Tailoring Interventions to Identified at-Risk Children to Optimize Outcomes

Introduction

This paper presentation will focus on topic of tailoring interventions. Tailoring interventions refers to determining ways of increasing the precision of intervention selection for certain individuals in order to enhance outcomes. Tailoring intervention is also referred to as matching or personalizing intervention strategies based on certain characteristics of the individual, context, and/or intervention. Both researchers and practitioners are guilty of employing a one-size-fits-all model that frequently fails to produce desired outcomes. However, recent interests among researchers across various areas of scientific inquiry, including prevention science, academic research, and school mental health, has spurred notable advancements with regard to developing approaches or tools that facilitate tailoring interventions strategies, with the end goal of promoting better care and outcomes for children and the systems in which they are embedded. 

This presentation will describe and present the results of research examining the Student Intervention Matching System (SIMS), which is an assessment-to-intervention protocol that practitioners can use to tailor specific evidence-based targeted interventions to identified emotionally and behaviorally at-risk students. The SIMS tailoring approach 

Methods

The results of both single case experimental research and a pilot randomized group study will be presented demonstrating the utility of the SIMS tailoring approach. Sample characteristics, procedures, measures, and data analytic methods will be discussed. Moreover, special attention will be paid to the importance of factoring in implementation components into the developmental process of an intervention in order to facilitate the adoption and use of it by practitioners working in real world circumstances.

Results

Results from both single case experimental studies and a pilot randomized group study revealed that the SIMS tailoring approach was associated with significantly better outcomes than an approach involving non-tailored interventions.

Conclusions

The conclusions drawn from this research is that interventions designed for identified at-risk children should be tailored in order to optimize outcomes. The SIMS represents one tailoring approach that can be utilized to increase the personalization and fit between the intervention and the child. Limitations of this research and directions for future research focused on tailoring interventions will be discussed.