Tutoring Buddy
Study: DuBois et al. (2016)

Describe how students were selected to participate in the study:

An advertisement describing the study was posted in the program’s weekly newsletter and interested caregivers were instructed to contact the principal investigator. There were no participation restrictions regarding gender, ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, health, or disability status. Only children who were able to see letters in 68-point font, who were able to orally articulate letters sounds, and who knew six or fewer letter sounds were eligible to participate.

Describe how students were identified as being at risk for academic failure (AI) or as having emotional/behavioral difficulties (BI):

Two of the three students were receiving early intervention due to some kind of disability.

ACADEMIC INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• below the 30th percentile on local or national norm, or
• identified disability related to the focus of the intervention?

%

BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• emotional disability label,
• placed in an alternative school/classroom,
• non-responsive to Tiers 1 and 2, or
• designation of severe problem behaviors on a validated scale or through observation?

%

Please describe the study design:

The present study utilized a non-concurrent multiple-baseline-across-participants design to assess the efficacy of the Tutoring Buddy intervention.

Clarify and provide a detailed description of the treatment in the submitted program/intervention:

Caregivers administered the Tutoring Buddy to their child at home 3 times a week for 6 weeks. Using Tutoring Buddy, two known and four unknown letter sounds, as determined by performance during the pre-intervention assessment (i.e., unknown letter sounds were those that students articulated incorrectly, and known letter sounds were those that students articulated correctly) were selected for intervention, regardless of whether they had been rehearsed during prior sessions. Continuous sounds (e.g., e and v) were targeted for intervention first, and letters with similar characteristics (e.g., b and d) were rehearsed during different sessions whenever possible. During each intervention session students were presented with the first targeted unknown sound and their parent modeled the sound corresponding to the letter (e.g., This letter makes the sound /m/, like the first sound in ‘mmmmmop…mop.’ What sound?). Once the student made the correct sound the parent advanced to the incremental rehearsal screen wherein a string of 14 letters were presented in an incremental rehearsal sequence i.e., first unknown, first known, first unknown, first known, second known, first unknown, first known, second known, third known, first unknown, first known, second known, third known, fourth known. Parents provided immediate error corrections for any errors made by the student. Once the first sequence was completed, a second unknown letter sound was introduced just as the first. However, the first unknown became the first known and the fourth unknown was removed.

Clarify what procedures occurred during the control/baseline condition (third, competing conditions are not considered; if you have a third, competing condition [e.g., multi-element single subject design with a third comparison condition], in addition to your control condition, identify what the competing condition is [data from this competing condition will not be used]):

During baseline, all three children were assessed by the 1st author of the paper and a research assistant on the dependent measures (LSK, LSF, and NWF) in their homes. These assessments were administered three times consecutively in each session and the median score for each represented their score for that session. The Tutoring Buddy intervention required that children know at least one letter sound prior to treatment initiation. However, Jane did not know any letter sounds following her first baseline assessment. Accordingly, Jane’s caregiver was instructed to teach Jane the grapheme-phoneme correspondence of the first letter of her name (i.e., /j/). This training consisted of Jane’s mother making a flashcard with the letter on it, Jane’s mother demonstrating the sound (e.g., “This letter makes the sound /j/, like Jane”), and Jane’s mother asking her to repeat the sound (e.g., “What sound does this make?”). Jane’s mother continued this procedure nightly until she could articulate the letter’s sound within three seconds of presentation (in the absence of training). The training resulted in Jane learning one letter sound during baseline. Other than this activity, caregivers were instructed not to change their literacy activities during baseline.

Please describe how replication of treatment effect was demonstrated (e.g., reversal or withdrawal of intervention, across participants, across settings)

Intervention effects observed for the first student (Jane) were replicated for both Andy and Mary in a multiple baseline design across participants.

Please indicate whether (and how) the design contains at least three demonstrations of experimental control (e.g., ABAB design, multiple baseline across three or more participants).

The study demonstrates replication via a multiple baseline design across three participants.

If the study is a multiple baseline, is it concurrent or non-concurrent?

Non-concurrent

How was the program delivered?

Individually
Small Group
Classroom

Study measures are classified as targeted, broader, or administrative data according to the following definitions:

• Targeted measures
  Assess outcomes, such as competencies or skills, that the program was directly targeted to improve.
  • In the academic domain, targeted measures typically are not the very items taught but rather novel items structured similarly to the content addressed in the program. For example, if a program taught word-attack skills, a targeted measure would be decoding of pseudo words. If a program taught comprehension of cause-effect passages, a targeted measure would be answering questions about cause-effect passages structured similarly to those used during intervention, but not including the very passages used for intervention.
  • In the behavioral domain, targeted measures evaluate aspects of external or internal behavior the program was directly targeted to improve and are operationally defined.
• Broader measures
  Assess outcomes that are related to the competencies or skills targeted by the program but not directly taught in the program.
  • In the academic domain, if a program taught word-level reading skill, a broader measure would be answering questions about passages the student reads. If a program taught calculation skill, a broader measure would be solving word problems that require the same kinds of calculation skill taught in the program.
  • In the behavioral domain, if a program taught a specific skill like on-task behavior in one classroom, a broader measure would be on-task behavior in another setting.
• Administrative data measures apply only to behavioral intervention tools and are measures such as office discipline referrals (ODRs) and graduation rates, which do not have psychometric properties as do other, more traditional targeted or broader measures.

If you have excluded a variable or data that are reported in the study being submitted, explain the rationale for exclusion:

Letter sound fluency is the dependent variable for the study. Baseline data were not collected for LSE, but scores from this measure are charted for the intervention phase. We administered the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence – Fourth Edition (WPPSI) for descriptive purposes. On the WPPSI-IV, Jane’s Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) score fell at the 55th percentile (Standard Score = 102). Similarly, Andy’s VCI score fell at the 82nd percentile (Standard Score = 114) and Mary’s VCI score fell at the 75th percentile (Standard Score = 110). Likewise, we also conducted observations with the The Child/Home Early Language and Literacy Observation (CHELLO; Nueman, Dwyer, Koh, 2007). The physical environment of Jane’s home was rated as ‘Excellent’ and Jane’s mother’s interactions with her were rated as ‘Above Average.’ The physical environment of Andy’s home was rated as ‘Fair’ and Andy’s mother’s interactions with him were rated as ‘Basic’ (these nominal descriptors are used instead of the descriptor ‘Average’). The physical environment of Mary’s home was rated as ‘Excellent’ and Mary’s mother’s interactions with her were rated as ‘Above Average.’ Therefore, the literacy environments of all three children were average to above average.