BA440 Unit 10 Intervention Evaluation Paper Example

Good Plan, Thursday Problem: A BA440 Unit 10 Intervention Evaluation Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

BA440: Behavior Intervention

Unit 10 Intervention Evaluation Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the agency, the family and every figure are composite and illustrative; the articles cited are real.

The Data That Worried Us

Six weeks after Jonah's behavior intervention plan began, his refusal during homework had fallen from about five episodes per session to under one on the evenings I attended. But his mother's data told a different story for the evenings I did not attend: refusal averaged three episodes, and on Thursdays, when his grandmother helped with homework, it averaged four. At the team's review, someone asked whether the plan worked only when a technician was present.

My supervising behavior analyst suggested a different question first: was the plan being carried out as written on those evenings?

Treatment Integrity

Treatment integrity, sometimes called fidelity, is the degree to which an intervention is implemented as designed. Fryling et al. (2012) reviewed research on the impact of treatment integrity on intervention effectiveness. They found that reduced integrity can weaken the effects of behavioral interventions, that errors of omission, such as failing to deliver a reinforcer, and errors of commission, such as reinforcing problem behavior, can both matter, and that many published studies did not measure integrity at all. They argued that integrity should be measured routinely, because an intervention cannot be evaluated if it is not known whether it was delivered.

Measuring Integrity

My supervisor and I wrote a ten-item integrity checklist covering the plan's main steps: the three easy requests, the choice of subject, the visual timer, a break after every three problems, a calm response to refusal, homework continuing after refusal, help given when asked, and data recorded. With the family's consent, I observed two evenings without my usual role, and his mother set up her phone to record one Thursday session with his grandmother, which we reviewed together.

Integrity on my evenings averaged 95 percent. On his mother's evenings, it averaged 80 percent, with the most common error being skipping the easy requests when she was rushed. On the Thursday session, it was 40 percent. His grandmother delivered breaks irregularly, sometimes after one problem and sometimes after ten, and twice she ended homework after Jonah argued, saying it was not worth upsetting him.

The plan had not failed on Thursdays; on Thursdays, there was not much of the plan.

What the Integrity Errors Meant

Two of his grandmother's errors explained most of the difference. Ending homework after arguing was an error of commission that reinforced refusal with escape, exactly the function the plan was designed to address. Irregular breaks weakened the link between completing problems and earning a break. Petscher et al. (2009) concluded that differential reinforcement of alternative behavior is most effective when the problem behavior no longer produces reinforcement; the Thursday sessions removed that condition.

Fixing Integrity

The fix was training, not a new plan. I met with his grandmother and the interpreter, demonstrated each step and practiced with her while Jonah worked, giving immediate feedback. She explained that she had ended homework because she thought pushing him after an argument was disrespectful to him, and we discussed how the calm response avoided pushing while still keeping homework going. The full plan had been translated, but she asked for something shorter: a small card in Ukrainian with only the three steps that mattered most, which we made. His mother asked for the same card for rushed evenings.

Two weeks later, integrity on Thursdays rose to 85 percent and refusal on those evenings fell to an average of one.

Effects of the Plan

With integrity measured, the plan's effects could be judged. Across all evenings with integrity above 80 percent, refusal averaged under one episode per session and Jonah completed about fifteen problems per session, compared with five refusal episodes and four problems in baseline. On evenings with lower integrity, refusal was higher. The relationship between integrity and outcome gave the team more confidence that the plan, not something else, produced the change.

Social Validity

Wolf (1978) argued that behavior analysts should ask the people affected whether the goals, procedures and outcomes of an intervention are acceptable and important. We asked Jonah's parents, his grandmother, his teacher and Jonah himself, using short questionnaires and a conversation.

His parents rated the goals and outcomes highly and the procedures as mostly acceptable, though his father found the timer annoying. His grandmother said the plan worked once she understood it, and she valued that homework evenings were calmer. His teacher rated the classroom version as easy to use. Jonah said that the breaks were "fine" and that he liked choosing the subject, but he wanted longer breaks. The team took that seriously: as refusal stayed low, the thinning plan will lengthen breaks as it adds problems, a change that respects his preference without returning to escape after refusal.

Integrity Across the Caseload

After Jonah's review, my supervisor asked me to run the same kind of check for Mateo and Ava. Mateo's parents carried out his plan well at home, near 90 percent, but his preschool aide answered his picture card only about half the time, which matched the gap in his generalization probes there. A fifteen-minute training session and a reminder card on her lanyard raised that figure within a week. Ava's family showed a different pattern: her parents honored her signs reliably, but enforced waits on fewer than half of the trials, usually by giving the swing early when she began to fuss. Their data showed waits shrinking rather than growing. In both cases, integrity data pointed to a specific step and a specific person, which made the fix small and quick. Without the checks, the team might have concluded that the plans themselves were weak and changed procedures that were working well.

Lessons for Evaluation

The evaluation taught me three things. First, an intervention's effects cannot be judged without integrity data; we nearly abandoned a plan that worked. Second, integrity errors often have reasons, and his grandmother's reasons were cultural and caring, not careless. Third, social validity questions surface changes the data cannot, such as Jonah's wish for longer breaks.

Conclusion

Jonah's plan seemed to work only when I was present until integrity data, measured as Fryling and colleagues recommend, showed that it was being delivered poorly on some evenings. Training and a translated card raised integrity, and outcomes improved with it, consistent with Petscher and colleagues' conclusions about differential reinforcement. Wolf's social validity questions confirmed the plan's acceptability and led to a change Jonah asked for.

References

Fryling, M. J., Wallace, M. D., & Yassine, J. N. (2012). Impact of treatment integrity on intervention effectiveness. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45(2), 449-453. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2012.45-449

Petscher, E. S., Rey, C., & Bailey, J. S. (2009). A review of empirical support for differential reinforcement of alternative behavior. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 30(3), 409-425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2008.08.008

Wolf, M. M. (1978). Social validity: The case for subjective measurement or how applied behavior analysis is finding its heart. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 11(2), 203-214. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1978.11-203