Running Head: SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL GOALS1

Social and Behavioral Goals for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Emotional Behavioral Disturbance in the Context of Special Education

A Pilot Study

Monika Parikh

Washington State University

Alyssa Newcomb

University of Wyoming

Brandon Rennie

The University of Montana

Lisa Milkavich

University of Utah

Marcy Sarkowski

University of North Dakota

Gwen E. Mitchell

University of Idaho

Brief Description of Project

This project explored the alignment between legal requirements, best practices, and current school practices in relation to social and behavioral Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals for children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Emotional Disturbance (ED). The research was conducted through an on-line survey targeting IEP team members via mTurk or QuestionPro, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative questions to understand current practices in design and implementation as well as barriers to effective creation and fidelity.

Overview

The investigators of this research are active members in their professional organizations (i.e. physical therapists, counseling psychology, school psychology, and social work), which has provided them with a solid understanding of what is considered evidence based best practice. While working in public schools, the investigators identified that actual practice often differed significantly from what federal laws require and/or current literature recommends. Recognition of the existing gap between literature and practice when it comes to social and behavioral Individual Education Program (IEP) goals for children receiving special education services under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) categories of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Emotional Disturbance (ED) was the catalyst for this research. As a result, the investigators questioned whether the identified gap was unique to their setting or if it was a national trend? If it was a national trend, why did this gap exist and what were the barriers to closing it?

The aim of this pilot study was to explore the alignment between legal requirements, best practices, and current school practices in relation to social and behavioral IEP goals for children receiving special education services under the IDEA categories of ASD and ED. Specific areas of interest that were addressed included:

1.Identification of social and behavioral goals and implementation of plans that carry out these goals for children meeting special education eligibility under the categories of ASD and ED in accordance with legal regulations and best practice among IEP team members;

2.Assessment of how IEP teams address important aspects of social and behavioral IEP intervention elements such as writing measurable goals, aligning goals and plans with informative assessments, progress monitoring, and ensuring delivery fidelity; and

3.Identification of possible barriers to designing and implementing effective social and behavioral goals and/or plans and carrying them out with fidelity.

Methodology

Participants

Participants completed an anonymous web-based questionnaire. There were no experimental conditions or manipulations. The participants were initially recruited through Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk interface (mturk.com) and consisted of individuals at least 18 years of age. This website hosts a platform that allows individuals to take various surveys for compensation. In this study, mTurk was chosen in order to provide access to the survey to as many individuals as possible. Participants had the option of receiving 35 cents, which is a typical level of compensation for mTurk studies. In addition, some of the investigators of the study emailed a letter outlining the study to colleagues and coworkers who may have been eligible to participate.

The resulting sample consisted of 21 participants including five general education teachers, four special education teachers, one principal, two school counselors/psychologists, and nine listed themselves as “other.” The other category included physical therapists, paraprofessionals, an occupational therapist, an autism advocate, and an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher. The number of years in their current position ranged from less than five years to more than 15 years, with the majority of respondents being in their position for either less than five years (9; 43%) or 6-10 years (9; 43%). Respondents worked with a variety of grade levels with the most common being children in grades Kindergarten through 6th grade; however, all grades ranging from Pre-K through 12th grade were represented. The number of children with IEPs served by the professional ranged from one for an autism advocate to 170 for two physical therapists. Thirteen states were represented.

Measures

The investigators developed a survey based on the current literature in the field. The survey included basic demographic questions as well as questions assessing social and behavior goals of students on IEPs in schools, implementation of these goals, current intervention strategies being used in the public school sector, and possible barriers to implementation of these goals. Sample questions included the following: (a) “Does your school use information gathered in functional behavior assessments (FBA) to develop their behavior intervention plans (BIPS) when addressing behavior problems in students IEPs?” and (b) “How does your school monitor the behavior interventions?” (See Appendix B for entire survey).

Procedures

The study was approved by the University of Idaho Internal Review Board (IRB) and the survey was then posted through mTurk using Question Pro, which is a web based software for creating and distributing surveys. This allowed the survey to be made available to any school personnel involved in IEPs who had access to mTurk. Participants were provided a written informed consent form (see Appendix A), which was signed electronically before proceeding.

Each participant was asked to complete a survey containing: (a) basic demographic questions; (b) a series of questions regarding social and behavior goals of students with ASD or ED with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) in schools (see appendix B). The survey was completed online via mTurk or Question Pro, taking approximately 4-5 minutes to complete. Participants were allowed to contact the investigators with any questions or comments regarding the nature of the present study.

