Using a Simple Reinforcement‐Based Intervention to Improve Performance on Reading Comprehension Assessments

ABSTRACT In elementary school contexts, students may have difficulties performing at grade‐level on academic progress monitoring assessments, and these deficits may be more prevalent for students who have disabilities such as attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). For some students, their poor performance may be due to behavioral and motivational considerations and not a specific skill deficit in the skill domain, thus highlighting the need to evaluate simple, reinforcement‐based interventions that can be used to address performance issues due to behavior. In the current brief report investigation, researchers employed an AB design with embedded changing criterion components to evaluate the effects of a contextually appropriate intervention to improve performance on reading comprehension assessments for a second‐grade student receiving special education services in a rural public‐school context. The participant demonstrated an increase in accurate responding on reading comprehension assessments after implementation of the intervention and he maintained performance at or above the specified criterion throughout the intervention condition. Further, all intervention procedures were implemented by the resource and inclusion classroom teacher and the participant's performance during the intervention condition aligned with the performance of his same‐age peers.