Thursday, May 17, 2012
Sheraton Hall (Sheraton Centre Toronto)
2:00 PM
Q. Senkow
1,
J. Montgomery2, J. Douglas
3, D. J. Heinrichs
4, S. North
4, S. Shooshtari
5, J. Virues-Ortega
6, T. L. Martin
6,7, L. Dodson
6,7, B. Temple
8 and C. T. Yu
4,7, (1)Seine River School Division, Lorette, MB, Canada, (2)Univeristy of Manitoba, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, (3)St. Amant School, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, (4)University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, (5)Department of Human Ecology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, (6)Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, (7)St. Amant Research Centre, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, (8)Faculty of Nursing, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Background: Teachers in classrooms with children who have autism and or developmental disabilities, are presented with severe, challenging, or unusual behaviors from students each day. Some of these behaviours are spitting, kicking, hitting, biting, temper tantrums, screaming, self-injurious behavior, stereotyped and repetitive behaviour. These behaviors undoubtedly affect the classroom climate, in addition to affecting teacher, educational assistant, and indeed student well-being. This project was a subcomponent on a larger project on knowledge translation. Teachers were an integral part of the research team of the (interdisciplinary) knowledge translation team, involved in asking specific questions about effective interventions for behaviors demonstrated by children in their classrooms. The team conducted a systematic review and analysis of the relevant research literature, quality analysis procedure to literature reviewed, produced a synthesis, and finally created knowledge- user friendly ‘deliverables” to assist in the translation of research to practice for this particular problem. The goal was to give the classroom teachers strategies to use that were grounded in well conducted research. Results are discussed in terms of main findings and considerations for knowledge users.
Objectives: This study aimed to identify effective strategies for intervening with challenging behaviors in the classroom and produce user-friendly materials to assist in the uptake of evidence based practice.
Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted from the years 2000 to 2011. The articles reviewed adhered to the following inclusion criteria:
- Peer reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2011
- Studies focused on autism or developmental disability
- A specific strategy for reduction of challenging behaviours was presented
- Strategies were potentially adaptable to be applied by teachers
- Age of participants between 0 and 21
A quality analysis procedure (Downs & Black, 1998; Merlin, Westin, Tooher, 2009) was applied to the articles included to establish a hierarchy of interventions (in relation to the state of the evidence). A synthesis paper was produced, and from those findings, user-friendly “deliverables” were prepared and disseminated.
Results: Main findings of the synthesis are presented and results are discussed in terms of implications for bridging the gap from research to practice.
Conclusions: Information on effective strategies for reducing challenging behaviors in classrooms is limited by the types of study designs employed and contextual factors that limit the generalizability of research findings. Barriers and facilitators to the application of research findings in real life contexts are discussed in terms of implications for the knowledge translation process.
