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About this paper symposium
| Panel information |
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| Panel 25. Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related |
| Paper #1 | |
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| Reducing the Wait: The Development and Evaluation of a New Autism Diagnostic Pathway | |
| Author information | Role |
| Megan Roberts, Northwestern University, United States | Presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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As a result of the COVID19 pandemic, face-to-face medical diagnostic evaluations provided through the Illinois (IL) Bureau of Early Intervention (EI) were discontinued on March 16th, 2020. Such diagnostic services provide autism diagnoses that are required to access early intensive and specialized intervention through health insurance. The cancellation of face-to-face services caused an unprecedented need for feasible, acceptable, and valid telepractice methods for autism diagnosis and placed increased demands on a pre-existing inefficient and ineffective medical autism diagnostic pathway. Subsequently, waitlists for medical diagnostic appointments in IL increased from approximately 3 months to 9.5 months. Early access to specialized and intensive intervention during a critical window of neuroplasticity (i.e., before 36 months of age) is essential for optimizing developmental, academic, and quality-of-life outcomes. The goals of this ongoing research study are to (1) provide immediate autism diagnostic evaluations for over 1000 toddlers enrolled in IL’s EI program, and (2) evaluate a more efficient, equitable, accurate, feasible, and cost-effective EI autism diagnostic pathway compared to the traditional medical diagnostic pathway through clinical psychologists and physicians. The novel EI autism diagnostic pathway differs from the pre-existing, backlogged medical diagnostic pathway in two important ways: (1) the system in which the diagnosis occurs (i.e., EI) and (2) the providers qualified to diagnose autism—speech-language pathologist (SLP) in collaboration with a developmental therapist (DT). Compared to the pre-existing pathway through the health system, this novel EI autism diagnostic pathway includes existing, open-access autism tools to evaluate each child across multiple measures, informants, and contexts within a telepractice model. Upon completion of the assessment battery, the SLP and DT individually and then jointly determine a best clinical estimate (BCE). Separately, a traditional expert diagnostic team determines a BCE. Then, the EI diagnostic and expert diagnostic teams make a final joint BCE. A virtual feedback visit is then held to discuss the child’s diagnosis with the family. To date, 436 children between 18 and 36 months have been evaluated. The sample is highly racially/ethnically diverse (34% Black, 29% Hispanic) as well as socioeconomically diverse (52% receiving government assistance). Results indicate 84% agreement between the experts and EI teams, which is similar to the agreement between primary care pediatricians and autism expert teams (82%, McNally Keehn et al., 2018). Additionally, 98% of parents reported that they would recommend the program to someone else and 71% would be willing to use telehealth even if an in-person evaluation was available. Lastly, the wait time for families was reduced by 12 months (from 13 to 1 month wait time). These results represent an important first step toward providing evidence to support policy changes that expand the types of professionals authorized to diagnose autism and enable the process to run more efficiently. |
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| Paper #2 | |
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| Enhancing Teacher Effectiveness for Improving Text-Based Writing in Children with and At Risk for Disabilities | |
| Author information | Role |
| Dr. Alyson A. Collins, Texas State University, United States | Presenting author |
| Stephen Ciullo, Texas State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Karen R. Harris, Arizona State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Steve Graham, Arizona State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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Children use writing as a communication tool for explaining information to others, enriching their understanding of concepts, and facilitating conversations within different communities (Bazerman et al., 2018; Graham, 2018). For many years, however, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has documented a notable gap between children with and without disabilities (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). During the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures and changes to deliveries in services further exacerbated the long-term implications of underachievement for these students (Center for School and Student Progress, 2021; National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2021). This study aimed to accelerate writing performance of children in Grades 3 and 4 by providing timely professional development to general and special education teachers as they returned to the classroom following the pandemic. Researchers used a randomized cluster design to investigate the effects of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD; Harris & Graham, 2013) for text-based informative writing with 22 dyads of general and special education teachers who taught writing in Grades 3 and 4. A total of 339 children were screened with the Woodcock Johnson-IV Sentence Writing Fluency to identify children who scored below the 25th percentile. From the screener, 112 children were identified as ‘focus students’ and administered additional writing and reading measures at pretest and posttest. More than 65% of these students represented historically marginalized groups (58% Hispanic; 7% Black). Teacher dyads participated in 12 hours of practice-based professional development and ongoing instructional coaching as they collaboratively implemented the SRSD intervention over 12–15 weeks. Multilevel random effects models revealed children with disabilities and at risk in writing in the SRSD classrooms performed higher on a norm-referenced expository writing measure (WIAT Essay Composition) than business-as-usual controls, B = 1.12, SE = 0.41, z = 2.72, p = 0.007, 95% CI [0.31, 1.93]. Hedges g effect size indicated children who received the SRSD intervention scored on average 0.35 points higher on the expository essays than controls. Moreover, descriptive results revealed children in the SRSD group (M = 1.85; SD = 2.28) scored higher than the control group (M = 1.13; SD = 1.94) on a text-based informational essay on the state assessment (see Table 1), although group differences were not statistically significant, and SRSD classes had fewer children score 0 on the state text-based writing assessment. Finally, on a researcher-designed writing measure, results revealed children in the SRSD classrooms included more genre elements (e.g., topic sentence, important ideas, transition words) within a text-based informational essay (M = 3.84; SD = 3.23) when compared to children in control classes (M = 2.93; SD = 2.81). Findings provide important implications for preparing special and general education teachers to collaboratively implement SRSD for text-based writing. Researchers will discuss specific recommendations for differentiating SRSD instruction for children with disabilities and at risk in writing in general and special education settings. Researchers will also discuss study limitations and directions for future research, including the need to explore other factors that may mediate children’s response to the SRSD intervention. |
