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Using the BASC-3 Flex Monitor to assist in the diagnostic process

Oftentimes effectively supporting students with behavioral issues begins with gathering the data via assessment. The BASC-3 system includes very comprehensive and useful measurement tools including behavioral rating scales and a Behavior Intervention Guide. Working in step with the rating scales, the Behavior Intervention Guide provides psychologists and educators with evidence-based strategies which can be implemented to support students in their area of need.

The BASC3-3 Flex Monitor is a web-based tool that allows psychologists to select specific items from a test bank aligned with the BASC-3 behavioral rating scale. Using the Flex Monitor can further inform psychologists whether a child is at risk for specific clinical issues like hyperactivity or depression and can be used to augment the diagnostic process.

Sample assessment, diagnosis, and intervention plan using BASC-3 components

Based on her teacher’s and mother’s ratings of her behaviors, Sarah, a third-grade student, is at risk for attention concerns. Using the BASC-3 Intervention Guide, Sarah’s team can suggest interventions such as a daily behavior report card or self-management techniques that would be useful at home and school alike.

After several weeks her team will monitor her progress to see if the interventions are effective — or if they need to be tweaked. The BASC-3 Flex Monitor can be customized to the needs of individual students in order to better track the effectiveness of interventions. In Sarah’s case, her psychologist can select 10 or 12 key items related to attentional problems that can represent a targeted evaluation of her interventions. As with the full rating scale, her progress monitoring results are compared to a normative sample. If Sarah’s attention is improving, they can continue with the strategies that are working, or adjust her interventions and monitor her progress again in a few weeks.

Webinar: Learn more about the using the BASC-3 Flex Monitor!

Improve the Efficacy of Progress Monitoring by Focusing on Student Specific Needs with the BASC-3 Flex Monitor

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Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a complex group of related disabilities marked by differences in communication and socialization, a limited range of interests, and the presence of repetitive behaviors (NASP, 2010). Students with ASD often include the following characteristic:

• Cognitive. Differences in the development of traditional cognitive skills, with incongruencies between development in processing visual/nonverbal information and rote learning with delays in developing skills in processing verbal information and a difference in the learning and use of abstract information;
  
• Social skills. Poor development of traditional social skills and rule governed behavior;
• Communication. Differences in responding to quickly presented verbal information, understanding complex commands, and expressing wants and needs;
  
• Organization/self-direction. Organizational abilities do not conform to traditional classroom practices. Often has difficulty screening out distractions, completing activities independently, initiating work activities, organizing free time, stopping one activity and moving on to the next, being flexible, shifting attention to a new focus.

The Group Autism Speaks

Provides Excellent resources to assist in the Support of Children with ASD, they also provide information and statistics and information about Autism Research.

Here are some of the data and information they have recently collected.

• In 2020, the CDC reported that approximately 1 in 54 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to 2016 data.
  • 1 in 34 boys identified with autism
  • 1 in 144 girls identified with autism
• 31% of children with ASD have an intellectual disability (intelligence quotient [IQ] <70), 25% are in the borderline range (IQ 71–85), and 44% have IQ scores in the average to above average range (i.e., IQ >85).
• Autism affects all ethnic and socioeconomic groups, but minority groups tend to be diagnosed later and less often.
• Early intervention affords the best opportunity to support healthy development and deliver benefits across the lifespan.
• There is no medical detection for autism.

Evaluation procedures and assessments like the Vineland 3 continue to assist in the identification of students who need support for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), increasing its prevalence and requiring educators to develop practices that allow them to support more students.

In order to guide our efforts we have worked with Special Educators, surveying them, in order to discover the challenges they are facing in supporting these students.

They indicated that they need more and better trained coworkers, Professional Development and Resources and instructional programs/materials.

A Challenging Childhood

Irasema McAllister says her son, Andrei, learned to be a problem solver from an early age.

When he was three years old, he was diagnosed with selective mutism and placed in a severely handicapped class.
 

How old were you when you realized there was a whole world out there beyond your driveway or the long car ride to the grocery store? When did you fully realize that there were entire societies of people and faraway places you’d never even imagined? What was it that opened up that door for you?

For many of us, that realization came from a textbook, and then a library book when we just had to know more. As we grew, the world grew with us, but somehow being able to travel to distant lands, to witness the hopeful beginnings of an ancient civilization, or to peer through the looking glass of someone else’s futuristic utopia the world became infinitely smaller.

This summer will undoubtedly feel different for your students, but through books they can discover a new interest, visit a new — or familiar — place, and learn more about mankind. We’ve assembled some grade-level reading lists to help guide your students’ and caregivers’ choices. Please feel free to download and share them with your classes.

We wish you, your students, and families many grand adventures this summer!

