Introduction toIntroduction toIntroduction toIntroduction to

Version 3.0Version 3.0A multi-rater social-emotionalA multi-rater social-emotionaland behavior assessment tooland behavior assessment tool

How Rapid Screener How Rapid Screener WorksWorks

How Rapid Screener How Rapid Screener WorksWorks

Rapid Screener Overview

• The primary purpose of Rapid Screener is to determine:– Relationship between raters and student

being assessed– Presence and degree of independence of

adaptive behaviors– Presence of and degree of severity of

interfering behaviors– Consensus among raters determining which

behaviors and skills to focus on as part of educational program

Where do problems occur?

1. Are problems occurring at school and home?

2. Are problems occurring at school but not home?

3. Home but not school?

SchoolSchool

HomeHomeCommunityCommunity

School Responsibilities

Rapid Screener Process

Other DIS/Private Clinicians Report

on Functioning

Family Report offunctioning at

home or community

TeacherReport of

FunctioningIn the Education

Program

Multi-raterReport

This process keeps families in control

• Suppose a student is bed-wetting but has no problems at school. Rapid Screener will not include this information in the multi-rater report because it is not a school problem

• However, the parent, who receives their own feedback summary, is free to bring this information up at the IEP meeting– Or not. It allows families to decide what non-

school information is included in the reports

Rapid Screener helps schools:

• Conduct useful and valid behavior assessments in a time and cost-efficient manner

• Include all persons in the assessment process who may have important information about a student’s educational functioning

• Present the results in a clear, understandable manner that efficiently moves along the IEP process

• Track whether students are making progress in all areas of their education, including social-emotional and behavioral functioning (RTI)

How Rapid Screener WorksHow Rapid Screener WorksHow Rapid Screener WorksHow Rapid Screener Works

• Up to Ten Raters for a Single Student: Parents, step-parents, teachers, and others can each report on student behavior as they see it. Each rater only sees questions about behaviors they have directly observed.

• Built-in Validity Analysis: Raters are shown summaries of their responses and evaluate how accurately these fit their view of the student, resulting in an incremental validity analysis.

• Multiple Reporting Options: Each rater can print out an instant summary of their responses. Once all assigned raters have completed Rapid Screener, a single multi-rater report is generated to guide the team towards consensus and effective intervention

• Simple interpretations, easy to understand. Rapid Screener is based on statistics, but scores are straight-forward and do not require explanations of T-Scores, Standard Scores, or Percentiles

Rapid Screener addresses these needs, and more:

The Rapid Screener interview is a friendly and simple 3 step process…

• Section I: Determines the relationship between the raters and the student

• Section II: Assesses the presence, consistency, and degree of independence of positive behaviors associated with school success

• Section III: Assess the presence and severity of interfering behaviors

Section ISection ISection ISection I

Demographics InterviewDemographics Interview

Section I: Demographics

• The rater is initially presented with questions inquiring how they know the student, including:– How long have they known the student?– Where do they see him or her (home, class,

yard, multiple classes)?– What time period is their rating based on?

Last two weeks, earlier?• Using these questions, Rapid Screener

determines what to ask the rater in Sections II and III interviews that follow

Section IISection IISection IISection II

Positive BehaviorsPositive Behaviors

Adaptive Skills Areas

• Motor Skills• Communication Skills• Social Behavior• Sensory Behavior• Sleep/Alertness• Home Skills• School Skills• Community Skills

New Rating System• Not observed (student has never been seen exhibiting

behavior or is unable to attempt skill; score 0)

• Emerging skill (student occasionally or rarely exhibits behavior and nearly always requires prompting or staff guidance to complete; score 1)

• Established skill (student frequently exhibits behavior and sometimes requires prompting or staff guidance; score 2)

• Independent skill (student frequently exhibits behavior and rarely or never requires prompting or staff guidance; score 3)

Consistent With Established Guidelines

• These areas of adaptive functioning are consistent with guidelines from the Department of Education, DSM-IV, and AAMR.

