Brief experimental analysis of early reading interventions

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Applied Behavior Analysis
• Early Childhood Education

Background:

• Letter Sound Fluency (LSF) is a critical predictor of early reading success.
• Identifying effective, individualized interventions for struggling learners is crucial.
• Brief Experimental Analyses (BEAs) offer a potential method for rapid intervention assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the utility of BEAs in identifying effective early reading interventions for kindergartners.
• To assess interventions targeting low performance or slow growth in LSF.
• To evaluate the treatment validity of BEAs in an early literacy context.

Main Methods:

• A multielement design with mini-reversals was used to screen interventions.
• Interventions were selected based on achieving a 20% improvement in LSF subskills or curriculum-based measures.
• BEA-identified interventions were then implemented one-on-one, with outcomes assessed using a multiple-baseline design.

Main Results:

• BEAs successfully identified interventions that led to substantial improvements in LSF.
• The average effect size (adjusted d) for the identified interventions was 2.4.
• The study demonstrated the treatment validity of BEAs for early reading interventions.

Conclusions:

• BEAs are a valid and effective method for identifying individualized early reading interventions.
• Findings support the application of BEAs for younger participants and early literacy skills.
• This research extends the use of BEAs to the domain of early reading fluency.