All Together Now: Leveraging Collaborative Partnerships to Promote Skill Acquisition for Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

Students with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) engage in patterns of emotional and behavioral dysregulation that interfere with their educational progress. School-based behavior specialists are responsible for conducting functional behavior assessments to inform intensive, individualized behavior interventions that address underlying skill deficits. Given the association between EBD—including various psychiatric disorders—and trauma, it’s important to maximize alignment between intervention procedures and the pillars of trauma-informed care. We used a concurrent multiple probe across behaviors design (conditions variation) to evaluate the effects of a collaborative and trauma-informed approach to function-based intervention on skill acquisition for a student with EBD in a public school. In addition, we explored associations between the intervention and secondary, descriptive outcomes, including social validity, efficiency, relationship quality, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The collaborative intervention led to the acquisition of targeted communication, coping, and cooperation skills. All participants (i.e., school practitioners across disciplines, the student’s caregiver, and the student) reported the goals, procedures, and outcomes of the intervention to be socially valid, though questions about feasibility and generalization remain.