Examining long-term intervention effects to promote teacher problem-solving and communication skills in the rural context.

Conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC), a teacher-parent partnership intervention, has been shown to yield immediate improvements in problem-solving skills and communication quality with parents for kindergarten through third grade teachers in rural schools. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether CBC can yield maintained effects on teacher skills and communication over a 1-year follow-up period. We used an experimental design to examine maintenance effects of CBC (nCBC = 84, nControl = 68). Outcomes were assessed four times: baseline, 12-week posttest (immediate effects), and twice during a 1-year follow-up period (maintenance effects). Longitudinal growth modeling revealed that immediate improvements in perceived problem-solving competence and communication quality with parents for teachers in the CBC condition compared to teachers in the control condition were maintained 1-year postintervention. CBC appears to support teachers' professional practices over time. Implications for enhancing families' and schools' capacities to address student behavior concerns are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Conjoint behavioral consultation in rural schools: Do student effects maintain after 1 year?

Challenging behavior problems are common in early childhood and, if left untreated, may escalate into more severe and intractable problems in adolescence and early adulthood. This trajectory is of particular importance in rural schools, where disruptive behaviors are more prominent than in urban and suburban schools. Conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) is a family-school partnership intervention with documented efficacy in producing immediate decreases in child problem behaviors and increases in child adaptive behaviors and social skills. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the immediate effects of CBC maintain over a 1-year follow-up period. Participants at study enrollment were students (N = 267) and their parents, as well as both the students' original (N = 152) and subsequent (N = 135) teachers in 45 Midwest rural schools. At the time of initial study enrollment, students were assigned randomly to an active CBC intervention or "business as usual" control condition. Results demonstrated that immediate effects of parent-rated adaptive and social skills and teacher-rated school problems were maintained at the 1-year follow-up. Additionally, for parent-rated adaptive skills and teacher-rated school problems, improvements during the maintenance phase were statistically equivalent to gains in the control group. However, increases in parent-rated social skills for the control group during the follow-up phase significantly outpaced increases among the CBC group. Implications for use of CBC in rural communities, as well as future research directions, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).