Association for Behavior Analysis International

This symposium will include 4 presentations that blend direct instruction with precision teaching to maximize generative learning. Presentations include 3 teachers from the base laboratory school, Morningside Academy, a school for struggling general education learners; and the director of a school program catering to pervasively delayed learners that partners with Morningside Academy to adapt and transfer Morningside's instructional model to their population. The first presentation by Shiloh Isbell will describe the effects of adding standard celeration charting to typical writing rubric scoring upon students' persuasive essay writing performance. The second presentation by Marianne Delgado will extend that work to writing performance in reading, science, and math; as well as show the effects of charting data from a delayed prompting procedure on reading comprehension. The third presentation by Paul Meng examines motivational variables involved in school lunch and recess procedures. The fourth presentation by Bill Helsel describes technology transfer to a partner school catering to students with pervasive delays.

We will present different uses of the standard celeration chart in tracking essay writing across the curriculum: student response journaling to recreational reading in literature; essay questions and lab report discussion sections in science, position papers in writing, and "how to" expository essays on Math. We will also present a group chart on the oral acquisition of reading comprehension skills using delayed prompting. The celeration chart excels in tracking output over time. Unique ways of tracking efficiency of writing, writer's engagement, acquisition of expository skills and fading of teacher prompts, by using symbols charted "below the floor" will be explained. We will present pre- and post- measures and student work samples across curricula and describe application uses at parent/teacher/student conferences.We will add this year's data to the presentation.

School scheduling parameters have been shown to affect student performance in terms of both academic behavior and problem behavior. Many motivating variables change throughout the school day based on scheduling, and thus, this issue may be best understood by applying a behavior analytic perspective. Recess/lunch is one period of the day that provides a rich source of such variables. By using Michaels (1982; 2001) concept of the motivating operation we may analyze the effects of such scheduling decisions on subsequent academic performance and problem behavior. The present study evaluates the motivating effects of recess schedule variations on student academic performance and problem behavior, in addition to examining the effects of such alterations on total instructional time. Procedures include academic evaluations native to Morningside Academy; count recording of problem behavior, and latency of instruction following the recess period. Conditions were alternated rapidly using an alternating treatments design. The attached file of last years preliminary findings indicates that a recess schedule can be modified to impact student academic and problem behavior. We will add this years data to the presentation.

Early behavior analysis of instructional design such as Markle's and Tiemann's (1967) "System of Instruction" and their later Learner Outcome table (Tiemann & Markle, 1990) provides a roadmap to teaching necessary complex academic relations for the most pervasively delayed learners. Learners 3 to 14 years of age diagnosed with a pervasive developmental delay learn to read, write, and compute numbers through well-established Direct Instruction programs combined with Precision Teaching. After teaching key differentiated relations for "how" and discriminated relations for "when" to respond, the systematic detailed instruction and practice of Language for Learning, Expressive Writing, and Connecting Math Concepts are used to teach the "wow" responding of complex extended relations. Standard Celeration Charts chronicle this evolution from "how" to "when" to "wow" responding. Such histories will be shown across several learners whose performances have been carefully monitored over several years and dozens of types of learning as well as data for overall program evaluation. Knowing of an existing roadmap and how to follow it offers an opportunity for teachers to guide their learners with pervasive delays to better affect their world through demonstrating understanding of concepts, operations, and equivalence.