What To Do When A Student Does Not Respond To An Academic Intervention

1. What To Do When A Student Does Not Respond To An Academic Intervention Brian Lloyd Ed. S., NCSP May 2nd, 2013

2. Agenda John Endahl will discuss project to use Illuminate Ed to collect intervention and fidelity data. Overview of determining response versus lack of response to intervention. Fidelity of interventions and progress monitoring. Making sure problem has been correctly identified. Making sure interventions are correctly aligned to student skill deficit. Are research-based interventions being used. Listing and description of research based interventions for math, reading, and behavior.

3. Making Decisions About ROI • When and how to make a decision about when an intervention is successful. • 4 data points below goal line. • At least 8 data points – is ROI more than goal ROI? • Good goal is 1.5 expected rate for tier 2 and 2.0 expected rate for tier 3. (See top of page 6 of LD FAQ) • Is student’s rate of improvement above average peer rate? • Did we give enough time for the intervention to be successful?

4. Problem Solving Is Recursive •Define the Problem (Screening and Diagnostic Assessments) What is the problem and why is it happening? • Develop a Plan (Goal Setting and Planning) • Evaluate (Progress Monitoring Assessment) What are we going to do? Did our plan work? • Implement Plan (Treatment Integrity) Carry out the intervention

5. What Is The Minimum Number Of Interventions Attempted? IISD LD FAQ Page 5 – A student may be referred to the MET team for consideration of special education eligibility after a minimum of two interventions have been tried and the child has demonstrated growth far below the typical (i.e., locally normal) age/grade level rate of acquisition. Also middle of page 16 of the IISD SLD Guidelines.

6. FIDELITY Periodic and/or spot checks of the interventions. This could include the use of intervention component checklist. Number of Components Present divided by Total Number of Components times 100 = percentage score that can serve as fidelity rating.

7. FIDELITY

8. FIDELITY

9. FIDELITY • Problems with fidelity checks through observation forms. • Who does them? • Who does them?! • WHO DOES THEM!?!?!?!? • Time/Money/Schedules/etc.

10. FIDELITY How can we set up system to check? One check could be to record minutes expected and minutes attended.

11. FIDELITY Data Will Tell One flag you have to check integrity is the outcomes of your interventions. If nobody or only a few are making a progress in response to a research-based intervention, this is a BIG RED FLAG. Even if only one student is not responding, this is a little red flag, but still worthy of checking.

12. FIDELITY Interview In the case of one or a few students not responding, talk with the interventionist and ask her why. She/he may tell you. An easily correctable issue may arise. My experience, biggest cause of fidelity issues? Schedule, schedule, schedule, schedule… 2nd place is simple communication break downs.

13. Progress Monitoring FIDELITY Are the progress monitoring scores matching benchmark scores? Are progress monitoring scores matching what the teacher sees in the classroom? Are you seeing big peaks and troughs on a regular basis with your progress monitoring scores. Do you not see PM scores reported for months at a time. RED FLAGS. Check.

14. Is The Problem Correctly Identified Set up a target date to meet to evaluate success of interventions. Periodically check on AIMSWeb or have graphs on accessible network location. Schedule a meeting to review data for groups of students. For reading, use BIG FIVE skills to frame your intervention skill target. Make sure that both your intervention and progress monitoring measure align to skill you want to measure. NWF example. When in doubt about PM measure for reading, use R-CBM or DORF (oral reading fluency).

15. Is The Problem Correctly Identified Math Try to get access to research-based intervention. You need broad based skill remediation approach. http://www.GoSBR.net – Possible resource if you want to target specific skill.

16. INTERVENTIONS Not all interventions are created equal. This year, TD PALS improved NWF scores for Kindergarten, but not 1st Grade. This year, Phonics For Reading improved scores for students in the 1st grade, but not in the 2nd grade. This year, 6 Minute Solutions seemed to give better improvement to students with reading fluency issues than Read Naturally, but it could student characteristic dependent. This year, My Sidewalks had a positive effect on ROI in one school district, but not as much in another.

17. INTERVENTIONS READING – Research based, but are they equal?

18. INTERVENTIONS Reading Continued…

19. INTERVENTIONS Math

20. INTERVENTIONS Locally validated results. What interventions on the IISD lists have you found that improves student outcomes/PM scores? What interventions not on the lists have you found have improved student outcomes/PM scores?

21. INTERVENTIONS It seems to me that keeping track of what research-based interventions work with students of specific kinds of skill deficits and intervention conditions would be VERY useful information. I’m hoping that the Illuminate Ed project may do that. School psych involvement with using the data tracking may result in big payoff (improved student outcomes).

22. DISCUSSIONS What do you think?