Effects of Training in Functional Behavior Assessment

The article that I chose was about a study on formal training for Special Education teachers and functional behavioral plans.  This study was created because in spite of the many behavior change methods only a narrow range of methods seems to be being used.  The main goal of the training was to build competence in the use of the FBA.  To do this they want the schools to establish a philosophical foundation that all students should remain in school, create support within school systems for implementing FBA, and educate professionals within the school in the competencies necessary to conduct FBAs.

This study targeted specifically the difference between the untrained and the trained teachers to identify the function of the student problem behavior as a result of a brief training program conducted by a large urban district and is there a difference in the ability of untrained and trained teachers to make recommendations to change problem behavior as a result of a brief training program conducted by a large urban district.


Basically they took 250 teachers in urban schools and provided them with a class on the steps to take to fill out a functional behavioral plan.  They provided examples of methods to use in order to change the behaviors in classrooms.  This class only met 3 times for 3 hours.  After the class they were asked to fill out a form discussing their response to the class out of 250 people they received only 100 responses back.  They felt that because of this many of the people who attended the class did not feel that the class was worth while.


After this they looked how the plans in the areas where developed.  They did find that 30% of those who attended the classes did implement some of the techniques they where presented with.  The other teachers did implement plans that seemed to be effective but did not include any of the techniques presented.  The developers of this study felt that they should have made this class longer.  Showed better case studies that these new or different methods were successful.

They feel that teachers do a good job creating FBA but the methods could be more varied.


I found this encouraging that teachers with out more extensive training were still doing a good job at providing a solid plan for children.  I also liked the fact they this study pointed out the fact that they should have made their training class longer and provide better follow up.



Dukes C, Rosenberg H, Brady M. Effects of Training in Functional Behavior Assessment. International Journal Of Special Education [serial online]. January 1, 2008;23(1):163-173. 

Nancy Giblin

Topic Areas to Consider when Planning Transition from High School To Postsecondary Education for Kids with ASD

This article was very interesting especially with the assignment that we are about to begin.  This article discussed the things that we as educators should consider when making a transition plan.  One item that I found very helpful was the topic of career exploration.  They mentioned that you should begin with an assessment of the student to see if it includes standards, beliefs and ideas that are important to the individual.  Employment outlook will there be jobs in the field in a few years is something that I may not have considered.  Another topic is will this require vocational training or is it academic training?  If its academic training this could include taking a college course  while in high school either online, on the high school campus or at a local community college.

Other items that we will need to consider are assessing and identifying learning styles, teaching the student self advocacy skills.  The students will need to understand their needs and effectively communicate those needs to others.  Along with self advocacy is the need for individuals with disabilities to be aware of reasonable accommodations that are available and necessary to support their success in postsecondary education.  During the k-12 years their needs are taken care of with an IEP as they enter secondary education they will have to check in with the campus disability services office an inform them of their accommodation needs.  This can be significant and challenging.

It is also important for kids with ASD to know the academic supports are available in post secondary education and which ones work for them.  It mentions that you need to need to provide opportunities in high school for the kids to expire and become aware of the various supports and how to acquire them and use them.

Making sure that you have a team to work on the plan is best.  Who is most involved with his life? What agencies may help the student now and during postsecondary education. Who will support the the student while in postsecondary education? What supports are needed?  These are questions we should think when asking people to help formulate the plan.

Making sure the student is familiar with all necessary technology.  Online tools for registration for classes and managing an online class can be very important.  There is a Tech Act project that is funded under the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. This has a lending service so an individual can morrow and use a piece of equipment for a set amount of time.

For many people with ASD routines, times, and schedules are the backbone of each day.  Postsecondary education schedules that appear to be set change frequently.  You will need to teach the student what to do if this happens how to manage unexpected blocks of time.

All of this information for me was enlightening.  I will use this information for writing my transition plan.  This was one of the best article I have found.

