First Step To Success
By Jenna Satrang
SPSY 5398
An Overview
 Hill M. Walker, Ph.D., a research scientist at the Oregon Research
Institute and a professor at the University of Oregon (and an
article contributor to the School Psychology Review!)
 Kindergarten through 3rd grade
 An early intervention program designed to help children who are
at risk for developing aggressive or antisocial behavioral patterns
 Trained behavior coach
 50-60 hours over a 3 month period
 The cost of implementing the First Step to Success model is
approximately $500 per student and includes materials and the
behavioral coach’s time.
Two programs
 Preschool edition: intervention ensures that children have the social skills to
succeed in school, including sharing, cooperating, and following rules
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intervention option that will: 1) produce a reduction in serious behavior problems
such as aggression, opposition-defiance, and other types of antisocial behavior; 2)
substantially improve school readiness, and; 3) improve the target child's critically
important relationships with parents, caregivers, teachers, and peers
 Kindergarten through 3rd grade: This collaborative home-school approach
addresses behavior problems and teaches challenging children to get along with
others and to engage in schoolwork
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First Step to Success in an early intervention program designed to divert young
children with challenging behaviors from a path leading to adjustment problems;
school failure and dropout; rejection by teachers, peers, and ultimately, caregivers;
juvenile delinquency in adolescence; and in some cases, gang membership and
interpersonal violence.
First Step is a collaborative home and school intervention program for preschool –
third grade that recruits parents as partners with the school in teaching the at-risk
child a behavior pattern contributing to school success and the development of
friendships.
3 Modules
 Screening
 Teachers use a screening tool to nominate students and rate their
behavior using a standardized scale and definition of antisocial
behavior
 School Intervention: Contingencies for Learning Academic and
Social Skills (CLASS)
 focuses on reducing problem behavior and increasing adaptive,
prosocial behaviors
 Parent Training
 The behavior coach meets with the student’s parents/caregivers for
approximately 45 minutes per week for six weeks.
 Parents are taught to focus on and encourage the following child
competencies: communication, cooperation, limit setting, problem
solving, friendship making, and confidence development.
School Intervention
 During the intervention, a card, green on one side and red on
the other, is used as a visual prompt to provide feedback to
the target student for appropriate and inappropriate
behavior, to award earned points, and to record verbal
positive feedback given by the teacher and program coach.
The target student earns an activity reward, which is shared
with the entire class (e.g., extra recess, favorite story,
classroom game) by demonstrating appropriate behavior such
as following classroom rules, doing assigned academic work,
and being positive with peers. The teacher signs the card and
it goes home with the child every night and provides a daily
communication tool between home and school regarding the
child’s school progress.
Description of Coach, Teacher,
and Parent Roles
 Days 1-5 Consulting Phase
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Coach
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Teacher
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Provides verbal praise
Announces incentive to class
Supports delivery of incentive
Supports red/green card going home
Parent
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Implements program with child in classroom
Communicates with parent(s) daily
Completes red/green card and determines if recycling program is required
Checks daily for child to bring home red/green card
Gives 3 praise statements and an incentive for making daily points
Remains neutral if child doesn’t make daily points
Signs card and returns it to school
Days 6-30
Days 31 and Beyond
So… what tier?
 Tier 2
 …but, working on being a tier 3
 “However, as presently constructed, First Step is
insufficient to address the myriad problems that
impinge upon the lives of students with the most severe
behavioral problems and multiple risk factors outside
the school setting; these children are especially likely
to fail the critically important “test” of demonstrating
the minimal school success skills that foster academic
performance and positive relations with teachers and
peers.”
Research
 21 studies, 2 are randomized controlled trials
 Eugene, Oregon and Albuquerque, New Mexico
 First Step to Success was found to have positive effects
on external behavior, potentially positive effects on
emotional/internal behavior, social outcomes, and other
academic performance, and no discernible effects on
reading achievement/literacy for children classified
with an emotional disturbance.
Two Studies
 Eugene, Oregon
 School intervention and Parent Training vs. ‘wait list
control’
 Used 4 measures of external behavior
 Albuquerque, New Mexico
 Used SSBD to identify at-risk students (Systematic
Screening for Behavior Disorders)
 School Intervention and Parent Training portions vs.
5 domains in the research
 External behavior
 Both showed statistically significant positive effects
 Emotional/internal behavior
 one study with a strong design showed substantively important positive
effects
 Social outcomes domain
 one study with a strong design showed statistically significant positive
effects
 Reading achievement literacy
 Neither showed statistically significant or substantively important effects
 Other academic performance
 one study with a strong design showed statistically significant positive
effects
What do I think?
 Well-researched
 Spendy
 Early intervention
 Home-school collaboration!
 Would love to see where this went with tier 3 research
(supposedly funded through summer of last year
through National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD))
Resources
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Beard, K. Y., & Sugai, G. (2004). First Step to Success: An early intervention for elementary children at risk for antisocial behavior. Behavioral Disorders, 29(4), 396–409.
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Diken, I. H., & Rutherford, R. B. (2005). First Step to Success early intervention program: A study of effectiveness with Native-American children. Education & Treatment of Children, 28(4), 444–465.
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Golly, A., Sprague, J., Walker, H., Beard, K., & Gorham, G. (2000). The First Step to Success program: An analysis of outcomes with identical twins across multiple baselines. Behavioral Disorders, 25(3), 170.
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Lien-Thorne, S., & Kamps, D. (2005). Replication study of the First Step to Success early intervention program. Behavioral Disorders, 31(1), 18–32.
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Nelson, J. R., Hurley, K. D., Synhorst, L., Epstein, M. H., Stage, S., & Buckley, J. (2009). The child outcomes of
a behavior model. Exceptional Children, 76(1), 7–30. The study does not meet WWC evidence standards because it uses a quasi-experimental design in which the analytic intervention and comparison groups
are not shown to be equivalent.
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Sprague, J., & Perkins, K. (2009). Direct and collateral effects of the First Step to Success program. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 11(4), 208–221. doi:10.1177/1098300708330935.
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Walker, H.M. (2004). Commentary: Use of evidence-based interventions in schools: Where we've been, where we are, and where we need to go. School Psychology Review, 33(3): 398-407.
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Walker, H., Kavanagh, K., Stiller, B., Golly, A., Severson, H., & Feil, E. (1998). First Step to Success. An early intervention approach for preventing school antisocial behavior. Journal of Emotional and
Behavioral Disorders, 6(2), 66–80.
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Walker, H. M., Seeley, J. R., Small, J., Severson, H. H., Graham, B. A., Feil, E. G., . . . Forness, S. R. (2009). A randomized controlled trial of the First Step to Success early intervention: Demonstration of
program efficacy outcomes in a diverse, urban school district. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 17(4), 197–212.
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Walker, H. M. (2010). Evidence-based interventions for severe behavior problems, final report (IES Special Edu- cation Annual Performance Report No. CFDA #84324P). Washington, DC: Institute of Education
Sciences.
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Zolna, J., Kimmich, M., & Hawkinson, L. (2001). Final report: Evaluation of the First Step to Success replication. Unpublished manuscript. The study does not meet WWC evidence standards because it uses a
quasi-experi- mental design in which the analytic intervention and comparison groups are not shown to be equivalent.
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What Works Clearinghouse: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/interventionreport.aspx?sid=179
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http://www.firststeptosuccess.org