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The Use of Reading and Behavior Screening Measures to Predict Non-Response to School-Wide Positive Behavior Support: A Longitudinal Analysis

Kent McIntosh, Rob Horner, David Chard, Joseph Boland, & Roland Good

Recent research in the areas of school behavior challenges and academic achievement have both pointed to three-tiered school-wide systems of prevention, such as School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (Horner, Sugai, Lewis-Palmer, & Todd, 2005) and the Schoolwide Reading Improvement Model (Simmons et al., 2002) as effective and efficient approaches to improving outcomes for students in schools. The same research also shows that some students will not respond to universal interventions (tier 1) and need additional support (tiers 2 or 3) to be successful. Therefore, identifying and supporting students at risk of non-response to universal interventions is a critical role for school personnel.

To understand what variables predict non-response to the universal intervention of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support, the authors identified a school district with both school-wide behavior and reading support programs, then tracked students from school entry in kindergarten through grade 5 to predict which students would need additional behavior support at the end of elementary school. Given the hypothesized link between reading skills and problem behavior, the variables used in the study were screening measures for both problem behavior and reading skills. These measures were office discipline referrals (ODRs), documenting serious behavior incidents, and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS, Good & Kaminski, 2002), measuring reading and pre-reading skills, both of which are typically collected in schools with three-tiered models of behavior and reading support.

The authors examined behavior and reading scores from grades 4, 2, and kindergarten to identify what measures during these years predicted multiple ODRs in grade 5, an outcome indicating a lack of response to universal behavior support. The authors used logistic regression analyses for each of the three years to determine what scores significantly predicted the outcome.

Table 1 provides results by grade level. Results indicated that scores on these measures strongly predicted receiving multiple ODRs in grade 5. In grades 2 and 4, the number of ODRs and DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency were statistically significant predictors. In kindergarten, DIBELS Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (DIBELS PSF) was a statistically significant predictor, but number of ODRs was not.

Table 1: Statistically Significant Predictors of Multiple ODRs in Grade 5
Kindergarten Variables	Grade 2 Variables	Grade 4 Variables
Phoneme Segmentation Fluency – spring (p < .001)	Oral Reading Fluency - spring (p < .0005)	Oral Reading Fluency  - winter (p < .0005)
Office Discipline Referrals (p = .01)	Office Discipline Referrals (p < .0005)

Because of the heightened importance of early identification, the authors also calculated conditional probabilities of the outcome based on reading scores and ODRs assessed in kindergarten, seen in the table below. As shown in Table 2, students who were assessed an ODR in kindergarten or whose DIBELS PSF scores were below 10 (indicating a need for tier 3 support) had the identical level of increased risk. Students on track for positive literacy outcomes (responding to tier 1) were at the lowest risk for multiple referrals in grade 5.

Table 2: Conditional Probabilities of Multiple ODRs in Grade 5
Kindergarten Condition	Probability
No kindergarten ODRs	20%
Assessed an ODR in kindergarten	33%
Spring DIBELS PSF > 35 (responding to tier 1)	18%
Spring DIBELS PSF = 10 - 34 (needs tier 2 support)	25%
Spring DIBELS PSF < 10 (needs tier 3 support)	33%

The graph below shows the average ODRs for two groups. The first group represents students whose DIBELS PSF scores in the spring of kindergarten were below the benchmark for being on track for literacy (below 35), and the second group represents students whose scores were above the benchmark (35 or above). The ODRs were similar in kindergarten and grade 1, but the difference increased steadily in grades two and three and increased sharply in grade 5.

The results document a link between academic achievement and problem behavior. Academic deficits in kindergarten placed students at considerably greater risk for future problem behavior and non-response to school-wide behavior interventions. However, because both ODRs and DIBELS scores are indicators of performance rather than inherent traits, the results suggest that these pathways to problem behavior are not fixed, but can be altered through effective intervention. These finding suggest that early academic instruction is an important method of preventing significant behavior problems later in school.

For a complete description of this article, the reader is referred to:

McIntosh. K., Horner, R. H., Chard, D. J., Boland, J. B., & Good, R. H. (in press). The use of reading and behavior screening measures to predict non-response to school-wide positive behavior support: A longitudinal analysis. School Psychology Review, 35, 275-291.

References

Good, R. H., & Kaminski, R. A. (Eds.). (2002). Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (6th ed.). Eugene, OR: Institute for the Development of Education Achievement. Available: http://dibels.uoregon.edu

Horner, R. H., Sugai, G., Todd, A. W., & Lewis-Palmer, T. (2005). School-wide positive behavior support. In L. Bambara & L. Kern (Eds.), Individualized supports for students with problem behaviors: Designing positive behavior plans (pp. 359-390). New York: Guilford Press.

Simmons, D. C., Kame'enui, E. J., Good, R. H., Harn, B. A., Cole, C., & Braun, D. (2002). Building, implementing, and sustaining a beginning reading model: Lessons learned school by school In M. R. Shinn, H. M. Walker & G. Stoner (Eds.), Interventions for academic and behavioral problems II: Preventive and remedial approaches (pp. 403-432). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.