Roberts, K. Topic Areas to Consider When Planning Transition From High School to Postsecondary 

Education for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders, 

Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, v25 n3 p158-162 Sep 2010. 5 pp.

ADHD in Adolescence

The  journal article that I read was about ADHD being associated with many psychiatric disorders in adolescence.  I was really hoping that this study would say that children with ADHD have no greater chance of developing psychiatric disorders as they reach adolescence but that was not the case.  They studied 4 groups of children from age 3 to 18.  They passively followed groups of children with ADHD and those with out.  Both groups of children had some incidents of depression, anxiety, defiant disorder, eating disorders and adjustment disorders.  The children with ADHD experienced one or more of these symptoms 2 fold to that of those with out ADHD.  The results may be a bit off in my opinion because as the children grew up they did not meet with the families as often.  By the end of the study some of the information they received was by a form that was sent to the families to be filled out.   I wonder if every family was aware of the problems their child was experiencing and if they did report them if there were problems.  There was not much information on if the children were taking medication during the study.  I do know from personal experience that as children with ADHD reach high school and college they are more likely to try to live with out medicine.   It has been my experience that this is usually when problems arise.  I hope that when my children reach this stage in their lives that they remember how being off medicine made their lives complicated and the focus that they feel while on it.  



Yoshimasu, K., Barbaresi, W. J., Colligan, R. C., Voigt, R. G., Killian, J. M., Weaver, A. L., & Katusic, S. K. (2012). Childhood ADHD is strongly associated with a broad range of psychiatric disorders during adolescence: a population-based birth cohort study. Journal Of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 53(10), 1036-1043. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02567.x

Self Esteem in Hearing-Impaired Children

This was a study was conducted to see if hearing impaired children have lower levels of self-esteem, because among other things they frequently experience lower language and communication skills.  This study compares hearing impaired children's self esteem across different domains with those of normal hearing children to investigate  the influence of communication type of education and audiological characteristics.


In this study they studied two gate and gender matched groups 123 Hearing impaired children and 129 Normal hearing children with a mean age of 11.8 years old.  They measured self-esteem across four areas, perceived social acceptance by peers, perceived parental attention ,perceived physical appearance and global self esteem.

After observing these children over a 3 month period of time each group of children were given a questionnaire.  The questions were provided to the children in the method that best suited each child, either pen and paper, computer or spoken language translated into sign language.  Parents or caregivers were also asked to complete forms to help provide demographic background on the children.  The results were that the sores didn't significantly differ when comparing global self esteem.  This group also looked at the type of education these children received and their self esteem.  Children in mainstream classrooms did not  score differently to children in self contained classrooms.

I really was surprised by the findings of this test.  I thought that the children would have  slightly lower self esteem.  Then I thought about how the children I work with and live with see themselves.  They do not see themselves as different.  My children almost have more self esteem.  They don't feel that they are different.  They do notice children who have the same issues as they do but they don't necessarily see it as a bad thing.  I would have liked to seen information on children who were hearing impaired at birth vs. those who experienced hearing loss later in life.


We have read in our book regarding the disability of being hearing impaired it was more a discussion of the impairment not the effect it has on children socially or their self esteem.  It would be nice to have a chapter on the social implications that all disabilities have on children.

Theunissen, S. M., Rieffe, C., Netten, A. P., Briaire, J. J., Soede, W., Kouwenberg, M., & Frijns, J. M. (2014). Self-Esteem in Hearing-Impaired Children: The Influence of Communication, Education, and Audiological Characteristics. Plos ONE, 9(4), 1-8. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0094521

Bullying among Children with Autism

I chose an article about bullying among children with autism.  I chose this article because bullying is such a big topic in all schools.  Children of all abilities experience bullying.  I wondered however if children with autism would experience more chance of being bullied opposed to children without disabilities.  

