Elizabeth Talbott
College of William and Mary, Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty Member
- Use of evidence in assessment, intervention, and public policy for youth with disabilitiesedit
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Evidence-based assessment (EBA) requires that investigators employ scientific theories and research findings to guide decisions about what domains to measure, how and when to measure them, and how to make decisions and interpret results.... more
Evidence-based assessment (EBA) requires that investigators employ scientific theories and research findings to guide decisions about what domains to measure, how and when to measure them, and how to make decisions and interpret results. To implement EBA, investigators need high-quality assessment tools along with evidence-based processes. We advance EBA in three sections in this article. First, we describe an empirically grounded framework, the Operations Triad Model (OTM), to inform EBA decision-making in the articulation of relevant educational theory. Originally designed for interpreting mental health assessments, we describe features of the OTM that facilitate its fusion with educational theory, namely its falsifiability. In turn, we cite evidence to support the OTM's ability to inform hypothesis generation and testing, study design, instrument selection, and measurement validation. Second, we describe quality indicators for interpreting psychometric data about measurement ...
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Bridging special education (SE) and developmental science recognizes their shared focus on individual adaptation, growth, and outcomes. Adaptation continuously aligns the proclivities of students and the opportunities of their contexts.... more
Bridging special education (SE) and developmental science recognizes their shared focus on individual adaptation, growth, and outcomes. Adaptation continuously aligns the proclivities of students and the opportunities of their contexts. Considerations for the adaptation of students with disabilities include developmental malleability, problem behavior, intervention supports, and SE services. Policy implications center on the need to focus on the individual in context in both research and intervention, merge data from the implementation of intensive interventions and person-oriented analysis to establish comprehensive frameworks that include a focus on neurophysiological processes, and train the next generation of SE leaders in intensive interventions and applied developmental science.
Research Interests: Psychology and Routledge
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Over 60 years of research reveal that informants who observe youth in clinically relevant contexts (e.g., home, school)-typically parents, teachers, and youth clients themselves-often hold discrepant views about that client's needs... more
Over 60 years of research reveal that informants who observe youth in clinically relevant contexts (e.g., home, school)-typically parents, teachers, and youth clients themselves-often hold discrepant views about that client's needs for mental health services (i.e., informant discrepancies). The last 10 years of research reveal that these discrepancies reflect the reality that (a) youth clients' needs may vary within and across contexts and (b) informants may vary in their expertise for observing youth clients within specific contexts. Accordingly, collecting and interpreting multi-informant data comprise "best practices" in research and clinical care. Yet, professionals across settings (e.g., health, mental health, school) vary in their use of multi-informant data. Specifically, professionals differ in how or to what degree they leverage multi-informant data to determine the goals of services designed to meet youth clients' needs. Further, even when professionals have access to multiple informants' reports, their clinical decisions often signal reliance on one informant's report, thereby omitting reports from other informants. Together, these issues highlight an understudied research-to-practice gap that limits the quality of services for youth. We advance a framework-the Needs-to-Goals Gap-to characterize the role of informant discrepancies in identifying youth clients' needs and the goals of services to meet those needs. This framework connects the utility of multi-informant data with the reality that services often target an array of needs within and across contexts, and that making decisions without accurately integrating multiple informants' reports may result in suboptimal care. We review evidence supporting the framework and outline directions for future research.
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Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is among the most commonly diagnosed disorders of children and youth. Young people receive their ADHD diagnoses and medical treatment in primary health care settings and can experience a... more
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is among the most commonly diagnosed disorders of children and youth. Young people receive their ADHD diagnoses and medical treatment in primary health care settings and can experience a range of behavioral and educational disabilities treated in the clinic, at home, and at school. We propose a team-based collaborative care model (TBCCM) to foster communication and collaboration among health care and education teams, embedding implementation science methods to promote and sustain evidence-based practices for youth with ADHD. Key features of the model include (a) effective leadership and teamwork within the two universal systems of education and health care, (b) use of data from multiple informants who describe and monitor student behavior within and across contexts, and (c) adoption and adaptation of evidence-based practices. We expect that these efforts to embed implementation science methods within a collaborative team structure will...
