Comparing Brief Experimental Analysis and Teacher Judgment for Selecting Early Reading Interventions

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of brief experimental analysis (BEA) to identify early reading interventions for students in the primary grades and to compare teachers’ judgments about their students’ early reading intervention needs to BEA results. In addition, the research was conducted to explore how teachers make decisions regarding early reading intervention selection and evaluation. Three teachers and three elementary students (two kindergarten and one second grade) participated in the study. A BEA using a multielement design with mini-reversals was used to test the effects of four different interventions. Each teacher selected an intervention that she judged to be the most promising for her student. An extended analysis using an alternating treatments design compared the relative effects of the BEA-identified intervention and the teacher-identified intervention across time. The teachers were interviewed before and after selecting and implementing the interventions. The extended analysis results showed that the BEA-identified intervention was more effective than the teacher-identified intervention for all participants. Initial and final interview findings revealed that the teachers reported using data to make intervention decisions, but with limited specificity and in some cases, misjudgments. The results are discussed in regard to limitations and future research.     

Brief Experimental Analysis of Spanish Reading Fluency: An Exploratory Evaluation

Brief experimental analyses of reading fluency are useful for identifying effective interventions for improving reading fluency. The current study extends previous research by conducting an exploratory evaluation of brief experimental analyses of reading fluency for Spanish reading. A 10-year old Hispanic male presented with reading fluency deficits for English and Spanish reading. Brief experimental analyses of English and Spanish reading identified distinct interventions for each which increased oral reading fluency. Intervention procedures evaluated during brief experimental analyses included listening passage preview, repeated readings, and reward. Replication of analyses was conducted to examine changes in instructional need over time. For English reading, the intervention identified during the initial analysis (i.e., listening passage preview with repeated readings) was identified as the most effective when the analysis was replicated. For Spanish reading, listening passage preview was identified as the most effective intervention during the initial analysis, while repeated readings was identified as most effective when the analysis was replicated. Results are discussed in terms of future research given the exploratory nature of the current study.     

Using Brief Experimental Analysis to Select Oral Reading Interventions: An Investigation of Treatment Utility

This study examined the treatment utility of brief experimental analysis for selecting skill-based oral reading interventions that targeted acquisition and fluency. Two second and one third grade student served as participants. The potentially most and least effective instructional packages identified from the brief experimental analysis for each student were alternated during an extended analysis phase. The instructional components that were compared were based on an ease of implementation hierarchy, with the brief experimental analysis used to select the hypothesized most effective instructional package for oral reading. Visual analysis of extended analysis data revealed that the hypothesized most effective combination of instructional components identified from the brief analysis produced greater initial gains in reading for two children (i.e., over 29 and 21 intervention days) and greater gains in reading throughout the extended analysis phase for the third child. Thus, the investigation provided preliminary evidence for the treatment utility of using brief experimental analysis to select effective and efficient oral reading instructional interventions. Implications, limitations, and future research topics are discussed.     

小学四年级学生写作构思技能培养的实验研究

本研究运用心理模拟法创立了写作构思活动模式,并根据心智技能按阶段形成的理论对构思技能进行了分阶段培养。结果表明：①写作构思活动的实践模式可以有效地提高学生的写作构思技能水平,并能进而促进其写作水平的整体提高;②小学四年级学生在写作构思水平上不存在明显的性别差异,男女学生可以同等程度地接受构思技能的培训;③学生原有的写作技能水平和智力水平对于当前的写作活动有明显影响。     

An Application of Brief Therapy to Family Medicine

The Solution-Focused Brief Therapy model has been applied to support families with various problems commonly met at the department of family medicine in a large, urban teaching hospital in Seoul. Korea. Many cases there show a different distribution of problems when compared with a tertiary family therapy center. The majority involve psychosomatic problems, family distress around a chronically-ill member, the loss of a family member, and severe illness, only a few involving drinking problems, family violence, or abuse. The SFBT model meets the seven requirements of Doherty and Baird (1983) for a family therapy model to be useful in a medicine setting.     