Approximately 30% of children are involved in bullying.  Either as the bullies, victims or bully/victims.  Most studies involving bullying are focused on the general education population.  This study focused on children with Autism.  Children in inclusive settings have a tendency to experience being bullied on a more regular basis.  This study looked at 1221 children from all socioeconomic backgrounds and all ethnicities.  All parents were asked the question, "How does your child get along with other children" and " How would you describe your child's academic performance?" After answering the previous questions they were asked if their child was ever bullied.  The children were followed over a year to document their experiences.  Bullying was defined as “when a person or group of people repeatedly say or do mean or hurtful things to someone on purpose. It typically occurs when there is a powerimbalance.” (Nansel et al., 2001; Olweus, 1993).  

The results were as follows: Children with Aspergers were more likely to be a victim of bullying.  African American children as a group were targeted.  Children with low academic abilities had low instances in being bullied while those who had a hard time making friends were more likely to be bullied.  The findings of this study are that who spend a great deal of time in a general education setting with typical peers may have the greatest risk of being bullied.  While there are many benefits having children in inclusive setting teachers will need to be aware of the greater risks of bullying towards these children in an inclusive setting.  

I have often wondered if children with disabilities that are in inclusive settings have a higher risk of being bullied.  According to this article children who are high functioning are at a greater risk.  We do not currently have any children who fit the criteria of this article at our school.  We do however have several children that have been diagnosed with downs syndrome.  The entire staff at our school are concerned about other children bullying these children.  This article makes me think that this should be a great concern for the staff at our school.  I did find this article interesting and useful for me.  One surprising factor was that the higher functioning the child the more likely to be bullied.  I wonder if this is because the lower functioning children are so much different that children are more accepting of the differences.  Children who are high functioning may appear to be more equal peers and this makes the behavioral differences seem greater.  Teachers may need to provide explanations to the children in the classroom that although some children may seem the same and can function academically socially they are at a disadvantage.  


Risk factors for bullying among children with autism spectrum disorders 
Zablotsky B., Bradshaw C.P., Anderson C.M., Law P. 
(2014)  Autism,  18  (4) , pp. 419-427. 

Behavioral Disorder

The Article that I chose to read was about Anxiety disorders.  Just as it is hard to detect anxiety disorders in children it was difficult to find many articles about this behavioral disorder.  As mentioned in our book teachers tend to under-refer students with suspected internalizing behavior problems.  Internalizing problems involve inwardly directing actions and teachers often have difficulty identifying them in classroom settings.

I have two children in our school who experience severe anxiety disorder.  I also live with children with this disorder.  With this personal experience I find it easier to notice the quite children who are holding all the anxiety inside.  My children as young as preschool would have a "great day" according to teachers and get into the school and explode.  They would say don't talk to me or start to act out or cry as soon as they got into the car.  They had held it together for 3 hours and couldn't hold it in any more.  After many evaluations we were able to put a name to this and it was several anxiety disorder.  With this experience behind me I tend to seek out the children that are too quite and don't socialize in a classroom.

The article I chose deals with the idea of cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of pediatric anxiety in an elementary school setting.  Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent of psychiatry problems for youth it effects approximately 6-11% of school age children.  Pediatric anxiety disorders can be described as a functional impairment which disrupts children's abilities to accomplish normal developmental tasks.

While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy appears to be effective in a controlled, clinical environment the effectiveness of these programs disseminate into real world settings, such as schools is still uncertain.  At the time of this study they did not know of any other study done on Cognitive Behavioral  Therapy for anxiety study done in a school setting.  The participants of this study were 24 children and their families.  They used a program called Building Confidence to complete this task.  The Building Confidence program contains several child modules, caregiver modules, one teacher module and one school nurse module.  The main idea of the module was to teach the children coping skills in varies situations and how to develop their own coping thoughts.  As the children went through the program treatment was discontinued as the child found that their anxiety levels of the children were reduced significantly.  The children used this therapy at home as well as school.  This study wanted to evaluate the efficacy of modularized CBT program for a childhood anxiety.  After a 1 year follow up 71.4% of students demonstrated a positive treatment response and were free of any anxiety diagnosis.

