Assessing Effectiveness of Emotional and Behavioral Interventions A.K.A. Why I Like BERS-2

BERS-2 (and now there is apparently a BERS-3
 
I worked for 12 years teaching a self-contained special education classroom with a focus on supporting students with emotional or behavioral deficits.  Then I worked within a classroom that primarily supported students on the spectrum.  Both placements required creativity, dedication, and patience.  I wish I knew how many tantrums I de-escalated, how many social stories I wrote, how many odd behavior contracts were written for the duration of these years.  Of course, on top of the actual teaching academics.  So much effort going in to improving outcomes for students that had significant behavioral and emotional needs.  I also wanted to know if I was making a difference.  
 
So, in the world of data driven efforts, and personally wanting to know how my efforts were going, it was necessary to identify a way to track the improvement of behaviors.  Although many rating skills are out there, such as Connor’s rating scale and the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) I found that to get three data points in one given school year I preferred the Behavior Emotional Rating Scales version 2 (BERS-2).  
 
I preferred the BERS-2 for three reasons.  The first is that often the Connor’s and other scales are recommended to be done once a year.  The BERS-2 can be done as often as you like (although since it has a parent portion, I wouldn’t want to bug them too much but three times a year seems appropriate).   By being able to conduct the assessment more often it becomes more of a formative assessment to see if your strategies are working rather than simply a diagnostic tool.  The second reason is that it is norm referenced for TWO sets.  It is norm referenced for general population and then there is a set of norms of persons with disabilities.  Lastly it reports as skill STRENGTHS focusing on where a student is on the positive.  So instead of identifying the deficits that slight twist of phrasing is more palatable then finding the student’s deficits.
 
So what does the BERS-2 measure?  It measures the strengths across a myriad of areas such as: interpersonal, school functioning, affective, intrapersonal, family involvement and career.  It does this by taking information from the student themselves, parents, and teachers.  
 
What can you do with it?  Well to start with when you notice the student’s largest strength you can use that information as you plan target interventions.  You can of course also create behavioral goals based off the area that could use more strengthening.  Since it can be done 3 times a year there is time to run intervention phases and have integration and maintenance time before assessing again to see whether the interventions were effective.  If you have the same student’s multiple years you can continue to monitor growth.  It is a valuable formative assessment tool when monitoring effective behavioral and emotional programming for students who have already had diagnostic placement assessments, or even in tandem with them. 
 
Summed up…I recommend the BERS-2 if you are looking for a viable tool to measure your emotional behavioral intervention success.
Note: There is a BERS-3 but I have not used that…yet which is why this is geared more towards the BERS-2 which I have direct experience with.
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BERS-2 product link
BERS-3 product link