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Valid and reliable teacher ratings serve as the foundation for screening and assessment of youth with behavioral disorders and twin studies offer an opportunity to study those ratings. We conducted a meta-analysis of 15 empirical... more
Valid and reliable teacher ratings serve as the foundation for screening and assessment of youth with behavioral disorders and twin studies offer an opportunity to study those ratings. We conducted a meta-analysis of 15 empirical investigations of aggressive and rule-breaking behavior using teacher ratings in the context of a twin research design. We retrieved n = 53 correlations from n = 7,885 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) twins and n = 67 correlations from n = 11,696 pairs of dizygotic (DZ) twins with two goals: (a) to test the best-fitting models for predicting similarity (correlations) in teacher ratings of MZ and DZ twin pairs and (b) to identify significant predictors in the respective models. We found that, for both MZ and DZ twins, the best-fitting model included all predictors and interactions. In the MZ model, we found a significant positive interaction between the percentage of same teachers who completed the ratings and male twins; in the DZ model, we found a significant neg...
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Special education researchers, practitioners, and policy makers continue to work toward developing and implementing empirically supported practices and policies to address the academic, social, and postschool challenges confronting... more
Special education researchers, practitioners, and policy makers continue to work toward developing and implementing empirically supported practices and policies to address the academic, social, and postschool challenges confronting students with emotional and behavioral disorders. The systematic review has become an essential vehicle for compiling and disseminating research findings on an array of topics. Given the importance and impact of these research summaries, it is instructive to take stock of the extent to which reviews in our field adhere to current standards. Drawing from a number of sources in the social and behavioral sciences, we propose and describe a series of quality indicators for systematic reviews. We applied these indicators to systematic reviews published in Behavioral Disorders between 2005 and 2016 with the broader goal of identifying areas of methodological strength and areas for improvement. Results indicate that the sample of systematic reviews demonstrated ...
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The purpose of this study was to examine similarity within informant ratings of the externalizing behavior of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of correlations within ratings... more
The purpose of this study was to examine similarity within informant ratings of the externalizing behavior of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of correlations within ratings completed by mothers, fathers, teachers, and youth. We retrieved n=204 correlations for MZ twins and n=267 correlations for DZ twins from n=54 studies containing n=55 samples. Results indicated that all four informants were significant negative predictors of within-informant correlations in their ratings of MZ, but not DZ twins. In the case of longitudinal studies and as the age of MZ twins increased, similarity within ratings by mothers was significantly greater than similarity within ratings by fathers. Among participant characteristics, we found that (a) age was a significant negative predictor of similarity within ratings for MZ twins; (b) race was a significant predictor of similarity within ratings for both MZ and DZ twins, but in the opposite directi...
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Secondary students with high incidence disabilities who also display disruptive behaviors struggle to be successful in general education settings. As a result, general education teachers are looking for ways to utilize technology to... more
Secondary students with high incidence disabilities who also display disruptive behaviors struggle to be successful in general education settings. As a result, general education teachers are looking for ways to utilize technology to provide them with opportunities to implement evidence-based interventions in their classrooms. In this study, teachers used MoBeGo, an iPad application, in a single-case withdrawal design (ABAB), to implement self-monitoring in high school general education classrooms with four students who received special education services for a high incidence disability. The results of this study indicate that teachers could implement MoBeGo with fidelity to improve students’ academic engagement and appropriate behavior. Additionally, both the teachers and students rated MoBeGo as a socially valid intervention. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
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Single-subject research requires repeated, trustworthy measurement of dependent variables and repeated manipulation of one or more independent variables to establish lawful relationships between the dependent and independent variables and... more
Single-subject research requires repeated, trustworthy measurement of dependent variables and repeated manipulation of one or more independent variables to establish lawful relationships between the dependent and independent variables and to discredit alternative explanations for that relationship. Single-subject researchers intensively study individuals’ actions under two or more experimentally controlled conditions; usually behavior, or the product of behavior, is the dependent variable, and presence or absence of an experimentally controlled condition is the independent variable. To judge whether a relationship between the independent and dependent variables exists, the investigator inspects the data visually. These characteristics are shared by the various designs typically discussed in texts on single-subject research methodology (e.g., Johnston & Pennypacker, 1993; Kazdin, 1982; Tawney & Gast, 1984).
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Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is among the most commonly diagnosed disorders of children and youth. Young people receive their ADHD diagnoses and medical treatment in primary health care settings and can experience a... more
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is among the most commonly diagnosed disorders of children and youth. Young people receive their ADHD diagnoses and medical treatment in primary health care settings and can experience a range of behavioral and educational disabilities treated in the clinic, at home, and at school. We propose a teambased collaborative care model (TBCCM) to foster communication and collaboration among health care and education teams, embedding implementation science methods to promote and sustain evidence-based practices for youth with ADHD. Key features of the model include (a) effective leadership and teamwork within the two universal systems of education and health care, (b) use of data from multiple informants who describe and monitor student behavior within and across contexts, and (c) adoption and adaptation of evidence-based practices. We expect that these efforts to embed implementation science methods within a collaborative team structure will improve the uptake of evidence by intervention teams in the two systems, and thus optimize outcomes for children and youth with ADHD.
