By Carla Cornelius

29.1.21

Interventions are popular and we proudly collect them. The higher the number the better the evidence that we are a good provider or knowledgeable practitioners. I confess having fallen into the same trap of collecting interventions with the hope to discover magic tools and strategies and become an expert in my field. What I had forgotten to consider was that quality should come before quantity.

What is the quality measure?

It should always be the child's progress, which means that my intervention should be matched to the individual child rather than the other way round.

But this is not all, I also need to take a few more steps.....

I need to define my objective.

What do I want to achieve by using a specific intervention?

My objective needs to be defined precisely so that I can measure whether or not I have achieved it. For example, if my objective is to change a child's behaviour to promote learning, I have already failed. The objective here is not specific enough to measure the success of my chosen intervention.

How about something more specific, such as "C. will be able to maintain focused attention on an adult set task without any prompting for up to 10 minutes at a time. This objective will be achieved in the context of the classroom".

I have set a specific objective "maintain attention without any prompting"; context specific "in the classroom - adult set task" quantifiable "for up to 10 minutes".

My intervention needs to be matched to my defined objective. Moreover, everyone running the intervention needs to understand the objective! This may seem obvious, but the majority of the support staff I have advised throughout the years did not have a clear idea of what they were working towards.

What is the most appropriate intervention to achieve my objective?

In order to answer this question, I need to research the evidence base of the interventions available for my specific purpose and match them to the child's individual profile. In this case, possible ones could be interventions focused on promoting behaviour for learning, attention skills and working memory functioning.

I need to consider the evidence available that tells me that the intervention I choose will successfully allow me to achieve my objective. This is important because if the positive impact is inconsistent, I will be investing time, effort and money in something not worth while.

There is a wide range of interventions available in education and some of them are chosen by name rather than by efficacy. Studies on consumer behaviour show that people are more likely to choose a product they have been recommended or, even more worrying, if they hear it mentioned 5 times from different sources irrespectively of the product quality. The choice element here is not quality or efficacy but popularity! Does this sound familiar?

How do I find out about the efficacy of interventions? Research studies are the best source. The Department for Education has produced interesting research papers accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exploring-interventions-for-children-and-young-people-with-speech-language-and-communication-needs-a-study-of-practice

Finally, I must consider the variables.

Variables such as a child's needs, age, pattern of attendance, staff knowledge and confidence in leading the intervention and monitoring progress are closely linked to my intervention impact. If a member of staff is more intrusive than others when supporting and provides extra prompting, my progress will be affected. If a child attends less frequently due to home circumstances or illness, my progress will be affected. I must consider variables when planning, choosing and reviewing the intervention outcome.

Choosing an intervention requires time and research, but if done with quality in mind it will produce its positive results in the end.

In my online courses I talk more about the topic of evidence based interventions and how to define clear objectives.