Susan M. Sheridan, PhD

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Collaborative Problem-Solving Among Families and
SchoolsEffects of Conjoint Behavioral
Consultation on Student Behaviors and
Parent-Teacher Relationships

• Susan M. Sheridan, PhD
• Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth,
  Families Schools
• Presented at the Annual Meeting of the
  International School Psychology Association,
• Dublin, Ireland. July, 2010

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Why Family-School Partnerships?

• The evidence is consistent, positive, and
  convincing families have a major influence on
  their childrens achievement in school and
  through life The research continues to grow and
  build an ever-strengthening case. When schools,
  families, and community groups work together to
  support learning, children tend to do better in
  school, stay in school longer, and like school
  more. (Henderson Mapp, 2002)

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Conjoint Behavioral Consultation

• Promotes and supports home-school partnerships
  in the context of cooperative and collegial
  problem-solving
• Emphasizes meaningful parental/family engagement
  in education
• A vehicle by which to foster constructive, goal
  directed, solution-oriented services for children
• An extension of traditional (teacher)
  consultation that goes beyond the school setting
  and brings parents into the intervention and
  decision making process

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Conjoint Behavioral ConsultationA Definition

• A strength-based problem-solving and
  decision-making model wherein parents, teachers,
  and other caregivers or service providers work as
  partners and share responsibility for promoting
  positive and consistent outcomes related to a
  childs academic, behavioral, and
  social-emotional development (Sheridan
  Kratochwill, 2008, p. 25).
• All stages of consultation (from problem
  identification to plan evaluation) are conducted
  with parents and teachers together, in a
  collaborative manner.

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Stages of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation

• Problem/Needs Identification
• Identify child strengths concerns
• Specify a target for intervention (i.e., what
  behavior is present or lacking that precludes a
  childs full capacity to learn?)
• Problem/Needs Analysis
• Review baseline data
• Determine conditions that contribute to the
  problem (e.g., skill deficits or environmental
  events) or function the behavior is serving
  (e.g., attention, escape)

See http//fsp.unl.edu/future_module3.html
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Stages of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation

• Plan Implementation
• Co-create meaningful intervention plan across
  home and school
• Ensure parent and teacher skill development via
  training and support of treatment plan
  implementation
• Plan Evaluation
• Evaluate childs progress toward co-established
  goals
• Modify intervention plans as necessary
• Plan for ongoing success and partnering

See http//fsp.unl.edu/future_module3.html
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CBC Outcome Goals

• Address students learning, behavioral, and/or
  social-emotional needs over extended time
  (temporal) and place (context)
• Establish consistent programming and encourage
  continuity across settings
• Monitor effects (and side effects) of
  interventions systematically across settings
• Improve skills and knowledge of all parties
• Enhance generalization and maintenance of
  treatment effects

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CBC Relational Goals

• Establish and strengthen home-school
  relationships and partnerships
• Improve communication and knowledge about the
  child, family, and classroom
• Promote shared ownership for students learning
• Encourage parents to establish positive beliefs
  about their role in in their childs learning
• Facilitate teachers perceptions about the
  benefits of parent involvement

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Video Example
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Research Support(see Sheridan, Clarke, Burt,
2008)

• CBC has been found to be effective for
  behavioral, academic, and social-emotional
  concerns (Guli, 2005 Sheridan, Eagle, Cowan,
  Mickelson, 2001), across unique contexts.
• Efficacy research to date has relied on small-n
  experimental and replication studies.
• Design limitations precluded inferences about
  generalizability and information about how CBC
  works to produce effects.

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Current Research CBC in the Early Grades

• A 4-cohort randomized trial testing the efficacy
  of CBC funded by the Institute of Education
  Sciences
• Research questions
• 1. What is the effect of CBC on childrens
  disruptive behaviors at school and home?
• 2. What is the effect of CBC on parent
  participation in problem solving?
• 3. What is the effect of CBC on the
  parent-teacher relationship, and teachers
  beliefs about parent involvement?
• 4. What accounts for CBCs effects? What is the
  pathway through which it exerts its effects?

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Participants Data Collection

• 207 K-3 students and their parents and teachers
  from 21 schools participated over 4 years
• 82 classrooms were randomly assigned to treatment
  or control conditions
• Students with disruptive classroom behaviors
  (e.g., non-compliance, aggression) were selected
  based on teacher nomination, ratings on a short
  behavioral inventory, and the Systematic
  Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD Walker
  Seversen, 1990)
• Assessments conducted at baseline and post-CBC
  follow up assessments conducted in the following
  academic year

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Select Measures

• Direct Classroom Behaviors
• Parent Daily Report (Chamberlain Reid, 1987)
• Behavioral Assessment Scale for Children
  (Reynolds Kamphaus, 2004)
• Social Skills Rating System (Gresham Elliott,
  1990)
• Parent Participation in Problem Solving
  (Sheridan, 2003)
• Parent-Teacher Rating Scale-II (Vickers Minke,
  1995)
• Teacher Beliefs about Parent Involvement
  (Hoover-Dempsey et al. 1992, 2002)

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CBC Implementation

• 4 to 5 conjoint consultation sessions occurred
  over 8 to 12 weeks in small groups with parents
  of 2 to 3 students and the classroom teacher

