intervention - Research - Supervision - Evaluation. - Training in, and commitment to, behavior analysis strongly affects their activities in each of these areas. ## Consultation ### School-Based Behavioral Consultation - Consultation is a fundamental form of interaction. - It involves a professional and an individual who wants to help a third party or a system change. - Example: a teacher may seek consultation with a school psychologist in order to address the learning needs of a particular student or to assist with a general classroom management problem. - This form of service delivery is of long-standing importance in school psychology. - Consultation is the bread and butter of practice for many behaviorally oriented school psychologists. ### The Development of Child-Focused Psychological Consultation - It may have emerged as early as the 1880s in Lightner Witmer's child psychology clinic at the University of Pennsylvania. - Consultation was widely practiced by physicians and mental health workers in the 1920s, but did not gain widespread attention until it was formalized by Caplan (1970) as a form of mental health service delivery. ### Formalized Consultation Process Grounded in Behavioral Theory and Principles - Bergan (1970; 1977 ) developed a formalized consultation process grounded in behavioral theory and principles. - The model was refined by Kratochwill and Bergan (1990) and presented as a guide to the delivery of behavioral consultation in applied settings, including schools. ## Psychological and Psychoeducational Assessment ### Traditional Psychometric Approach to Assessment - School psychologists spend most of their time categorizing students, especially for special education and placement purposes. - They frequently use standardized measures of children's aptitudes (e.g., intelligence tests) and achievement. - These tests characteristically categorize students based on their performance relative to that of some normative group. ### Behavioral Assessment - It involves the identification of meaningful response units and their controlling variables for the purpose of understanding and altering behavior. - It involves selecting target behaviors, devising an intervention, and evaluating the outcome of that intervention. ## Intervention ### Developing Interventions - Interventions have become a major function of behavioral school psychologists. - Interventions are a planned modification of the environment made for the purpose of altering the environment in a prespecified way. - They are carefully chosen and completely described. - They focus on environmental modifications rather than focusing narrowly on child-related variables. - They are goal-directed, seeking to modify behavior in a prespecified way. ### Direct Interventions - Involve the school psychologist interacting directly with the person whose behavior is targeted for change. - Includes strategies to improve academic performance or to resolve behavior problems for individuals or groups. ### Indirect Interventions - Those that are developed by a school psychologist and a consultee (e.g., a teacher) to benefit a client (e.g., a child). - They are carried out by the consultee or another interested party rather than by the school psychologist. - They may be addressed at an individual or a group level. - They may be self-managed, peer-mediated, or teacher-directed. ### School Psychologists Help Design Interventions - They often help design interventions that are implemented by other people, such as teachers, aides, and parents, who consult with the school psychologist. - This strategy is optimal, in that it allows a single psychologist to provide intervention services to the largest possible number of people. ### School Psychologists Are Hands-On - They have hands-on involvement in intervention, which is limited to an initial demonstration of techniques. - This is because they rely on techniques (e.g., functional assessment or curriculum-based assessment) that link assessment to intervention. - They provide a mechanism for evaluating the success of a strategy. ## Supervision ### School Psychology Students Must Be Supervised - School psychology students must be supervised. - School psychology trainees must receive highly structured and frequent guidance by a qualified school psychologist. - They must have supervised experience in both practica and internship settings. - Even after graduation, supervision continues, as practicing school psychologists receive both administrative and professional supervision. ### Administrative Supervision - It refers to supervision regarding specific interpretation and implementation of district policies and regulations to school psychologists in their capacity as employees. ### Professional Supervision - It refers to specific interpretation and implementation of actions taken by school psychologists in their capacity as professional psychologists. ## Research in School Psychology ### Scientist-Practitioner Model - It proposes that effective psychologists are able to integrate research and practice in their area. - There are three hierarchical research roles that school psychologists might play: - Consumer - Distributor - Conductor. **Consumer** - School psychologists must read research and critically evaluate the research they read in order to “apply research to practice.” **Distributor** - School psychologists must be prepared to function as a distributor of research and to provide guidance regarding appropriate methods of assessment and intervention. **Conductor** - School psychologists may actually conduct research. ### Functional Assessment - It is a process through which functional relationships between environmental variables and desirable/undesirable student behavior are identified. - Curricular modifications can be made to decrease or eliminate problem behaviors. - The process has been demonstrated to yield favorable results with students with various disabilities, including emotional/behavioral disorders. ## Program Planning and Evaluation ### Program Planning and Evaluation is a Leadership Role - It involves psychologists aiding in planning, developing, and monitoring educational services and programs. - It often includes projects like: - Establishing a comprehensive model of inclusion for preschool children with disabilities in a preschool center for typically developing children - Implementing a curriculum-based measurement system in an elementary school - Training school-based teams in functional assessment and the development of effective behavioral support plans ## Translating Research into Practice - Applied behavior analysis has accumulated a wealth of empirical knowledge that is quite useful to school psychologists. - These include how to utilize assessment strategies to match interventions to the needs of individual students, how to arrange educational environments to provide sufficient learning opportunities and contingencies, and how to monitor progress and evaluate outcomes. ### Linking Assessment to Intervention - Further research is needed to evaluate the utility of functional assessment for selecting interventions. ### Ensuring Proper Intervention Implementation - It is important to ensure that interventions are implemented with integrity. - There is a need to continue monitoring and evaluating the utility of functional assessment as an intervention selection process.