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Heartland AEA 11
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Research Summary
Decision-Making
Lane, K. L., Wehby, J., Menzies, H. M., Doukas, G. L., Munton, S.
M., & Gregg, R. M. (2003). Social skills instruction for
students at risk for antisocial behavior: The effects of
small-group instruction. Behavioral Disorders, 28, 229-248.
According to the authors, the purpose of the
study was to examine the effectiveness of small group social skills
instruction, at the secondary level of intervention, on students'
increased academic engagement and disruptive behavior in the
classroom and negative social interactions on the playground.
Social validity of the intervention also was examined.
Seven students in grades 2-4 who were identified
by their teacher as "at risk" for antisocial behavior and who
scored high on the Student Risk Screening Scale (SRSS; Drummond,
1994) after participating in the school-wide intervention for 3
months participated. Students were not receiving special education
and did not have a DSM-IV diagnosis. Seven peers who were not at
risk and the seven target participants were assigned to one of
three intervention groups. However, data only were collected and
reported on the target participants. Each student's teacher
completed the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS; Gresham &
Elliott, 1990) and the Critical Events Index (CEI; Walker and
Severson, 1992).
All three intervention groups received explicit
instruction in social skills in 30-minute sessions, twice per week,
over a 10-week period. All 20 sessions occurred outside of the
classroom. Based on the results of each students' SSRS, a
comprehensive list of acquisition deficits was generated. An
acquisition deficit was defined as a SSRS item receiving a
frequency score of 0 and a critically important score of 3 by the
teacher. A master list was generated for each group; it became the
core content of each intervention group. Social skills lessons were
taken from Elliott and Gresham's (1991) Social skills intervention
guide: Practical strategies for social skills training. Seventeen
of the 20 sessions involved direct teaching of the social skills;
three sessions addressed review of social skills and programming
for generalization. The format for the lessons was provided.
In addition to the SRSS, the SSRS, and the CEI,
the WISC-III Short Form and the School Archival Record Search were
administered. Dependent variables included: direct observation of
total disruptive behaviors in the classroom, academic engaged time
in the classroom, and negative social interactions on the
playground collected via duration recording. Curriculum-based
measures of oral reading fluency also were collected. Social
validity measures included the Intervention Rating Profile
(Martens, Witt, Elliott, & Darveaux, 1985) and the Children's
Intervention Rating Profile (Witt & Elliott, 1983).
A multiple-baseline across intervention groups
design was used. Because of the situational specificity of the
behavior, baseline lengths were staggered at 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and
4 weeks, rather than waiting to obtain stability of the direct
observation measures. Data were collected at five points in time:
baseline, intervention, post-intervention, follow-up I (final 10
days of the academic year), and follow-up II (September of the
following academic year).
Results indicated that all students demonstrated
rapid decreases in rates of disruptive behavior. Effect sizes
ranged from 5.87 to -.38, also indicating decreases in disruptive
behavior. Maintenance patterns were variable across the groups. For
academic engaged time (AET), six of the seven students demonstrated
increases in mean level of AET. Effect sizes ranged from .46 to
3.79, also indicating improvement in AET. All students' mean
engagement scores remained higher than baseline levels at both
follow-up points in time. Data on CBM reading was collected but not
reported. Six of seven students showed decreases in mean levels of
negative social interactions on the playground. Effect sizes ranged
from 3.48 to -.51, also indicating decreases in negative social
interactions. All students were able to maintain few, if any,
negative social interactions. All students and teachers rated the
intervention as acceptable. Limitations and future directions were
noted.
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