Problem solving consultation in schools: Past, present, and future directions.

Abstract

School-based consultation is a method of psychological service delivery in which a school psychologist works together with a teacher and/or parent to identify and analyze a particular problem with a student and then create an intervention plan that the teacher or parent can implement with varying degrees of support or independently. The members of the consultation team are typically referred to as the consultant (e.g., school psychologist), the consultee (e.g., teacher or parent), and the client (e.g., student). In this paper we provide a brief overview of school-based behavioral or problem solving consultation, including (a) an introduction to consultation methods and applications, (b) relevant background information, (c) a description of current variations of behavioral consultation, (d) a discussion of best practices in consultation, (e) an overview of current research in behavioral consultation, and (f) comments on future directions in the field. Keywords: problem solving, behavioral consultation, behavior change in schools, best and evidence based practices. ********** Consulting with mediators (e.g., parents, teachers) has been a primary role of psychologists and other mental health and educational professionals for many years (Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990). In the past 15 years, however, several important pieces of legislation and developments in best practice standards have increased the need for behavior support in general settings. In 1973 title five of the Rehabilitation Act included the provision of a free and appropriate education (FAPE) as a right for all students. This provision required that public schools admit students with disabilities who previously would have been denied access to the general system. The IDEA (1997) is a second piece of legislation that has led to an increased need for consultative services in schools. The IDEA requires (1) that schools serve students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment (often, the mainstream classroom); (2) that schools develop Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for any student identified as in need of special services, and that the IEP contains plans for intervention strategies and supports specifically designed to address each student's particular needs; and (3) that IEP teams conduct a functional behavioral assessment, develop a positive behavior support plan, and identify goals for outcome evaluation. In addition to the Rehabilitation Act and IDEA, recent federal mandates, such as No Child Left Behind, require schools to serve all students and also place responsibility on teachers to find ways to teach effectively a diverse group of learners. Finally, high levels of school violence and disciplinary problems and high rates of individual student's social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties have left many educators in need of additional support and guidance from psycho-educational service staff. Moreover, currently there is growing support in the professional literature for the use of ecologically based techniques, such as functional behavioral assessment, curriculum based assessment, or positive behavior support, for serving students with behavior problems (Crone & Horner, 2003; Watson & Steege, 2003). Schools adopting these techniques find that they are often more time consuming and demanding of resources than traditional test and place methods of serving students with behavior or academic difficulties. This issue, on top of a staggeringly low ratio of school psychologists to students in need of psychological services, has led to a heightened need for the streamlining of effective psycho-educational services. School-based consultation has, therefore, also gained increasing popularity as a means of responding to that need. It should be emphasized, however, that consultation services are but one of several important options for the provision of educational and psychological services in schools. …