Scientific Research Based Intervention (SRBI)

1. Scientific Research Based Intervention (SRBI) Keely Swartzer-Special Education Coordinator kswartzer@mawseco.k12.mn.us Megan Anderson-School Psychologist Intern manderson@mawseco.k12.mn.us

2. Today’s agenda • Reason for training today • Projected timeline • Who will be effected and involved? • Review previous SLD Criteria Rule • Explanation of new SLD Criteria Rule • RTI=SRBI • Why should we exercise choice? • Necessary components • Implementation Inventory • Future training opportunities

3. Think-pair-share • Turn to your neighbor and talk briefly about what you have learned or heard about Response to Intervention (RTI/SRBI.) • Jot down any questions you and/or your neighbor may have. Use this ½ sheet to do this as we navigate through the training.

4. Exploration Installation Initial Implementation Full Implementation Innovation Sustainability Stages of Implementation: 2 – 4 Years Fixsen, Naoom, Blase, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005 Research suggests full development and implementation of SRBI is a three to seven year process (per MDE SLD Manual.)

5. Who is involved? • EVERYONE-This is a whole school initiative that may involve systemic changes. • Administration: Must be supportive and involved in SRBI initiatives. • General Education: “RTI is primarily a general education initiative designed to address the needs of struggling learners early in their educational experience.” -Joseph Casbarro, Ph. D. • Special Education: SRBI can now be used in determining eligibility specifically SLD. • Parents: SRBI expects parent notification and involvement in interventions. • Students: SRBI increases success rates.

6. Specific learning Disabilities Criteria • Is changing to include the option of using RTI (SRBI) as one component of the criteria to replace severe-discrepancy.

7. Old vs. new criteria rule

8. Specific Learning Disabilities Eligibility Criteria Options

9. Choice in criteria • Building teams now have a choice between using the “old criteria” (discrepancy model) or using the SRBI model. • The “old criteria” did not go away. There is just the addition of a new option for qualifying a student as Specific Learning Disabilities.

10. Why exercise choice and use SRBI? • Early intervention to prevent long-term academic failure and possible special education labeling and service. • SRBI can replace and/or augment the IQ discrepancy model in the identification of learning disabilities. • Low ability learner who does not have a gap and therefore, does not qualify for special education may be able to qualify under the new system of SRBI.

11. SRBI-not just an eligibility criteria • Although SRBI can be used as an SLD criteria option, it is also used to improve the quality of services/instruction in the general education environment. • It provides services early on at the student’s level of need in specific areas of concern.

12. Scientific Research Based Intervention (SRBI): A value added practice • SRBI increases the success rate of students receiving general education instruction. • SRBI provides research based instruction as an early intervention to students. • SRBI provides critical data needed to design, implement, and monitor instructional interventions. • SRBI may reduce the number of referrals to special education. • SRBI can be beneficial to document and improve the likelihood that students will respond to intervention across concern areas. This may provide additional data for other categorical areas of special education.

13. System of Assessment for RtI

14. Screen all students at least 2 x per year • Social Emotional (Surveys or Screeners) • Physical (Health screenings, attendance records, vision/hearing, physical wellness) • Behavior (Discipline/referrals and attendance) • Academic (NWEA-MAP, Learnia, MClass, Curriculum Based Measures (Dibels/Aimsweb), Gifted Screeners, YCAT, OWLS, Iowa Acceleration Scale) • These screenings would be used to determine the level of risk for each individual student. • Imperative to look at the whole child. • General screening answers the question, “Who needs extra help?”

15. Activity • Take a minute to look at p. 3-9 to 3-14. • Mark assessments that your district may already have in place. • Remember, MCA’s are not considered screening tools.

16. Screening for language difficulties • Districts may want to consider screening for language difficulties at certain grade levels because: • Programs designed to stimulate language growth will have a significant impact on later academic development • Students with mild to moderate language delays remain at a greater risk for development of a reading difficulty • The risk for reading problems is greatest when a child’s language impairment is severe in any area, broad in scope, or persistent over the preschool year…

17. Screening Procedures for Culturally and Linguistic Diverse Students • Include non-discriminatory practices and procedures • Disaggregate data to see how well core instruction meets the needs of these learners. • Screening tools normed on students similar to those served in the school. • Collection of five weeks of progress monitoring data in addition to screening results to improve selection accuracy. • Examination of additional relevant data: • Instructional methods are appropriate • Teachers are trained to assess and intervene • Students are actively engaged and receiving core instruction

18. Screening logistical considerations • Districts/buildings need to consider logistics of screening: • Standardized procedures for administration and scoring of screening measures to ensure reliability • Train teams each year to conduct and score results to ensure reliability • Conduct screening of all students in a grade within a one-week period to reduce data variability • Provide access to screening data to make instructional decisions within one to two weeks of administration • Add five weeks of progress monitoring measures to the screening process for ELL learners and kindergartners to improve accuracy of risk status

19. Further data and analysis of identified students • After screening is complete and students have been identified, further screening and/or analysis of information is necessary based on the individual. • This is important to weigh screening data, teacher data, any additional information, and extenuating circumstances. • For example, Bobby didn’t meet standards on the math NWEA. Through additional data, the team determined that Bobby hadn’t eaten breakfast and fell asleep during the assessment. Teacher data indicates Bobby’s math skills have been at grade level for the last two year. Bobby likely does not need intervention. • We don’t want to digitize students.