Highlights • Service professionals assess youth mental health using multiple informants. • Multiple informants' reports commonly result in discrepant outcomes. • This paper describes the Needs-to-Goals Gap framework. • This paper links... more
Highlights • Service professionals assess youth mental health using multiple informants. • Multiple informants' reports commonly result in discrepant outcomes. • This paper describes the Needs-to-Goals Gap framework. • This paper links work on informant discrepancies to implementation science. • The framework describes how informant discrepancies impact individual clients.
This investigation was intended to examine the effects of teaching middle school students with learning disabilities and mild mental retardation to tutor one another in reading comprehension strategies. All students were reading... more
This investigation was intended to examine the effects of teaching middle school students with learning disabilities and mild mental retardation to tutor one another in reading comprehension strategies. All students were reading significantly below grade level and many students exhibited behavior problems in addition to their primary disability area. Students were randomly assigned to a tutoring or traditional reading instruction condition. Within the tutoring condition, students were matched into tutoring dyads, trained in the tutoring procedures, and taught specific reading comprehension strategies. Reciprocal tutoring was employed, such that students assumed roles of both tutor and tutee during daily reading periods. Performance on reading comprehension tests following tutoring yielded significant performance advantages for students involved in tutoring. Observational, survey, and interview data revealed that students enjoyed tutoring more than their traditional instruction, appeared to see the value and benefits of the tutoring, and wanted to include tutoring as part of their other classes, such as science and social studies. Findings are discussed with respect to the strengths and challenges associated with the use of tutoring to provide strategic instruction to students with special learning needs.
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Research indicating many study results do not replicate has raised questions about the credibility of science and prompted concerns about a potential reproducibility crisis. Moreover, most published research is not freely accessible,... more
Research indicating many study results do not replicate has raised questions about the credibility of science and prompted concerns about a potential reproducibility crisis. Moreover, most published research is not freely accessible, which limits the potential impact of science. Open science, which aims to make the research process more open and reproducible, has been proposed as one approach to increase the credibility and impact of scientific research. Although relatively little attention has been paid to open science in relation to single-case design, we propose that open-science practices can be applied to enhance the credibility and impact of single-case design research. In this paper, we discuss how open-science practices align with other recent developments in single-case design research, describe four prominent open-science practices (i.e., preregistration, registered reports, data and materials sharing, and open access), and discuss potential benefits and limitations of eac...
In this manuscript, we (a) briefly describe proposed open-science practices to increase transparency of research in special education and related disciplines, and (b) provide recommendations for research funders, professional societies,... more
In this manuscript, we (a) briefly describe proposed open-science practices to increase transparency of research in special education and related disciplines, and (b) provide recommendations for research funders, professional societies, journal editors and publishers, and individual researchers to support awareness, exploration, and adoption of open science.
There is general agreement in the research literature that youth in juvenile justice facilities are more likely to experience mental health disorders than their general population peers. The purpose of this systematic review and... more
There is general agreement in the research literature that youth in juvenile justice facilities are more likely to experience mental health disorders than their general population peers. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the methodological characteristics and effectiveness of mental health interventions delivered in juvenile justice settings on symptoms associated with internalizing disorders. The 11 studies included in the current review incorporated pretest-posttest research designs and were conducted with juveniles in secure facilities that reported outcome measures of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, or internalizing disorders. Meta-analytic findings indicate mixed results for interventions affecting internalizing symptoms and varying results between studies implementing an experimental design compared to those using a single group non-experimental design. Additionally, no studies examined how interventions could be incorporated into daily activities in juvenile justice facilities, such as school and classroom activities. Lastly, the limited number of studies included in the current review indicates a continued need for further experimental research on the effectiveness of mental health interventions delivered to youth in juvenile justice facilities.
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We present a dynamic systems perspective for the intensification of interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). With this framework, we suggest behavior involves the contributions of multiple factors and... more
We present a dynamic systems perspective for the intensification of interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). With this framework, we suggest behavior involves the contributions of multiple factors and reflects the interplay between the characteristics of the student and the ecologies in which he or she is embedded. Building from a discussion of the application of dynamic systems theory to ecological intervention, we propose four types of data are needed to guide intervention intensification: universal/probabilistic knowledge and strategies, implementation science practice elements, person-oriented developmental analysis, and person-in-context interactional analyses. We discuss practice implications and propose two types of specialists: intervention specialists who provide direct services and have expertise adapting interventions across the academic, behavioral, and social domains and intervention specialist coordinators who direct intervention intens...
