Evaluation of the Class Pass Intervention: An Application to Improve Classroom Behavior in Children With Disabilities

The Class Pass Intervention (CPI) is designed to be implemented within School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) to decrease disruptive behavior and teach replacement behavior for students needing Tier 2 intervention. The CPI has two components: (a) providing negative reinforcement for requesting a break by using a class pass, and (b) providing positive reinforcement for continued engagement in activities without breaks by exchanging unused passes. The purpose of the present study was to extend the literature on the CPI by further evaluating the impact of the first component of the CPI on mild to moderate disruptive behavior, hypothesized to be maintained by social negative reinforcement, and academic engagement of three elementary school students with disabilities. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to demonstrate the impact of the CPI on student behavior during a problematic academic time period. The results indicated that the use of CPI was functionally related to a decrease in disruptive behavior and increase in academic engagement for all participating students whose problem behavior was hypothesized to be maintained by social reinforcement. Results were maintained for one participant while fading the magnitude of the intervention. Students and teachers rated CPI as effective and acceptable