构思策略教学改善小学写困生故事文质量的实验研究

采用实验组、控制组前后测实验设计,运用SRSD策略教学模式,对23名小学写困生进行构思策略的训练。实验结果表明,在训练之前,实验组与控制组学生在故事文的长度、6项分质量指标及总体质量上的得分差异均不显著;但在接受策略教学后,实验组学生所写的后测故事文在情节吸引力、条理清晰度和总体质量上的平均得分均显著优于控制组学生,其总体质量的改善效应为0.80。因此,构思策略的教学能显著改善小学写困生的故事文写作质量。     

提纲策略对写作成绩影响的实验研究

本研究通过两个实验,考察了写作构思阶段的自我调控策略之一的提纲之运用对写作成绩的影响及其机制。实验一发现,书面提纲和心理提纲这两种常见的提纲形式对不同长度文章的写作质量有同等的积极影响;实验二发现,“半书面提纲”形式对写作质量的影响要显著好于书面提纲。研究表明,提纲策略效应的发挥,主要在于它帮助作者提高了构思阶段的认知加工水平。     

Emergent Literacy and Early Writing Skills

In the present study, the authors aimed to assess the short- and long-term predictive power of the various components of an emergent literacy model on early writing abilities in a language with a mainly transparent orthography (Italian). Emergent literacy skills were assessed in 72 children (M age = 5.05 years, SD = ± .03) who were followed longitudinally from preschool to the end of the first grade of primary school. Their early writing abilities (orthographic correctness in writing individual words) and their advanced writing abilities (orthographic correctness in text writing) were tested at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Multiple stepwise and logistic regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the predictive capacities of emergent literacy abilities on early and advanced writing competences. Results show that notational competence is a strong predictor of early writing skills and that phonological competence only has an effect insofar as it is integrated with notational competence. Emergent literacy competences do not significantly predict orthographic errors in advanced text writing. This research allows for reconsideration of the importance of phonological awareness and gives a central role to notational competence in predicting early writing competence.     

写作心理学理论研究概况

当今写作心理研究的重点已从写作作品的研究转向写作过程的研究,主要有三种观点表达观点,社会观点和认知观点.Hayes和Flower建构的写作模型(1980,1996)是最有影响的写作模型,为写作心理的研究提供了理论框架.写作心理研究随着研究方法的提高,将会取得更大的进步.     

Brief Experimental Analysis of Written Letter Formation: Single-Case Demonstration

Many students experience difficulty in acquiring basic writing skills and educators need to efficiently address those deficits by implementing an intervention with a high likelihood for success. The current article demonstrates the utility of using a brief experimental analysis (BEA) to identify a letter-formation intervention for a second-grade student with handwriting difficulties. The results suggested that the BEA led to differentiated results for letter formation interventions, and the identified intervention was implemented for 8 weeks with moderate effectiveness. Suggestions for future research are included.     

An Experimental Analysis of Reading Fluency

The experimental analysis of academic responding has emerged as one approach to strengthening decisions related to problem analysis and treatment design. This study provided an example of how both brief and extended assessments can be used within a data based, problem solving approach to addressing reading fluency concerns. For six children with reading difficulties, within-trial effects of various instructional strategies were used to identify and design interventions. Assessment-derived interventions were evaluated using weekly academic growth on general outcome measures. Results indicated that five of the six children responded favorably to intervention. Future research involving the contribution of experimental analysis to response to intervention models of service delivery is discussed.     

An Experimental Analysis of Another Privacy

The Psychological Record - The present article discusses how events outside a subject’s skin and not accessible to another subject but to an experimenter may contribute to experimental...     

An Experimental Study of Lexical Access in the Writing and Naming of Isolated Words

Unlike speech production, lexical access in written production has not systematically been investigated experimentally. Four experiments were run on literate adults to support the view that although the spoken and written language production systems may obviously share some processing levels, they also both have some specific processing components. The general findings provide evidence for such a view and are discussed in the framework of studies in verbal production conducted on normals and on brain-damaged patients.     

Teaching Phoneme Segmenting and Blending as Critical Early Literacy Skills: An Experimental Analysis of Minimal Textual Repertoires

The purpose of the current study was to examine blending and segmenting of phonemes as an instance of small, textual response classes that students learn to combine to produce whole word reading. Using an A/B/A/B design, a phoneme segmenting and blending condition that included differential reinforcement for response classes at the level of phonemes was compared to a control condition which was equated for differential reinforcement of reading words and opportunities to respond. The critical difference between conditions was the size of the responses that were brought under stimulus control (phonemes versus whole words). Findings clearly supported the superiority of the phoneme blending treatment condition over the control condition in producing generalized increases in word reading. The results are discussed in terms of the behavioral mechanisms that govern early literacy behaviors and the essential role that targeting measured increases in academic responses plays in furthering our understanding of how to improve the analysis and instruction of students who need to learn these important skills.     

