Jennifer R. Ledford

Service-delivery models that promote collaboration with families and systematically program for generalization may produce socially significant and generalized outcomes. However, valid empirical demonstrations of the impact of these interventions on generalized outcomes are difficult to generate via single case design research. Ongoing measures of caregiver report of behavior change and intervention challenges could be a valuable metric for guiding formative evaluation of behavior change programs. In this paper, we present a fully integrated mixed methods case study using convergent-design elements to demonstrate how incorporating qualitative and quantitative measures focused on behavior that occurred outside of formal therapy sessions informed socially valid and generalized outcomes.

Single‐case experimental design has been increasingly represented in research over the past several decades. Increasing rates of publication, combined with unique features inherent in single‐case research, have complicated efforts to synthesize published literature. This work reviews technical challenges associated with single‐case research synthesis and how tools such as the Single Case Analysis and Review Framework (SCARF) can supplement these efforts while retaining critical features of visual analysis. A web‐based user interface for the SCARF (SCARF‐UI) is presented, described, and accompanied by a guide on its use and relevance to behavior analysts and other single‐case design researchers. This free and open‐source software is reviewed and presented with training materials and demonstrations of prior research reviews completed using SCARF. Additional discussion is also provided regarding avenues for increasing consistent appraisal of behavior analytic research.

Massed trial instruction is an effective strategy for teaching discrete skills, and it is commonly used to teach young children with disabilities. Young children with disabilities should participate in short instructional sessions that include breaks with developmentally-appropriate play in between. This study evaluated whether adult behavior during child breaks (i.e., no interaction vs responsive play interactions) impacted engagement and efficiency of skill acquisition. Engagement during instructional segments and breaks were evaluated using an ATD design, and skill acquisition was evaluated in the context of an AATD design. Results suggest some children may demonstrate higher levels of instructional engagement and more efficient skill acquisition when instruction is interspersed with responsive play. Practitioners should consider assessing child preference for responsive play during breaks.

Stay-Play-Talk (SPT) is a peer-mediated intervention where peers are taught to stay, play, and talk with buddies during typical classroom activities. This study replicates and extends findings of previous SPT studies by examining the differential outcomes of SPT and SPT with reinforcement, for children who are emergent bilingual learners and socially isolated. The differentiation of levels of stay, play, and talk behaviors was evaluated, within an alternating treatments design, across three experimental conditions (SPT + Reinforcement, SPT, business-as-usual [BAU]). Following baseline (i.e., BAU), during which typical classroom activities occurred, focal participants and peer implementers were trained on SPT strategies. During both SPT and SPT + Reinforcement conditions, peer implementers were paired with focal participants for Buddy Time. The system of least prompts was used to support peer implementer use of SPT strategies. In the SPT + Reinforcement condition, peer implementers had access to reinforcers contingent on use of SPT strategies. Both SPT conditions resulted in increased levels of stay, play, and talk, compared to the BAU condition, with SPT + Reinforcement resulting in more consistent and slightly higher levels of play duration and talk. Peer implementer fidelity was higher in the SPT + Reinforcement condition. Increases in play duration were maintained across implementers. Results, limitations, implications, and next steps are discussed.

Promoting positive relationships with peers is an important support for children who exhibit social withdrawal. Children who show extreme shyness or are identified as self-isolating are at risk for developing internalizing conditions, which can also lead to poor social and academic outcomes. These children may benefit from targeted support to develop relationships with peers. Identifying effective social interventions that support children who exhibit internalizing behaviors such as social withdrawal in preschool classrooms is a critical need. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline across three focal U.S. children design was used to test the effects of an adapted version of Stay, Play, Talk (SPT) that included peer choice on the estimated duration of social play for young children who were socially withdrawn. A functional relation was found between the implementation of SPT with peer choice and focal children’s social play. This study demonstrates that SPT with peer choice may be an effective and socially valid intervention for increasing the social play of preschoolers who are socially withdrawn in classrooms. More research is needed to better understand to what extent this adapted SPT intervention impacts children’s social networks, broader social-emotional development, and specific internalizing behaviors when implemented over a longer period.

Visual analysis is historically and conventionally used to draw conclusions about outcomes in single-case studies, but researchers are increasingly using effect sizes to supplement conclusions drawn about functional relations with additional information about magnitude of behavior change. However, there is limited information about the extent to which methodological choices (i.e., design type, measurement system) may impact the magnitude of behavior change. We conducted a systematic review of interventions conducted in elementary school classrooms to characterize effect sizes for engagement behaviors and challenging behaviors in those studies. We found that researchers most often used A-B-A-B and multiple baseline across-participants designs, that a variety of measurement systems were used for engagement but not challenging behavior, and that some variability in effect-size distributions can be explained by dependent variable type, design type, and measurement system. The empirically derived distributions from this study may be helpful for single-case researchers to contextualize past, ongoing, and future work related to engagement and challenging behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

As the use of single case research design (SCRD) to answer socially significant research questions increases, so too should the rigor and quality of those designs. Higher rigor and quality decreases the chance of threats to internal validity and increases the chance of replication, both of which are critical to determining the effectiveness of an intervention. We conducted a systematic review of systematic literature reviews (k =18) that scored the quality and rigor of SCRD papers using the Single Case Analysis and Review Framework (SCARF; Ledford et al., 2023). On a continuous rigor/quality scale of 0-4, the 1,251 articles in all included reviews obtained an average of 2.14 with a standard deviation of 0.62 suggesting large gaps in the rigor/quality of SCRD. We discuss the implications of these gaps and offer recommendations for researchers to increase the rigor and quality of their SCRD studies.

Engagement behaviors are crucial for school success and are often targeted for improvement in school-based interventions. It may be helpful for both researchers and school-based practitioners to understand the likely impacts of interventions on engagement behaviors (e.g., to understand the extent to which engagement behaviors might change with treatment). For single-case studies designed to answer demonstration questions (i.e., including a baseline condition) and that were conducted in elementary classroom settings ( N = 131), we calculated log response ratio and within-case standardized mean difference effect sizes for engagement dependent variables to establish benchmarks. We described differences based on study characteristics (functional relation determination, publication status, primacy of outcome), disability status of participants, and implementation characteristics (group size, implementer). Effect sizes (645 A-B comparisons) were heterogenous and varied based on functional relation determination, disability status, and implementation variables. More research is needed about additional variables that might explain heterogenous outcomes, especially for children with autism and behavioral disorders.

Recommendations for achieving generalized instructional outcomes often overlook the capacity for generative learning for most verbally competent humans. Four children (ages 5-8) participated in this project. In Study 1, we provided decontextualized discrete trial teaching to establish arbitrary relations between colors, pictures of characters, and researcher motor actions. All participants engaged in derivative responding, providing evidence of relational framing. Subsequently, we demonstrated that, with no additional instruction, these derivatives contributed to effective action within a socially valid context (i.e., Candyland gameplay). Study 2 extended the demonstration by teaching frames of opposition. Following teaching, all participants engaged in novel and contextually appropriate responding that entailed the derivation of both coordination and opposition between untrained stimuli. This outcome demonstrates how teaching simple relations can result in learning that manifests at higher levels of complexity (i.e., relational networking), providing some evidence that there can be socially valid benefits to decontextualized discrete trial instruction.