Examination of a One‐trial Brief Experimental Analysis to Identify Reading Fluency Interventions

Abstract

This study sought to evaluate whether a one‐trial brief experimental analysis (OTBEA) would reliably and validly identify effective treatments to improve oral reading fluency for 6 elementary school students referred for reading problems. An OTBEA was conducted with each participant to assess the effects of skill‐ and performance‐based treatment components. Following the OTBEA, an extended analysis was conducted using an alternating treatments design to experimentally assess whether predictions generated by the OTBEA would be accurate across sessions, time, and stimulus materials. OTBEA results suggested that 3 participants required a treatment package containing both performance‐based and skill‐based instructional components and that the other 3 participants might only need performance‐based interventions. Results indicate that predictions were accurate for those participants requiring both types of intervention components, but that predictions for the remaining participants met with mixed results in the extended analysis. Results are discussed in terms of further refining brief experimental analysis methods to make them more efficient for educators while ensuring valid results.

Analyzing data from single-case alternating treatments designs.

“…Data matrix for immediate eect: dierence between the initial predicted values for the two conditions. Andersen et al(2013) for Terrance [their gure 1, middle right panel]. Andersen, M. N., Daly, III, A. J., & Young, N. D. (2013).…”

“…Andersen et al(2013) for Terrance [their gure 1, middle right panel]. Andersen, M. N., Daly, III, A. J., & Young, N. D. (2013). Examination of a one-trial brief experimental analysis to identify reading uency interventions.…”

A Preliminary Investigation of Visual Goal Markers to Prompt Fluent Oral Reading

“…A primary limitation to the current study was a reliance on grade‐level passages rather than employing a pretreatment experimental analysis to identify passages appropriate to each participant's instructional reading level (Andersen, Daly, & Young, ). In the present study, each of the 107 third‐grade students was assigned third‐grade‐level reading passages for progress monitoring.…”

Empirical Synthesis of the Effect of Standard Error of Measurement on Decisions Made Within Brief Experimental Analyses of Reading Fluency

“…BEAs use logic from single‐case design (SCD) to test hypotheses by collecting baseline data and examining immediate changes in scores after implementing an intervention (Riley‐Tillman & Burns, 2009). For example, Andersen, Daly, and Young () compared reading fluency after an intervention with multiple instructional components to providing a reward and to a control condition with six students using one instructional session and one reading assessment for each condition. The results indicated that the instructional condition plus the reward led to the highest reading fluency for three of the students, and the reward only led to highest fluency for three other students.…”

“…There is considerable research in the applied behavior analysis and school psychology literature supporting that BEA directly links assessment to an effective intervention. BEAs have been used to identify interventions with positive effects for reading fluency (Andersen et al., ), mathematics (Carson & Eckert, ), and writing (Parker, Dickey, Burns, & McMaster, ). Most studies that examined BEA used reading fluency (Burns & Wagner, ) because it was highly linked to general reading proficiency (Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, ), correlated well with other measures of reading (Kim, Wagner, & Foster, ; Wood, ), and is an important component of reading instruction and proficiency (Rasinski & Samuels, ).…”