Descriptive statistics were reported on the survey questions, and the qualitative information from the program survey was reviewed by three investigators to assess for a pattern of themes. The criteria outlined by Michnowicz, McConnell, Peterson, and Odom (1995) was used to evaluate the quality of goals.

Results

IEP Creation

With regard to who writes social and behavioral goals, respondents most commonly endorsed the special education teacher (21 people endorsed), followed by counselor (9), speech therapist (8), school psychologist (7), other (classroom teacher, team collectively, parent, behavior analyst; 5), and occupational therapist (4). In terms of percentage of students who have social and behavioral goals, several of participants listed more students with social and behavioral goals than students who had IEPs for ASD and ED. Therefore, due to apparent misreading of the question by respondents, this question was not included in the analysis. Fifteen respondents appeared to report in a way consistent with the aim of the questions, and of these the number of children with ASD and ED varied widely from zero to 60 per category. The total number of students with ASD was 183 and the total with ED was 133. Of these 316 students, 181 had behavior goals (57%) and 174 had social goals (55%).

Intervention and Progress Monitoring

The results of the questions targeting intervention and progress monitoring are shown below in Table 1.

Table 1

Findings for interventions & progress monitoring

Who implemented interventions: / Special ed.
20 / Paraprofessionals
14 / General ed.
11 / School Psy.
6 / Counselor
4 / Other
4%
Who monitored interventions: / Special ed.
18 / General ed.
1 / School Psy.
1 / Other
1
How often goals were reviewed: / Monthly
7 / Quarterly
5 / End of semester
2 / At IEP meeting
3 / Other
4
How goals were measured: / Behavior charts
8 / Teacher rating scale
4 / Systematic observation
3 / Discipline referrals
1 / Direct assessment
1 / Other
4
Did they use FBA data? / Yes
19; 91% / No
2; 10%
Do they have a specific intervention program? / Yes
11 / No
8 / District developed program was the only program given. This was given by 2 people.

IEP Goals and Barriers

Of the 21 respondents, 18 wrote examples of specific goals previously written for students. Two of these goals contained two goals each and were divided accordingly, to create 20 total goals to be evaluated for quality. Michnowicz and colleagues’ (1995) criteria are based on IDEA regulations and were addressed in the given order: (a) Did it describe the setting in which the goal was to be performed? (b) Was it explicitly written in measurable and observable terms? (c) Was a criterion for success stated? The results from the current study are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Evaluation of goal quality

Number that satisfied criterion / Percentage of total
Setting specified / 9 / 45
Measurability / 9 / 45
Criterion stated / 11 / 55
All three components / 6 / 30
Themes were identified by three of the investigators independently for the qualitative data reported by all respondents on the question inquiring about the barriers to the IEP team’s ability to create effective social and behavioral goals. One respondent did not report any significant barriers. Five central themes were identified between all three investigators as outlined below.

Theme 1: Time. Four respondents identified time as a barrier.

Theme 2: Limited Resources. Eight respondents identified barriers related to having limited resources, primarily staff or other school personnel, to implement the goals. Specific resources included: manpower resources, limited resources in the classroom and school, too few staff to effectively, consistently implement goals, and limited staff numbers in classrooms.

Theme 3: Staff Cooperation/Consistency Issues. Seven respondents identified barriers related to staffing issues. Specifically barriers included consistency between departments, lack of staff cooperation and collaboration, lack of coordination between team members, and inconsistent use of behavioral expectations, protocols, and/or consequences. In addition to consistency with the school system, frequently changing assistant teachers who use a variety of communication styles was also mentioned as a barrier.

Theme 4: Parent involvement. Four respondents identified parental involvement or compliance as a barrier, including parent involvement, parent cooperation in implementing interventions at home, and parental indifference.

Theme 5: Other. Five respondents identified additional barriers beyond these four identified themes including: (1) negative stigma associated with children with special needs, (2) multiple distractions in the classroom, (3) students with BIPs have found ways to “use” the system (i.e., teachers know they have a BIP so they let the child get away with behaviors that they should not be doing which then perpetuates the bad behavior), (4) Lack of communication between teachers, parents, and special services, and (5) finding a peer with similarities to assist in creating a genuine relationship and not just someone to engage in a dialogue.