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Special education researchers, practitioners, and policy makers continue to work toward developing and implementing empirically supported practices and policies to address the academic, social, and postschool challenges confronting... more
Special education researchers, practitioners, and policy makers continue to work toward developing and implementing empirically supported practices and policies to address the academic, social, and postschool challenges confronting students with emotional and behavioral disorders. The systematic review has become an essential vehicle for compiling and disseminating research findings on an array of topics. Given the importance and impact of these research summaries, it is instructive to take stock of the extent to which reviews in our field adhere to current standards. Drawing from a number of sources in the social and behavioral sciences, we propose and describe a series of quality indicators for systematic reviews. We applied these indicators to systematic reviews published in Behavioral Disorders between 2005 and 2016 with the broader goal of identifying areas of methodological strength and areas for improvement. Results indicate that the sample of systematic reviews demonstrated particular strength in several procedural domains such as the specification of inclusion criteria, identifying the electronic databases used for the search, and describing the plan for data analysis. We also identified a number of areas to which researchers might devote greater attention to increase the rigor of systematic reviews in the field. Findings are contextualized within the importance of research transparency and reporting to improve practice and policy.
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Valid and reliable teacher ratings serve as the foundation for screening and assessment of youth with behavioral disorders and twin studies offer an opportunity to study those ratings. We conducted a meta-analysis of 15 empirical... more
Valid and reliable teacher ratings serve as the foundation for screening and assessment of youth with behavioral disorders and twin studies offer an opportunity to study those ratings. We conducted a meta-analysis of 15 empirical investigations of aggressive and rule-breaking behavior using teacher ratings in the context of a twin research design. We retrieved n = 53 correlations from n = 7,885 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) twins and n = 67 correlations from n = 11,696 pairs of dizygotic (DZ) twins with two goals: (a) to test the best-fitting models for predicting similarity (correlations) in teacher ratings of MZ and DZ twin pairs and (b) to identify significant predictors in the respective models. We found that, for both MZ and DZ twins, the best-fitting model included all predictors and interactions. In the MZ model, we found a significant positive interaction between the percentage of same teachers who completed the ratings and male twins; in the DZ model, we found a significant negative interaction between the percentage of same teachers who completed the ratings and opposite sex twins. Teacher ratings converged and diverged in expected ways, advancing research in the context of the attributions-bias-context (ABC) model of informant ratings.
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... on activities have been un-derused by science and math teachers in middle school and junior high, despite the apparent benefits of such instruction for elementary school students and for ... Researchers can investigate the social,... more
... on activities have been un-derused by science and math teachers in middle school and junior high, despite the apparent benefits of such instruction for elementary school students and for ... Researchers can investigate the social, academic, and self-esteem benefits to ...
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ABSTRACT
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Since the inception of special education, researchers have identified higher proportions of minority students with disabilities than expected. Yet, relatively few studies have considered the contributions of the school context on a large... more
Since the inception of special education, researchers have identified higher proportions of minority students with disabilities than expected. Yet, relatively few studies have considered the contributions of the school context on a large scale to the identification of students with mental retardation (MR), emotional disturbance (ED), and learning disabilities (LD). The present study examined the extent to which race and gender of 1,394,024 students, alone and nested within 2,104 schools, predicted identification in the special education categories of MR, ED, and LD. Results revealed that, alone, student race and gender significantly predicted identification in all three categories. However, when student race and gender were nested within school context variables, they were not significant predictors; school variables alone predicted identification. School variables that were significant included school attendance rate, for all three special education categories. For MR, school mobil...
168 MARC S. ATKINS et al. with positive mental health and well-being for students, and this association may be particularly salient for urban students (Gorman-Smith et al., 1999). In a recent study of African American adolescents from... more
168 MARC S. ATKINS et al. with positive mental health and well-being for students, and this association may be particularly salient for urban students (Gorman-Smith et al., 1999). In a recent study of African American adolescents from low-income Chicago neighborhoods, youth ...
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Special and general educators need to be well informed about the mental health problems of youth because significant pro-portions of students can experience social and emotional prob-lems that interfere with learning, yet few students... more
Special and general educators need to be well informed about the mental health problems of youth because significant pro-portions of students can experience social and emotional prob-lems that interfere with learning, yet few students with mental health problems ...
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ABSTRACT