Grades Pre-K–2 | Grades 3–5 | Grades 6–8  

If you’re using BASC-3 as part of your behavior screening and assessment process, the BASC-3 Flex Monitor can help you see which of your interventions are working, and which need a little fine tuning. It’s not only web-based and efficient, it allows you to create a custom assessment that can help you pinpoint the issues that may be causing the behavior so that interventions may be tailored around it.

If you’re a behavioral specialist, a school psychologist, or a clinician working with students struggling with school behavior, the BASC-3 Flex Monitor can help monitor and track the progress of their behavior intervention plan. It also helps to promote the involvement of teachers, parents, and students while addressing behavioral and emotional concerns.

If you need to track the effectiveness of your students’ behavior interventions or demonstrate the effectiveness of a school-wide behavior program, see for yourself how the BASC-3 Flex Monitor can complement your current behavior plan!

Learn more about the BASC-3 Flex Monitor.

Think for a moment about your favorite book... Were you excited to read it? Did you find yourself unable to set it down, even for a moment? Did you talk about the characters or plot line while you weren’t reading it? Did you feel a little disappointed when you’d turned the last page, knowing it was over? Do you still think about the characters from time to time? Do you recommend it to others? If so, chances are you were entrenched in the book, connected to the characters, and captivated by the story. You were engaged.

Engaged readers find satisfaction in reading, read independently, and talk about what they’ve read — but how do we transform students who read because they have to into students who read because they want to? How do we inspire them to become engaged readers?

Included in your DRA3 kit is an optional component, the Reading Engagement Survey. It gathers information about each student’s reading preferences, and provides insights into why the student might be struggling with engagement. Based on information obtained in the survey, DRA3 then provides a Focus for Instruction checklist specifically designed to improve reading engagement, assist in book selections, and build up reading stamina to expand their abilities to include longer texts.

Learn more about the benefits of the Reading Engagement Survey and where to find it in your DRA3 kit!

Watch the video

What’s on the calendar this month?

• Continue using progress monitoring with identified students.
• Administer the Word Analysis to other first through third grade students who are reading below established oral reading mid-year benchmark levels.
• Model, teach, and support areas in need of instruction.

What’s on the calendar for the rest of the school year?

One of the most important tasks in any school year is discovering each student’s literacy strengths and weaknesses. Identifying where they might need a little help, and how you can utilize their strengths to augment that support will help them make the most of their educational time. We have put together a reading assessment calendar to help you stay on track throughout the year, and to provide you with helpful tools to enhance your reading curriculum. December’s activities are crucial to your students’ reading success, and will set you on the path to discovering — and fostering — the lifelong reader in each of them!

Download the calendar  

How do you know if your students are ready for the next level or if they’re at risk for school failure? Spring benchmarking is the ideal time to get a full picture of each student’s abilities in order to determine if they’re ready for the next step in their educational journey. Knowing what to look for and having a test that assesses all domains of development are the most critical factors in that process.

We have a number of valid and reliable tools to help you make that determination. For students ages 2:6–5:11, assess Motor, Concepts, Language, Self-Help, and Social-Emotional domains with the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning(TM), Fourth Edition (DIAL(TM)-4). To assess Visual Motor/Adaptive, Language and Cognition, and Gross Motor domains for students ages 3:0–5:11, use Early Screening Inventory(TM), Third Edition (ESI(TM)-3).  

How one Indiana school overcame rampant behavior issues by focusing on their students’ mental health

Teachers struggling with classroom behavior is a tale as old as time, but one thing that’s changed in the story is how behavior issues are handled. Serving approximately 500 PreK through 6th grade students, Arlington Woods Elementary in Indiana is a school like any other. Teachers set the boundaries, students test the boundaries, and administrators are called in to try and reinforce the boundaries — however, typical behavior remediation wasn’t working. Suspensions were up, teacher morale was down, and academic achievement scores had flatlined. Something had to give.

Dr. Kristine Eaton, the former Indianapolis Public Schools Wellness Specialist, worked in IPS for 20 years, and had an up close and personal view of what was going on at Arlington Woods. She sat down with the school’s administrators and together they decided to tackle their school’s behavior problem from the inside — by focusing on their students’ social-emotional health. Dr. Eaton researched various tools and methodologies for improving students’ social-emotional wellbeing while also supporting their teachers and thankfully discovered Review360.

Review360 proved to be the magic thread that wove together teacher support, mental health and behavior concerns, effective communication, and consistent interventions.

Review360 not only helped students take ownership of their academic success, it also provided urgently needed support for the school’s teachers.

How did Review360 help to transform this school?

Read their success story!

Review360’s web-based system enhances communication among teachers for students who are in both regular AND special education settings, and helps improve outcomes for all students.

Review360 provides:

• Universal screening
• Progress monitoring
• Incident reporting and analysis
• Professional development for teachers
• Evidence-based, consistent interventions

How could your school or district benefit from increased accountability, communication, and insight? Visit PearsonClinical.com/Review360 or call 800-328-5999 and be one step closer to becoming our next Review360 success story!