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| Paper #3 | |
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| Mathematics Professional Learning and Coaching for Teachers in Grades 4 and 5 | |
| Author information | Role |
| Sarah Powell, Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin, United States | Presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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Currently, two-thirds of students in the United States do not meet minimum proficiency levels in mathematics at Grade 4; for students with disabilities, 85% do not meet proficiency expectations. Therefore, many schools have to provide mathematics intervention or small-group tutoring to help students improve their mathematics knowledge. Teachers must have a toolbox for designing and delivering mathematics intervention that relies on research-validated practices. In Texas, the legislature mandated, as a response to COVID-related school closures, small-group math tutoring for students who did not meet a minimum level of proficiency on the previous spring’s high-stakes math test. Therefore, we partnered with a large, urban school district to implement and evaluate SPIRAL: SPecialized Instruction to Reach All Learners. We focused our SPIRAL teacher efforts on professional learning. Previous research has noted that professional learning can lead to improved teacher outcomes (Akiba & Liang, 2016; Gersten et al., 2010). Recently, Fuchs et al. (2021) published a synthesis on research-validated practices for math intervention, and we used this as a guide for our professional learning. We recruited 77 Grades 4 and 5 teachers who provided small-group mathematics tutoring to students who did not meet a minimum level of proficiency on the previous spring’s high-stakes mathematics test to conduct a regression discontinuity design study, with on student proficiency level proficiency scores (cutoff between below grade level and approaching grade level). Teachers in the SPIRAL group participated in four professional learning modules. In this presentation, we will describe the professional learning efforts of project SPIRAL and provide an overview of the content from SPIRAL professional learning sessions: (1) why it's important to provide explicit instruction on mathematics vocabulary, (2) how to use different manipulatives to build conceptual and procedural knowledge, (3) how to model and practice in mathematics, (4) common fluency-building strategies, and (5) how to use an attack strategy to help students set up and solve word problems. Each of these practices is research-validated specifically for mathematics intervention for at-risk students (Fuchs et al., 2021). In our first full year of data collection, we administered a measure of educator instructional practices to learn how understanding of instructional practices changed across the school year before and after the intervention. At posttest, teachers demonstrated improved understanding on instructional practices (ES = 0.48) and word-problem solving (ES = 1.03) compared to pretest. For the students who received instruction by the SPIRAL teachers (N = 899 students), we also noted improved mathematics performance, with ES of 0.38 on a standardized measure of word problems and 0.40 on a standardized measure of computation. In conclusion, SPIRAL has demonstrated that professional learning can improve teacher understanding of mathematics instructional practices important for mathematics intervention and improve student mathematics performance. |
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| Paper #4 | |
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| Preventing Emotional and Behavior Problems in Middle School Youth at Risk of Disability Post Pandemic | |
| Author information | Role |
| Beth Stormshak, Ph.D., University of Oregon, United States | Presenting author |
| Arin Connell, Case Western Reserve University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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Digital health interventions hold promise for increasing access to behavioral health support for families with a child at risk of disability. The current study evaluates the efficacy of a digital health parenting support program, the Family Check-Up Online (FCU-O) with telehealth coaching, for parents of children ages 11-14 who have a child with behavioral or mental health concerns that impact academic success at school. The FCU-O was developed as a tool for reaching parents in the context of schools and builds on 25 years of research supporting the FCU as an intervention that reduces behavior problems and improves student mental health. After working directly with school providers using community engaged models of collaboration, we developed the FCU-O with feedback from schools as a solution to a growing need for family support in the context of school service delivery, particularly for students with disabilities. Initial results with a sample of middle school youth and parents during the pandemic suggest improvements in both youth behavior and parenting skills that predict reductions in youth mental health concerns, including depression (Authors, 2023). In this project, we examined the effects of the FCU-O on parenting skills (limit setting, positive parenting) and behavior problems (conduct problems, depression) at 3-month follow up in a randomized controlled trial after youth returned to school post pandemic. Eligibility criteria included any of the following: low attendance (missing more than 10%); low academic achievement (GPS below 2.5); current IEP; two or more disciplinary referrals; or serious mental health or behavior concerns reported by parents. Participants (N = 282) were predominantly low-income and the majority of parents identified as female (91%), whereas 58% of youth identified as male. The sample was 67% white, 27% Hispanic, and 6% other. Partnerships with middle schools facilitated recruitment and implementation of the intervention, including training of school providers in model delivery. Parent and youth self-report assessments were collected at baseline and at 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months post intervention. Random assignment to the FCU-O intervention was associated with improvements in parenting skills, including limit setting (beta = .15, SE = .06, p = .02), as well as improvements in parent report of child behavior problems at the 3-month follow up. A significant moderation effect by baseline conduct problems was observed (beta = -.18, SE = .09, p = .05), with stronger intervention effects for youth with higher levels of parent-reported conduct problems at baseline, which is consistent with prior research on the FCU model. After delivery of the intervention, we collaborated with schools to train providers and collected data on implementation of the model. Results of the RCT provide support for the FCU-O as a preventive intervention, with implications for reducing barriers and increasing access to preventive mental health services for families who have a child at risk of disability. Our results support digital health interventions as a feasible, acceptable, and effective model for reaching vulnerable youth and families in schools to improve mental health outcomes and subsequent academic success. |
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Research Addressing Pandemic Challenges to Improve Developmental and Learning Outcomes for Children with Disabilities
Submission Type
Paper Symposium
Description
| Session Title | Research Addressing Pandemic Challenges to Improve Developmental and Learning Outcomes for Children with Disabilities |