Discussion

The results of this survey indicated that many special education professionals in our study are writing social and behavioral IEP goals for children with ASD or ED. Of those answering the survey, 55 percent of the students had behavioral goals and 56 percent had social goals. This is, perhaps, more than would be expected given previous findings (Williams-Diehm, Palmer, Lee, & Schroer, 2010). However, given that criteria for special education eligibility in these disability categories requires social and/or behavioral deficits and IDEA requires social and/or behavior goals for those with deficits, it is likely that nearly all the students in the sample would legally require these goals.

Both positive and negative findings were seen in the creation and implementation of goals. Ninety-four percent of the respondents reported using FBA data to create IEP goals, which is in alignment with best practices (Christle & Yell, 2010) and congruent with requirement in IDEA that those interventions follow from assessment (Drasgow, 2001). However, of the goals that were reported, only a few were measurable and specified a criterion for success, which is consistent with prior literature (Michnowicz, McConnell, Peterson, & Odom, 1995). Although only 30 percent of the goals in this study met the criteria, it is far higher than the 9 percent found in the Michnowicz et al. (1995) study. Many goals did not include a criterion for success, misused percentages, used ill-defined behaviors, and/or included multiple, unrelated behaviors. These errors in goal creation rendered goals that guided expectations and instructions to a small degree, and made monitoring progress accurately impossible. Despite difficulty in creating measurable goals, many forms of progress monitoring were reported with the most prevalent of which included behavior charts, rating scales, and direct observation. In addition, these goals were reviewed at least quarterly in 55 percent of the cases. These findings suggest that there may be a presence of quality progress monitoring procedures; however, a lack of coordination between goals and monitoring may exist.

The final aim of this study was to identify barriers to the successful creation of social and behavioral goals and implementation of these goals. Responses on the survey indicated many barriers. These barriers generally fit into five themes including: limited time, limited resources, lack of staff collaboration, lack of parent involvement, and other. The most commonly endorsed barrier was limited resources including limited staff to implement, monitor, and coordinate interventions. The second most endorsed barrier was staff cooperation and consistency. To the best of our knowledge, this barrier has not been well articulated in the literature on social and/or behavioral IEP goals. Many of the respondents in this study stated that there is a lack of consistency across staff and a lack of collaboration between staff members. This theme may deserve more attention in the literature. The other themes that were identified were limited time and difficulty with parent involvement. It is important to note that participants were not asked to discuss how diagnoses and educational categorical placements were determined.

Limitations

The investigators identified four limitations to this study. First, there may be concerns surrounding the sample. Our sample size was very small, limiting generalizability. Due to low initial participation rates, the investigator emailed a letter outlining the study to colleagues and coworkers. This may have lead to a sample bias. Second, many of the items on our survey appeared to be misunderstood by respondents. Although some misunderstanding is unavoidable and some rushed responses are likely, it may be beneficial to make modifications to questions in future studies. Third, while care was taken to minimize the amount of time the survey required, the small number of questions included in the survey leaves gaps in knowledge. Lastly, the terms ASD and ED were not clearly defined for the participants, which may have impacted how individuals responded, possibly leading to an inflated or deflated estimation of children with ASD or ED.

Implications and Future Directions

Strengths and weaknesses in current practice were illuminated by the current study. The results provided preliminary evidence that school personnel are frequently using social and/or behavioral goals for their students with ASD and ED. Professionals overwhelmingly reported using FBAs to create educational goals, which is in alignment with federal requirements (IDEA, 1997) and best practices (Christle & Yell, 2010). The goals themselves demonstrated significant weaknesses and very few meet legal requirements, making it difficult to know how progress monitoring is being carried out. This may partially be due to the lack of measurable goals. However, if the identified goals represented actual IEP goals used by respondents, it seems unlikely that progress monitoring follows logically from the goals and unlikely that they feedback into goal modification and development, as suggested by best practice. Based on the results from this study, it is unclear what types of interventions are being delivered. The participants identified many barriers to effective goal creation and intervention (e.g., limited time, limited resources, lack of staff collaboration, lack of parent involvement, and other); however, these barriers are different than what has been hypothesized in past research.

Future research should focus on addressing these barriers, as well as increasing the quality of goals written and the relationship between goals and progress monitoring. In addition, it may be beneficial to better understand the training that is provided to school personnel on how to monitor progress with goals and address barriers that may exist with effectively implementing social and/or behavioral goals.

References

Christle, C. A. & Yell, M. L. (2010). Individualized education programs: Legal requirements and

research findings. Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal, 18(3), 109-123.