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Detailed Description This is an older page and may not be current. Visit www.behaviortech.net for current information |
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Rapid Screener is a single or multi-rater behavior assessment tool. It allows parents, teachers, other school staff, and involved outside professionals to quickly determine situations where students are functioning most successfully and where problems exist. By helping families and schools better understand which behaviors are causing difficulties across settings, more productive intervention strategies can be developed and monitored.
Many behavior surveys are designed for completion by a single parent and a single teacher, and sometimes by the student. Yet, there are usually many more individuals involved in the typical educational program for a child with special needs. There may be a speech-pathologist, school counselor, occupational therapist, school psychologist, resource teacher, and others who all have student contact with potentially useful information to report.
Adding to this are children who reside in blended families; it quickly becomes apparent that the "teacher/parent" model is inadequate to capture the complexity of patterns that may surround various behaviors that occur at school or outside of school.
Common Rapid Screener uses Top
- determining whether problems are occurring in the educational program or other settings (e.g., home and/or community)
- assessing response to Interventions as required by IDEIA 2004
- as an aid in completing Functional Assessments;
- for identifying complex behavior patterns to determine the most important areas to target for behavioral intervention;
- efficiently identifying important behaviors during clinical treatment.
Has this ever happened to you? Top
A behavior assessment identified behaviors occurring at home and school, some that only occur at home, and some that occur only at school. During the subsequent IEP meeting, a significant amount of time is spent sorting out what should be worked on, team consensus became difficult, and disagreements arose over whether certain home-based behaviors should also be addressed in the school environment.
The result? Hours were spent with little or no useful intervention resulting, and an adversarial relationship began to form. Ultimately, despite all of the time and energy put into the process, few walked away from the meeting feeling satisfied.
Our method of collecting and analyzing data directly addresses this problem. A series of correlational analyses is performed between all raters, identifying trends in the overall response patterns. A list of positive and interfering behaviors is produced which includes only those behaviors occurring both at school and home (or community settings).
This reporting process both empowers and protects families. At times, there are specific behaviors occurring at home that families prefer be kept private. Yet, the typical assessment process includes revealing or discussing these behaviors at the IEP meeting, even though the school will not be addressing these concerns. Only the severity of broader categories of behavior are identified in the multi-rater report, not specific individual behaviors. If a family wishes to receive or share these concerns with the school this information can be included in the report at no additional charge based on the request of the school psychologist or clinician ordering the assessment.
Rapid Screener focuses on the specific types of behavior that typically lead to a request for a Functional Assessment. Using the Multi-Rater Summary as a guide, team discussion can then focus on identifying significant antecedent conditions preceding interfering behavior and the team can work to develop an initial Positive Behavior Support or Intervention Plan.
Using Rapid Screener, the scope and limits of each rater's observation is clearly identified in the Multi-Rater Summary. The teacher may or may not be observing behavior at recess and/or lunch; families observe behavior at home, not school.
Even if a more detailed Functional Analysis Assessment is recommended, there is pre-existing team consensus regarding which behaviors are being explored, facilitating the process of conducting a subsequent assessment leading to more successful outcomes. As a result of this analytical method, team meetings become more purposeful, disagreements are minimized, and the team process is more usefully focused on the needs of the student.
What happens when a user logs onto Rapid Screener? They complete three related sections: Demographics, Positive Behaviors, Interfering Behaviors.
These are detailed below:
At the end of each section, raters are presented with a summary of his or her responses and asked to rate how accurately they have been portrayed. By providing these ratings, clinicians can immediately spot any survey responses that fall below acceptable standards and clarify information prior to important meetings.
Common Populations Appropriate for Rapid Screener Top
Children and adolescents with Anxiety, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, ADHD, Executive Functioning Deficits, Depression, OCD, Oppositional and Noncompliant behavior, Social Shyness, and Severe Emotional Disturbance.
We are currently working on an adult version of Rapid Screener. Click here to be added to our mailing for more information.
Easy to Complete, Easy to Interpret Top
Once the referring clinician has determined who will complete Rapid Screener (parents, teacher(s), DIS staff, outside therapists, etc.) and completes an Order Form, an email is sent to each identified person. BehaviorTech Solutions tracks when it was delivered, when the rater first opened the email, and when they completed the survey. A rater may choose to complete Rapid Screener at one time, or in stages. When they return, they are given a choice of returning to where they left off, reviewing their survey, or starting over.
We have enhanced our feedback reports. Now, each user may generate the report immediately after completing their survey and can print out their results for future reference. At this point, the raters' role participating in the assessment is finished, unless the referring clinician, upon receiving the report, has additional questions based on the responses.
Once all of the raters have completed their surveys and rated their accuracy (or when the completion deadline expires), a Multi-Rater Summary is prepared and sent to the clinician. The Multi-Rater Summary detailed how each rater knows the student and shows the level of positive behavior, severity and frequency of interfering behaviors, and global level of agreement across all raters. This provides an opportunity for discussion prior to the IEP meeting to review the report by phone or in person and to determine any areas that will require further exploration.
Information for Clinicians Top
You can attend a Free Seminar covering the essential of the Rapid Screener referral process, interpretation, and suggestions for combining it with other tests to develop a solid data source for your students or clients. Join our mailing list by going back to the home page and checking off your interest in seminars.
For More Information, Contact:
(818) 788-2100
Rapid Screener is one of the C-BATT modules developed by Bruce M. Gale, PhD, a clinical psychologist and Certified Nonpublic Agency through the California Department of Education.