Prescriptive Analysis: Further Individualization of Hypothesis Testing in Brief Experimental Analysis of Reading Fluency

Brief experimental analyses (BEA) have been used to identify effective individualized interventions for improving reading fluency with school-age children. Interventions involving incentives, modeling, repeated reading, and error correction are most often tested in a BEA. However, these interventions are rarely modified according to individual student needs. The current study examined the effects of varied levels of modeling (passage, sentence, word) and varied contingencies (tracking and fluency) on fluency in non-treated high-word overlap passages and general outcome measure passages. BEA-identified interventions were effective for improving reading fluency on non-treated passages for both second grade students and the third grade student. Notably, the effects reversed when intervention was withdrawn with one of the second grade students. Results are discussed in terms of considerations in the application of BEA technology in the schools.     

Women's Writing and the Early Modern Genre Wars

This paper explores two phases of the early modern genre wars. The first was fought by Marie de Gournay, in her “Preface” to Montaigne's Essays, on behalf of her adoptive father and in defense of his naked and masculine prose. The second was fought half a century later by Nicholas Boileau in opposition to Gournay's feminizing successor, Madeleine de Scudéry. In this debate Gournay's position is egalitarian, whereas Scudéry's approximates to a feminism of difference. It is claimed that both female protagonists in this early debate occlude the female body. The far more sexually explicit prose of Mary Delarivier Manley is then used to raise the question: is it genre, or is it, rather, the very nature of erotic sexuality, that makes it so difficult for women to masterfully expose themselves as authoritative subjects?     

The Utility of Brief Experimental Analysis and Extended Intervention Analysis in Selecting Effective Mathematics Interventions

The present study evaluated the utility of brief experimental analysis (BEA) in predicting effective interventions for increasing the math fluency of 3 elementary students identified as having math skill deficits. Baseline data were collected followed by implementation of a BEA consisting of the following interventions: cover, copy, and compare, taped problems (TP), and math to mastery (MTM). An extended analysis phase using an alternating treatments design compared all 3 interventions against the results of the BEA. Two follow-up measurements were taken 5 days and 15 days after termination of the extended intervention analysis phase. Results indicated the BEA correctly predicted the most effective intervention for enhancing math fluency for all 3 students. Comparison of the intervention conditions revealed the MTM intervention to be the most effective intervention for 2 of the 3 students, while the TP intervention was the most efficient for 2 of the 3 students.     

Performance Indicators in Math: Implications for Brief Experimental Analysis of Academic Performance

Brief experimental analysis (BEA) can be used to specify intervention characteristics that produce positive learning gains for individual students. A key challenge to the use of BEA for intervention planning is the identification of performance indicators (including topography of the skill, measurement characteristics, and decision criteria) that meaningfully relate to longer term success in the learning environment. This study investigates the utility of various curriculum-based assessment and measurement estimates of mathematics performance for predicting functional outcomes (i.e., retention of learned skills over time and faster learning of related content in the future). All children in grades 2–5 at the participating school participated in protocol-based computational fluency-building intervention 4 days per week for an entire school year. Specific criteria were applied each week to systematically increase intervention difficulty classwide according to a pre-established sequence of computational skill objectives. Three measurements were routinely obtained. Each week children completed a timed probe of the skill for which intervention was currently occurring and a timed probe of previously mastered skills from the sequence of computational skill objectives. Each month, all children completed a timed probe of mathematics skills representing computational skills that students were expected to master by year’s end at each grade level. At all grade levels, learning a skill that appeared early in the hierarchy or sequence of skills related positively to learning of future related and more complex computational skills. Fluency criteria were specified that predicted retention of the skill over several months.     

Spelling and Writing Self-efficacy of Indo-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian Early Adolescents

Most studies of academic self-efficacy have been conducted with culturally Western populations, with very few studies exploring the self-efficacy beliefs of South Asian or South Asian immigrant populations. This study examined the spelling and writing self-efficacy beliefs of 151 South Asian (Indo-Canadian Punjabi Sikh immigrants) and Anglo-Canadian early adolescents. Domain-specific self-efficacy was a strong predictor of spelling and writing performance for both cultural groups. Male Indo-Canadians scored significantly lower than female Indo-Canadians on most measures of performance and self-efficacy. The findings were situated in relevant cross-cultural self-efficacy research and the current multicultural social context.