Behavioral+Momentum

Jeremy SPED 843  Dr. Aronin  Spring 2011

 Behavioral Momentum __Description of Intervention Method __ [|Source] (Modified by me)

__Types of Students Who Benefit from the Method__  Behavioral momentum is often used for students with Autism. Most students could benefit from the use of Behavioral Momentum. Students must have the ability to complete all the requested tasks. [|Source]

__Qualifications for Using the Method__  There are no special trainings needed to use this method.

__Costs of Using the Method__  There generally no cost associated with the use of Behavioral Momentum.

__Potential Risks with Using the Method__  There is little risk of negative effects with the use of Behavioral Momentum.

__Benefits of Using the Method__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The biggest benefit with using Behavioral Momentum is that students have a chance to engage in desired behaviors.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Settings for Method Use__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Behavioral Momentum can be used at home and in school.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Field’s Attitude Towards the Method__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Behaviorism is generally accepted as an appropriate intervention method.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; text-align: center;">Summary of Research Study

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">Burns, M. K., & Boice, C. H. (2009). Comparison of the relationship between words retained and intelligence for three instructional strategies among students with below-average IQ. //School Psychology Review//, 38(2), 284–292.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Description of Subjects__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Fourth-grade students enrolled in a U.S. Midwest suburban school participated in the study. A total of 46 males and 51 females participated, with 95% of participating students being Caucasian, 2% African American, 1% Hispanic, 1% Asian, and 1% Native American. All participants attended the same elementary school, which served approximately 600 students in Grades 3-5.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Description of Research Design__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">Each participant read either a behavioral momentum, interspersed, or control word list, with each word list being comprised of the same core 100 words presented in the same order. These 100 words were drawn from the sixth-grade Fry (Fry & Kress, 2006) word list, which is composed of words typically associated with reading tasks at the sixth-grade level. The interspersed and behavioral momentum word lists consisted of an additional 20 words drawn from the first 20 words of the first-grade Fry word list. The 20 first-grade words were interspersed among the 100 sixth- grade words in the interspersal condition so that after every 5th word was a first-grade word. The behavioral momentum word list was designed so that the 20 first-grade words preceded the entire list of 100 sixth-grade 430 words, in an attempt to develop students' reading speed and momentum before reading the target words.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">The dependent measure used for examining differences in performance across the three word list conditions was words read correctly per minute (WRCM). Observers allowed students to read all words, while timing their reading and marking words read incorrectly. For the control and behavioral momentum conditions, observers did not start the timer until the student read the first word that made up the 100 words of the sixth-grade Fry word list. This meant that for the behavioral momentum condition, the timer was not started until the student had read the 20 easy words that preceded the 100 challenging words.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">WRCM was calculated by multiplying the words read correctly by 60 s and then dividing by the total number of seconds re- quired to read the list. Given that the 20 easy words were interspersed throughout the 100 challenging words in the interspersal condition, the observer recorded the time taken by students to read all 120 words. To account for the time that students spent reading the 20 easy words, they were asked to read a separate word list consisting of only the 20 easy words immediately after reading the 120 interspersed word list. The time taken by the students to read the 20 easy words was then subtracted from the time it took them to read the 120 words, and the remaining time was transferred into WRCM.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">Experimenters provided students with unknown words and marked words as read correctly or incorrectly. Words read correctly were any words pronounced correctly or self- corrected within 3 s of presentation. Examiners provided students with words on which they hesitated for greater than 3 s and marked the words as read incorrectly.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Dependent Variable__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The dependent variable was the number of words read.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Independent Variable__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The two independent variables were the use of behavioral momentum and the use of an interspersed word list.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Summary of Results__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">The results indicated that the participants assigned to the behavioral momentum condition read significantly more words correctly per minute than the participants assigned to the control condition (d = .70). No statistically significant differences were observed between the remaining condition.