Interventions, Counseling, and Mental Health Services
This domain tests selection, implementation, and evaluation of academic, behavioral, and mental health interventions. Items often give a function or a presenting problem and ask for the intervention most likely to work, or ask you to spot an implementation flaw such as poor fidelity or a mismatch to function.
Choosing and running interventions
- Select evidence-based interventions matched to the identified deficit or behavior function, then monitor progress and adjust.
- Treatment integrity (fidelity) and dosage determine whether a nonresponse is a true nonresponse; weak implementation invalidates the decision.
- Academic tools: explicit instruction with modeling and guided practice, corrective feedback, repeated reading, peer tutoring, cover-copy-compare, concrete–representational–abstract sequencing, mnemonics, self-monitoring.
- Behavior tools: antecedent modification, differential reinforcement (DRA, DRO, DRI), token economies, behavior contracts, shaping, chaining, extinction, response cost. Punishment is a last resort and carries procedural-safeguard implications.
Counseling and mental health
- CBT targets distorted cognitions and avoidance; behavioral approaches use exposure and reinforcement; solution-focused counseling uses the miracle question and scaling; motivational interviewing uses OARS (open questions, affirmations, reflections, summaries) within the stages of change.
- Group counseling typically serves four to eight students with shared needs, screened for fit, with confidentiality limits stated up front.
- Crisis response follows the PREPaRE framework: prevent and prepare, reaffirm physical safety and perceptions of safety, evaluate psychological trauma, provide interventions, respond to psychological needs, examine the effectiveness of crisis prevention and intervention.
- Suicide risk assessment requires asking directly about ideation, plan, means, and intent; no-harm contracts are not recommended. Notify parents or guardians, connect to a safety plan, and document. Threat assessment is a separate, team-based process.
- SEL follows CASEL's five competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making. Trauma-informed practice emphasizes safety, predictability, and relationships.
Worked example
A fourth grader tears worksheets and shouts during independent math, and an FBA shows the behavior reliably ends the task. The function is escape. A function-matched plan combines antecedent modification (chunked work, pre-teaching), teaching a replacement (requesting a break or help), and differential reinforcement of the replacement. Time-out would reinforce escape and is contraindicated.
Traps that cost marks
Choosing punishment before determining function. Ignoring treatment integrity. Counseling a student without parental consent. Promising absolute confidentiality. Applying one universal program to every problem.