EBD Blog

Mrs. Ris, one of my favorite reads, used an entry in her blog to review her use of “detention” in her classroom. She took the opportunity to develop describe her policy and procedures—as well as rationale—for using detention in her classroom.

Detention is the last phase of a multi-step intervention strategy designed to address dangerous /unsafe behaviors. It is the period of time after a child has moved through the crisis cycle, and is ready to demonstrate behaviors incompatible with the negative, inappropriate behavior previously noted.

Mrs. Ris goes on to (a) say that her students need time to settle down, (b) describe “unsafe behavior,” (c) place detention in an array of disciplinary practices, (d) explain that failing to have a child settle down increases the chances of repeated, relatively immediate failure, and (e) suggest that perhaps “detention” should be replaced with a different term. It’s an thoughtful article and it set me to thinking.

Although I’ve read the piece a couple of times, I’m still a little at sea about what, procedurally, “detention” is. Elsewhere, Mrs. Ris describes it a little more as “an extended time out.” I understand “time out” as a brief period when reinforcers are not available to an individual; usually this is accomplished by isolating an individual from usual classroom activities for a few minutes. Mrs. Ris’ procedures describe detention, “extended time out,” as occurring a step or two after regular time out.

Time out is one of the most well-researched behavior management procedures teachers have available. It is an unusually effective method for reducing inappropriate behavior, provided that it is used in the ways that research has shown contribute to its effectiveness. What are the relevant ways of implementing time out effectively and ineffectively? They include having a very reinforcing time in environment, focusing time out on a specific behavior, using time out consistently, limiting the duration of time out, and so forth; all of these can be found in most credible behavior management books. Each of these topics (and other related ones) deserves a post of its own.

Link to Mrs. Ris’ entry. A relevant earlier entry is here.

I’m about to depart the home base again. For about a month, I’ll be in Portugal, teaching a class and talking about special education with folks there. I hope to drop a few posts here while I’m away.

Several sources are covering a story about the prevalence of autism. The U.S. Department of Education data released annually have shown the the percentage of school-age children who are identified as having autism has increased dramatically since the early 1990s. The stories cover alternative explanations for those increases.

In an article in Pediatrics called “The Contribution of Diagnostic Substitution to the Growing Administrative Prevalence of Autism in US Special Education,” Paul T. Shattuck, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Madison, WI; US) examined the US school prevalence data of autism. He concludes that much of the increase is attributable to schools’ eligibility teams using “autism” instead of “mental retardation” or “Learning Disability” to declare students eligible for special education.

The average administrative prevalence of autism among children increased from 0.6 to 3.1 per 1000 from 1994 to 2003. By 2003, only 17 states had a special education prevalence of autism that was within the range of recent epidemiological estimates. During the same period, the prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities declined by 2.8 and 8.3 per 1000, respectively. Higher autism prevalence was significantly associated with corresponding declines in the prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities.

Champions of the idea that autism is caused by chemicals present in childhood immunizations often refer to the increased prevalence of autism as evidence for their hypothesis. They reason that the increases are associated with changes in the delivery of vacinations. We can expect expressions of concern from them about this study.

Link to the abstract for Mr. Shattuck’s article. Links to coverage of the story by (so far):

• MedPage
• The Badger Herald (U. Wisc paper)
• Fox