Noncompliance (e.g., work refusal) Disengaged (e.g., off task) Interference (e.g., shout outs) Aggression (e.g., hitting peer)
Home 41 24 32 2
School 22 40 35 3
Represents percentage of cases that targeted
certain types/categories of behaviors.
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Evidence-Based Interventions

• Home-School Notes (or equivalent)
• 100 of cases
• Positive Consequences
• Approx 97 of cases
• Examples
• Grab Bag of Rewards
• Catch Being Good
• Preventive Technique
• Approx 61 of cases
• Examples
• Activity Checklists
• Seating Arrangement

• Skill Building
• Approx 35 of cases
• Examples
• Social Skills Training
• Self Monitoring
• Reductive Consequences
• Approx 12 of cases
• Examples
• Response Cost
• Time Out

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Data Analyses

• Effect of CBC on child outcomes and
  parent/teacher relationships
• 3-level multilevel model (time points within
  individuals within teachers) examining the fixed
  effect of time by treatment interaction (?)
• Randomization occurred at the level of the
  teacher
• Mediating effect of the parent-teacher
  relationship was tested
• Path analysis with a bootstrap method (Preacher,
  Zyphur Zhang, in press)

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Student Effects at School

• Relative to a control group, CBC produced
  significant improvements in observations of
• Engaged time in the classroom t(144.9) 2.23 p
  lt .05
• Nonphysical aggression t(199.9) -2.31 p lt .05)
• Physical aggression t(248.4) -1.61 p .10)
• Relative to a control group, CBC produced
  significant improvements in teacher reported
• Externalizing problems (?-2.60 t(162)-1.98 p
  lt .05 ES -.34)
• Adaptive skills (?1.99 t(158)1.99 p lt .05 ES
  .47)
• Social skills (?3.66 t(164)2.40 p lt .05 ES
  .44)

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Teacher Reported Externalizing Behaviors
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Teacher Reported Adaptive Skills
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Teacher Reported Social Skills
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Student Effects at Home

• Relative to a control group, CBC produced
  significant improvements in
• Total Problem Behaviors, t(100.4) -2.07, p lt
  .05
• Follow-up analyses of PDR found significant
  improvements in
• Defiance, t(175.5) -2.26, p lt .05
• Noncompliance, t(177.4) -2.82, p lt .05
• Teasing, t(220.8) -2.64, p lt .05
• Arguing, t(189.6) -2.31, p lt .05

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Total Problems Home
Control
CBC
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Noncompliance Home
Control
CBC
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Defiance Home
CBC
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Arguing Home
CBC
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Current Research Findings Parents

• Relative to control parents, those who
  participated in CBC reported to increase their
• active participation in educational problem
  solving (?.556 t(87.84)3.83 p lt .001)

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Parent Participation in Problem Solving
CBC
Control
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Current Research Findings Teachers

• Relative to control teachers, positive outcomes
  for CBC teachers include
• better overall relationship with parents (?.16
  t(174)2.53 p lt.01 ES .55)
• more positive beliefs about parental involvement
  (? .271 t(74.91)2.94 p lt.01)

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Parent-Teacher Relationship (Teacher)
Control
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Teacher Beliefs about Parent Involvement
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Mediation What Accounts for the Effects?

• Investigated whether the parent-teacher
  relationship mediates (accounts for) CBCs
  effects.
• The parent-teacher relationship accounted for the
  positive CBC effect on childrens
• Increased adaptive skills (p lt .05)
• Increased social skills (p lt .05)
• Decreased externalizing behaviors (marginal p
  .053)

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Mediation Parent-Teacher Relationship
Parent-Teacher Relationship
S.18 A.18 E.18
S.21 A.20 E-.18
CBC
Social Adaptive Externalizing
S.11 A.09 E-.17
The parent-teacher relationship mediates the
effects of CBC on child behaviors
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Discussion of Findings

• CBC produces important outcomes for all parties
• Significant improvements in child behavior
• Significant improvement in parent participation
  home-school communication
• Significant improvement in teacher beliefs
  teacher-parent relationships

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Discussion of Findings

• CBC seems to have its effects through the
  parent-teacher relationship
• Points to the importance of attending to the
  parent-teacher relationship within the context of
  ongoing CBC practice
• Reinforces belief in the mesosystem as
  significant to a childs healthy functioning

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Ongoing Research

• Still investigating outcomes as assessed via
  direct observations in classrooms (via HLM)
• Still investigating other mediators, such as
  implementation fidelity, parent/teacher
  engagement, and continuity across home and school
• Exploring measurement issues associated with
  fidelity (see Sheridan et al., 2009 SPR)
• Exploring conceptual and empirical issues related
  to engagement and continuity

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Ongoing Research

• Need to investigate moderation under what
  conditions can we expect CBC to have its greatest
  effect?
• Investigating moderators such as target behavior,
  student disability status/special education
  services
• Follow up data collection still underway
• Will answer questions regarding maintenance of
  effects
• Need to determine application and efficacy in the
  context of authentic practice
• Need to explore efficacy with other behaviors
  (e.g., academic) and in other settings (e.g.,
  rural)

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Thank You!!

• For more information or correspondence
• Susan M. Sheridan, Ph.D.
• George Holmes University Professor of Educational
  Psychology
• Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth,
  Families and Schools
• 216 Mabel Lee Hall
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Lincoln, NE 68588-0235
• ssheridan2_at_unl.edu

Research funded by IES Grant R305F050284