Research has focused on increasing the treatment integrity of school-based interventions by utilizing performance feedback. The purpose of this study was to extend this literature by increasing special education teachers' treatment integrity for implementing antecedent and consequence procedures in an ongoing behavior support plan. A multiple baseline across teacher-student dyads (for two classrooms) design was used to evaluate the effects of performance feedback on the percentage of antecedent and consequence components implemented correctly during 1-hr observation sessions. Performance feedback was provided every other week for 8 to 22 weeks after a stable or decreasing trend in the percentage of antecedent or consequence components implemented correctly. Results suggested that performance feedback increased the treatment integrity of antecedent components for 4 of 5 teachers and consequence components for all 5 teachers. These results were maintained following feedback for all teachers across antecedent and consequence components. Teachers rated performance feedback favorably with respect to the purpose, procedures, and outcome, as indicated by a social validity rating measure.

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.

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This research concerned antecedent assessment and intervention to reduce physical restraint (protective holding) of children and adolescents with acquired brain injury and serious challenging behaviors (aggression, self‐injury, property destruction). Study I was an assessment of antecedent conditions associated with protective holding among 15 students attending a community‐based residential school. Conceived as a descriptive assessment, we identified several environmental influences that set the occasion for protective holding. Study II describes how information gathered from antecedent assessment was used to formulate an intervention that reduced frequency of protective holding with one student. Clinical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Therapeutic restraint is sometimes required as a component of clinical intervention for persons who have serious behaviour disorders. However, there are few studies that describe empirically the conditions under which restraint is utilized. This project was a retrospective analysis of incident reports on the application of therapeutic restraint with four students (ages 10-16 years) who had acquired brain injury and attended a community-based programme of education and neurorehabilitation. Specifically, situations and interactions were examined that were in effect immediately prior to the implementation of restraint. This antecedent analysis identified several common influences, as well as effects that were unique to individual students. The role of antecedent events as "precipitants" to restraint and respective treatment implications are discussed.

Reducing therapeutic restraint is a desirable outcome for programs that serve individuals who exhibit challenging behaviors. This study investigated the effects of modifying the criterion for release from therapeutic restraint on frequency and duration. Release from restraint was changed from a behavior-contingent criterion (restraint terminated when a specified duration of calm behavior was demonstrated) to a fixed-time criterion (restraint terminated when a predetermined duration elapsed independent of behavior) with one child and two adolescents with acquired brain injury and difficult-to-manage behaviors. For all three students, the duration of time they were exposed to therapeutic restraint decreased with the fixed-time release criterion, whereas the frequency of restraint did not change. Practical implications of these results and future research opportunities are discussed.

Several considerations need to be made when monitoring student reading progress using Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM): the instructional level of the student, the type of goal set for the student, and the material selected. Although research has demonstrated that long-term goals based on the student's instructional match are most sensitive to student gains, there have been few studies investigating whether probe material should be selected from material in which the student is currently instructed (i.e., similar material) or from material in which the student is expected to be instructional after one year (i.e., challenging material). The purpose of this study was to determine whether similar material or challenging material would be the most sensitive for progress monitoring of student oral reading fluency. The oral reading fluency of 20 students reading on a second grade level was monitored concurrently with similar and challenging material. The students' progress was monitored twice a week for 8 weeks. The results of this study suggested that the measures were equally sensitive. However, both types of measurement appear to have significant error associated with the data.

Typically behaviour management plans attempt to change behaviour by manipulating the environmental consequences of selected behaviour. However, identifying the antecedent events that precede behaviour has also been demonstrated to be an important component of effective behaviour change programmes. The present case presentation attempts to demonstrate how antecedent procedures could be used to effectively manage behaviour problems in individuals with brain injury. Visual inspection of changes in the frequency of physical aggression and self-injurious behaviour of a child with brain injury provides preliminary data supporting the use of an intervention package of antecedent and consequence-based procedures. Clinical implications, limitations and possibilities for future research of antecedent control procedures are discussed.