This article provides hope that CBT can provide help for children with high levels of anxiety.  The easy and fast answer for many people is medicine to deal with anxiety and this shows that with a good plan and work that medication can be avoided and the struggle with anxiety can be lessened or eliminated.

Our book discusses the characteristics of children with anxiety and how this creates struggles in the classroom and social behavior.  This article was more on a solution to lessening the amount of anxiety a child has.  If this method was followed it could help with the social and classroom struggles these children experience.  If anxiety is lessened, modeling for social skills would be so much better received by students.


Galla, B. M., Wood, J. J., Chiu, A. W., Langer, D. A., Jacobs, J., Ifekwunigwe, M., & Larkins, C. (2012). One Year Follow-Up to Modular Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for the Treatment of Pediatric Anxiety Disorders in an Elementary School Setting. Child Psychiatry And Human Development, 43(2), 219-226.

Teaching Children to Cope with Dyslexia

The article I read this week was about teaching children to cope with dyslexia.  When I chose this article I thought it would contain some suggestions for children to use when reading.  It did contain suggestions but they did not pertain to reading but to self confidence.  I never really looked at this component when reading about dyslexia.

This study took place in Australia. In this study they created an entire school that was a dyslexia friendly environment.   When speaking with adults diagnosed with dyslexia they said that they were angry that no one taught them how to cope with their disability when they were a child.   In this study they looked at children in sixth grade and seventh grade. They included child with and with out dyslexia in the study.  They had found that children by middle school who cope with dyslexia tend to become aggressive depressed and withdrawn. It is at this point that many children begin to distinguish that they are different from their friends.  The feel isolated and defined by their dyslexia.  If a child is taught adaptive coping skills they are able to learn to deal with the disability and not become defined by it.

Some of the techniques that they used with the children were that when they became frustrated they would write a negative word on a balloon and step on the  balloon to let out their frustration.  They also had adult guest speakers who also suffered with dyslexia so they could share their stories and the coping techniques that they used. These people sometime became mentors to the children.  They role played, and made videos.   In the classroom setting the teachers incorporated more listening activities, used pictures to tell stories and had children use their own talent such as singing, drawing or acting out a story they had to tell.

They did not have any special education teachers at these schools on a full time basis they took an assistant principle and a teacher and trained them to implement this work.  They did have a weekly check in with the researcher who has extensive training in dyslexia. All children received 10 weeks of a coping program teaching them techniques to use when frustrated or discouraged and given the opportunity to learn martial arts to focus on mindfulness.  The teachers then implemented the changes in the classrooms.  They found that they all of the students benefited from this instruction.  They found that as these students progressed their self esteem and confidence grew that they learned how to use other abilities to help make their dyslexia less disabling.  The students that did not suffer from dyslexia also benefited they too had learned ways to cope with frustration and depression.  They feel that more research needs to be done but more schools in Australia are going to try and implement the tools that were used in this study.

I feel that this article was very helpful for me.  I don't know that I ever imagined that great about of emotional issues that come with suffering with dyslexia.  My girls at this point can fit in even with their lack of ability to read and preform math at grade level.  They are approaching this age and I am going to encourage my oldest daughter to try some of these ideas.  My second child is very self confident but I think I will share these ideas with her as well.  I would love for my school district to read this study.  I don't know if its something that they would ever try but it doesn't seem to have very many negative effects and might be able to be done with a low amount of cost.   I wonder come there are schools like this in Australia and in the UK and none here that I know of.  I hope that there is some follow up work done by this group or that another group picks up this research and brings it to the United States.






Firth, N., Frydenberg, E., Steeg, C., & Bond, L. (2013). Coping Successfully with Dyslexia: An Initial Study of an Inclusive School-Based Resilience Programme. Dyslexia (10769242), 19(2), 113-130. doi:10.1002/dys.1453