Detailed Review of Detailed Review of Adaptive AreasAdaptive Areas

Detailed Review of Detailed Review of Adaptive AreasAdaptive Areas

Motor Skills• Gross Motor Skills

– Strength– Balance– Gait– Muscle Tone– Exercise

• Fine Motor Skills– Dexterity– Object Manipulation– Object Use

Communication Skills

• Nonverbal• Imitative• Receptive• Expressive• Speech/Voice Quality• Conversational• Pragmatic• Written

Social Behavior• Self-Directed• Group-Directed• Interaction• Emotional• Coping skills• Pragmatic

Sensory Behavior• Auditory stimuli• Visual stimuli• Touch• Taste• Smell• Novel/Unfamiliar• Routines• Structure• Movement

Sleep/Alertness• Getting to bed• Staying asleep• Waking up• Quality of Sleep• Alertness during school activities• Alertness during home/community

activities

Home Skills• Toileting• Eating• Cooking• Dressing• Grooming• Chores• Functional academics• Time Concepts• Money Concepts• Technology skills• Transitions• Play/Leisure• Home Orientation

School Skills• Classroom functioning• Academic readiness skills• Basic math• Basic reading• Basic writing• Time concepts• Money concepts• Technology skills• Vocational skills• Technology skills• Transitions• Play/Leisure• School Orientation

Community Skills• Community functioning• Community activities• Functional academics• Eating out• Time Concepts• Money Concepts• Technology skills• Vocational skills• Transitions• Play/Leisure• Community Orientation

Section IIISection IIISection IIISection III

Interfering BehaviorsInterfering Behaviors

These are behaviors which interfere with school success, broken into the following clusters:

A) Self-harm, aggression, disruptive behavior (Hughes Bill behaviors)

B) Uncooperative, sexual, self-stimulatory behavior

C) Anxiety and fear-based behaviors, dependence

D) Perceptual problems, sadness, difficulty coping

E) Basic and pragmatic social/language challenges

F) Executive functioning deficits

Section III: Interfering Behaviors (Cluster Grouping)

Externalizing (A, B)Dangerous to self or others

Property Damage, Highly disruptive

Social/Environmental (E, F)Behaviors that impair

effective communication, social interaction, or

interaction with the environment

Internalizing (C, D)Behaviors that directly affect performance

due to emotions, impaired thinking, or coping

These six clusters correspond to the following groupings

This is the opening screen. Raters can access Rapid Screener from our website, by email, or via faxed or mailed instructions

After they log in, the user will receive a greeting and instructions, be asked for their name and the student’s name (or ID code) and begin to complete Section I, Demographics.

The behaviors in Cluster A represent those which are likely to generate the need for a Functional Analysis Assessment.

The responses from the previous page appear below. Bolded responses mean OFTEN while normal text mean SOMETIMES

After reviewing these behaviors, the rater chooses the severity level for the group

The process is repeated for each remaining clusters of questions

Notice that the color scheme alternates to make it easier for raters to tell where they are in the survey

• The Rapid Screener report includes a basic description of the test describing it three sections:1. Demographics2. Positive Behaviors3. Interfering Behaviors

• It describes how, in Section III, only those behaviors which were rated as a severity level of “4” or high are included for Clusters B-F.• Within these clusters, only those behaviors rated as

occurring “sometimes” or “often” by at least one member of the student’s educational program are included.

• The level of agreement with other educational staff plus raters from Home or Community settings is presented

• For Cluster A, which describes potentially dangerous behaviors, all statements are reported where any single rater reported the occurrence of that behavior

Interpretation

About Clusters/Severity• The cluster descriptions and severity ratings

appear in the report to help ease the interpretation process. Once someone has interpreted a single Rapid Screener report, subsequent interpretations are quick and simple, no matter how many raters were involved.

• By narrowing the range of behaviors to fit the “school only” or “school and home” filter, the team saves time and can move on to determining whether additional observation in targeted areas or intervention is needed.

How to Interpret Rapid Screener

Cluster DescriptionsCluster A: Danger to self or others; property damage; or disruptive behaviorsCluster B: Socially offensive behavior; uncooperative behavior; sexual behavior; or repetitive behaviorsCluster C: Anxiety, fearfulness, avoidant behavior, dependent behaviorCluster D: Emotional, perceptual, or somatic concerns; negativity; difficulty coping effectively; substance useCluster E: Basic and pragmatic language skills and social communication abilitiesCluster F: Planning; task completion organization; monitoring behavior; impulsivity; attention; memory or forgetfulness

This graph shows the severity levels reported by all raters for each of the above clusters. Solid colors represent school ratings; diagonal-shaded bars represent home or community ratings:

Rapid Screener Severity Ratings

0

2

4

6

8

10

A B C D E F

Cluster Scales

Scale

(0/l

ow

-10/h

igh

)

mother

Tutor after school

The behaviors in Cluster A are those which are likely to generate the need for a Functional Analysis Assessment.