20. If screening results are determined to be valid, more specific screening is needed. • Targeted screening – Used to answer the question “What type of extra help is needed?“ • For example, a student with a low reading fluency score may need to be screened to determine their ability to decode and recognize sight words. • Typically, the answers to this question sort into skill sets likemath calculation or reading comprehension. • Informal diagnosis – Used to pinpoint specific skills and instruction needed like reading fluency or sight word recognition.

21. Fit instruction to the need identified by more in depth assessment • These interventions must be research based. • The interventions must be done in addition to core instruction. • They must be done as prescribed. • Interventions must be done with fidelity.

22. Remember… • Students may be identified as at-risk through either the screening process in a building OR by parent/teacher referral. • Students may have needs that do not fit into a pre-existing intervention program. • Scientifically research based interventions may need to be implemented individually in these cases.

23. Academic Behavior Conceptual Model: Tiers + Intensive, Individual Intensive, Individual 1-5% 1-5% Strategic Group Strategic Group 5-10% 5-10% • Universal Universal 80-85% 80-85% • Advanced 1-5%

24. Elaborate or Added Practice Elaborate or Enrich Intensive Instruction to Accelerate Accelerateor Advance Evidence-based Instruction for All Secondary Tertiary Tertiary Secondary Organization of Supports for Individualization Conceptual Model: Continuums of Support

25. The three tiers of SRBI intervention/support • Tier One: Core instruction and universal interventions for all learners. • 80-90% of population • If 80-90% are not at bench mark, then core curriculum should be reviewed and/or modified to meet students’ needs. • Tier Two: Small group, focused (skill specific) intervention based on area of need identified. • 10-15% of population • Tier Three: Intensive, individualized intervention. • 1-5% of population

26. Movement between tiers? • Tiers are fluid. • Students can move between them. • Based on progress monitoring data collected during intervention.

27. Interventions • Need to be in addition to core instruction • Need to specifically address the skill deficit of the individual student • Need to be implemented with fidelity as defined in the intervention research

28. Implementing intervention > progress monitoring • Different areas of concern/tiers need to be progress monitored at different frequencies. • For example, behavior interventions may need to be monitored daily or hourly depending on the student, the concerning behavior, and the intervention. • Academic interventions can be monitored between 1 x per week and 2 x per month depending on the tier.

29. Components of progress monitoring • Baseline data-Must be collected before the intervention is started and will be used to set the goal line. • Progress monitoring tool-Must directly measure growth in the area of concern. • For example, a reading fluency probe would not directly measure improvement in a student’s comprehension skills. • Decision rules should be determined before the implementation of the intervention. This is important because it is used to evaluate the success of the intervention or the need to change the intervention.

30. Progress monitoring tools • Curriculum based measures: • AIMSWEB Probes • Dibels • Teacher created CBM’s • www.interventioncentral.com • Progress monitoring tools are NOT: • MCA-II’s • NWEA-Measures of Academic Progress • End of unit/chapter tests

31. What does the progress monitoring tell us? • Depending on the student’s progress with intervention, we can determine: • If an intervention needs to be modified • If a different intervention is needed • If a student needs to switch to a different intervention tier • If a student should be referred for a special education evaluation

32. System of Assessment for RtI

33. Implementation Inventory • Form is a mandatory step toward a building exercising choice in SLD Criteria. • Your identified team (multi-disciplinary) should complete the form together. Items will be verified before training can occur. • Route form to Allyson Kuehn, Director of Special Education, prior to June 15, 2011. • Inventories will be reviewed, and teams will be notified if they will be offered summer training.

34. Leadership and implementation teams • Leadership committed to making necessary changes to staffing: • Example: Hiring or reassigning of staff member to work as an interventionist • Questions?

35. Professional development and collaboration • Professional development trainings offered in your district to all teaching staff may cover some of these requirements. • MAWSECO will assist with staff development relating to instructional practices and methods of culturally and linguistically diverse students. • MAWSECO may offer some of the other trainings based on a summary of the information gathered from these inventories. • Questions?

36. Data: Evaluation Supports (screening, Progress monitoring, and fidelity) • Districts need to determine if their DATA WAREHOUSE can hold benchmark screening data for all students. • CBM’s (example: fluency checks) can be used as a screener for benchmarking and determining the need for intervention. • Cut scores are a team decision. Many assessments you are giving offer insight into levels of achievement. • Members of the SRBI team would be responsible for checking that interventions are being completed with fidelity through observation, consultation, etc. • Mechanisms for using data simply means making data driven decisions for improvement. • Questions?

37. Inventory discussion • Gather with your district colleagues preferably • Review the inventory together • Note questions to share with the group • Come back together as a group for Q and A

38. Future training opportunities • March 23 and 24=Special education staff and psychologists will be trained on the new manual including an overview of SRBI • When systems are in place within a building, teams will be offered trainings through MAWSECO. These will include: • Systems of Assessment • Systems of Scientific Research Based Interventions • Using Multiple Methods of Data Collection for Integrating Data, Determining Eligibility, and Developing Specially Designed Instruction • Linking Profiles of Achievement with Basic Psychological Processes