This study examined the extent to which treatment integrity of 4 special education teachers was affected by goal setting, performance feedback regarding student or teacher performance, and a meeting cancellation contingency. Teachers were trained to implement function-based treatment packages to address student problem behavior. In one condition, teachers set a goal for student behavior and received daily written feedback about student performance. In a second condition, teachers received daily written feedback about student performance as well as their own accuracy in implementing the intervention and would be able to avoid meeting with a consultant to practice missed steps by implementing the intervention with 100% integrity. This latter package increased treatment integrity the most above baseline levels. Higher levels of treatment integrity were significantly correlated with lower levels of student problem behavior for 3 of the 4 teacher-student dyads. Three of the 4 teachers also rated both feedback procedures as highly acceptable. Implications for increasing and maintaining treatment integrity by teachers via a consultation model are discussed.
Teacher judgments have been identified as a primary source of information regarding student academic achievement. Research examining the accuracy of teachers' judgments in assessing students' academic abilities has shown relatively high accuracy. However, previous studies have relied primarily on norm-referenced measures to obtain estimates of students' achievement in reading and mathematics. Recent developments in the assessment of students' academic skills, such as Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM), provide a direct estimate of students' skill levels in basic areas such as reading and mathematics. The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which teachers' perceptions of students' reading and mathematics skills corresponded to direct estimates of students' reading and mathematics skills. Two second-grade teachers estimated the reading and mathematics skills of 33 second-grade students. Results of this study indicated that teachers were not accurate in assessing their students' mathematics functioning. Teachers were more accurate in assessing the occurrence of Mastery mathematics levels in basic addition, but were very inaccurate in assessing the occurrence of Mastery, Instructional, or Frustrational mathematics levels in all other skills assessed. In reading, teachers' judgment accuracy varied as a function of grade-level material and instructional level. Specifically, teachers experienced considerable difficulty accurately identifying students who were reading at a Mastery level in grade-level or above-grade-level material.
There has been a steady increase in students with disabilities attending college and making requests for test accommodations. Most requests are for extended time, presumably due to slow reading speed. Tests of reading rate for adults have been criticized for poor psychometric adequacy, and no current norms exist regarding the expected reading rate for college students. This study examined reading rate via two methods, as well as their relationship to other reading measures. Ninety typical college students (67% female) were administered the Nelson Denny Reading Test (Reading Rate [NDRR] and Comprehension [NDC] tests), the Woodcock Johnson-III Reading Fluency (RF) and Word Attack (WA) tests, and three oral reading probes used to obtain words read correctly per minute (WRCM). On average, college students read 189 words correctly per minute based on oral reading probes and 231 wpm based on NDRR. The WRCM measure was more strongly related to RF and WA than was NDRR and was a better predictor of reading comprehension (NDC). It would appear that WRCM may be a better measure of reading rate than the often used, much criticized, Nelson Denny Reading Rate. Additional research on WRCM with adults is recommended.
The high rates of self-reported history of head injury in family practice settings, particularly in the context of alexithymia, may adversely affect a physician's ability to care for these patients. Increasing physicians' awareness of head injury and the potential mediating role of alexithymia in medical and psychological illness may facilitate effective diagnosis and patient-physician communication.
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