Rapid ScreenerRapid ScreenerUser Feedback Data AnalysisUser Feedback Data Analysis

Version 2.5Version 2.5

Rapid ScreenerRapid ScreenerUser Feedback Data AnalysisUser Feedback Data Analysis

Version 2.5Version 2.5A follow-up analysis: 2005-06 dataA follow-up analysis: 2005-06 data

Users of Rapid Screener have a broad range of experience and comfort levels using computers

Who Uses Rapid Screener?

In analyzing first time computer users in all

three validity sections, 93% reported acceptable

ratings.

How long does it take to complete Rapid Screener?

• In a recent analysis of 73 consecutive users:– 59% of all types of users completed it in

less than 30 minutes– 18% completed it in 30-40 minutes– 15% completed it in 40-50 minutes– 4% required 1 hour to complete it

• 60% of first-time users and 45% of novice/beginners completed it in under 30 minutes

100% of first-time users of Rapid Screener had no problems using it

(N=5 from a pool of 78 users)

Problems?

80% of all users reported no problems using Rapid Screener

Problems? cont’d

Of those users who reported any problems,

all were rated as “Minor.” From this group, validity

results were rated as “Acceptable” by 98% of

raters

Which do they prefer… Using the Computer or Paper Forms?

16% of users would prefer using paper to computer for completing this type of survey(no first-time users preferred paper in this sample; N=73

users)

Additional Additional InformationInformationAdditional Additional

InformationInformation

Who has Rapid Screener Used with?

• Children and adolescents with: – Anxiety Disorders– Asperger's Syndrome– Autism– ADHD/ADD– Executive Functioning Deficits– Depression– Learning Disabilities– Mental Retardation– OCD– Oppositional and Noncompliant behavior– School Avoidance– Social Shyness– Somatic Disorders– Speech and Language Disorders– Severe Emotional Disturbance.

Common Rapid Screener Uses

• Determining whether problems are occurring in the educational program or other settings (e.g., home and/or community)

• Assessing Response to Interventions as required by IDEIA 2004

• As an aid in completing Functional Assessments;

• For identifying complex behavior patterns to determine the most important areas to target for behavioral intervention;

• Efficiently identifying important behaviors during clinical treatment.

Useful for Unique Situations

• Rapid Screener can be used to assess children who have not attended school recently by conducting a retrospective analysis

• This feature can also be used to compare behavior reported by a teacher from last year to current functioning

Overview of Rapid Screener Features

• Multidimensional approach for comprehensive assessment • Easily interpretable profiles • Differentiates between different diagnoses and syndromes based on

symptoms clusters • A useful, comprehensive, tool specifically designed for identifying

behavior problems as required by IDEIA 2004, and for developing FAAs, FBAs, BIPs, IEPs, and IPPs.

• Quickly identifies target behaviors occurring in the student's educational program

• Allows different providers to rate behavior in different settings • Assesses progress over time (by having 2-3 ratings per academic

year, can track student changes in emotional and social functioning across settings, providing a comprehensive analysis which can be linked to ongoing interventions)

• Gives parents and teachers a better understanding of children's unique problems

• Facilitates more detailed functional analysis of behavior occurrences and triggers

• “Fax-friendly” reports

Training can occur using our state of the art teleconferencing system

The Rapid Screener Completion Process

1. Once we receive a referral from the school psychologist or other Qualified User1. BehaviorTech Solutions will contact each rater according

to the method indicated by the referring clinician to initiate the Rapid Screener assessment process. 

2. Provide the referring clinician with ongoing status reports as raters complete Rapid Screener

3. Provide each rater with an instant report of their survey results as they complete the survey

2. Once all raters have completed their ratings or the required 10 day period has elapsed, all rater data is analyzed and a multi-rater report is created

3. A copy of the report is sent to the referring clinician via encrypted email or by any other means requested..

Progress Progress CommunicatorCommunicator

Progress Progress CommunicatorCommunicator

Tracking behavior “Live”Tracking behavior “Live”

Progress Communicator

• It is used to help students monitor their own behavior and access coping skills as needed

• IEP Team members can use it to keep other team members involved of important positive and interfering behiavors

• All data is stored in a secure online data base

For More Information about For More Information about For More Information about For More Information about

CallCall (818) 788-2100 (818) 788-2100

EmailEmail bgale@behaviortech.netbgale@behaviortech.net

WriteWrite BehaviorTech Solutions, BehaviorTech Solutions, 16430 Ventura Blvd., Ste 107, Encino, CA 16430 Ventura Blvd., Ste 107, Encino, CA

9143691436