User-Friendly Measures of Meaningful Outcomes: Evaluating Behavioral Interventions

Abstract

This article describes principles and practices of data collection to evaluate the attainment of meaningful outcomes in educational services for students with severe disabilities and serious behavior problems. In contrast to a limited outcome such as a temporary change in one target behavior in a controlled clinical setting, an expanded definition of effectiveness would require evidence of a range of more meaningful outcomes for child, school, family, and community. Several user-friendly measures to document such outcomes are described, which were field-tested in an educational consultation project serving students with severe disabilities and challenging behaviors in integrated schools. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantages of an emphasis upon both meaningful outcomes and the use of measurement strategies that blend well and have high utility for typical schools while simultaneously increasing programmatic rigor and general school responsibility for what happens to students.