Intervention Intensification Strategy Checklist

Use these ideas, as well as your own, to intensify interventions. For more information about intensifying interventions, check out our website, www.intensiveintervention.org. Before adapting or intensifying an intervention, always consider whether the current intervention program has been implemented with fidelity and for a sufficient amount of time.

Strength: Teams can increase the strength of an intervention by focusing on strategies and attention given to other dimensions of the Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity.

Dosage

Increase opportunities for practice and corrective feedback.

Increase the length of intervention sessions.

Increase the number of intervention sessions per week.

Decrease the group size.

Increase the total number of sessions.

Decrease the heterogeneity of the groups (group students with similar performance levels).

Consider an intervention setting with fewer distractions.

Embed additional practice and feedback sessions throughout the day.

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Alignment

Increase instructional time for the target skill.*

Supplement intervention with National Center on Intensive Intervention materials in reading, math, or behavior.

Focus on discrete skill instruction within the target skill.

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Attention to Transfer

Align instructional routines and language with core instruction and the environment.

Preteach content.

Embed guided practice on target skills within core instruction and other environments.

Embed explicit opportunities in other settings to maintain skills acquired in the intervention.

Explicitly teach connections.

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Comprehensiveness or Elements of Explicit Instruction

Use precise, simple language to teach key concepts or procedures.

When introducing a concept, provide worked examples and show the steps in writing.

Present a completed work example. Explain why a specific step is important and have the student complete that step and explain its significance.

Model new concepts with examples and “think aloud” as you work through steps.

Use explicit instruction and modeling with repetition to teach a concept or demonstrate the steps in a process.

Fade steps from examples, so that students gradually assume responsibility for completing more and more steps.

Once students can complete entire examples and explain their work, incorporate fluency-building activities to develop automaticity of skills.*

Once students can fluently produce correct work, move to a new concept. Provide ongoing practice opportunities to facilitate skill maintenance.*

Increase opportunities for student response and practice through unison choral responding, peer activities, and opportunities for the student to perform with adult feedback.*

Break academic or behavior tasks into smaller chunks or steps.

Provide concrete learning opportunities (including role play and use of manipulatives).

Have students explain new concepts, in their own words, incorporating the important terms you have taught.

Provide sufficient opportunities for independent practice with feedback.

Provide immediate and explicit error correction when mistakes are made, and have the student repeat the correct response before moving on. Offer repeated opportunities to correctly practice the step.*

Increase the frequency of error correction and corrective feedback across learning environments.*

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Behavior, Engagement, and Motivation Support

Use a timer for intermittent reinforcement of on-task, appropriate behavior.

Provide differential reinforcement or change the schedule of reinforcement.

Create a motivation plan based on what you know about the student that provides frequent behavior feedback.

Use a report card for home communication.

Add a social skills group.

Combine or align academic and behavioral supports.

Convene a functional behavior assessment team to determine the function of the behavior.

Use group contingencies to promote on-task, appropriate behavior.

Use peer support to model and encourage desired behavior.

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Other

Change to an interventionist with more expertise, such as a reading specialist, behavior specialist, social worker, or special education teacher, depending on the student’s needs.

Change the intervention to better meet the individual needs.

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*These areas also are important to consider for dosage.