School Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1996, pp.

189 - 203

A Critical Re-evaluation of Five Fundamental

Assumptions Underlying Behavioral Consultation
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George H. Noel I and Joseph C. Witt

Louisiana State University

In addition to being a service delivery model, behavioral consultation (BC) provides a

scientific model of how to bring about behavior change in a triadic process involving a
consultant, a consultee, and a client. This model is based on a number of assumptions about
what constitutes effective consultation. This article critically examines five fundamental
assumptions underlying BC and considers the possibility that alternative hypotheses may be
correct. This re-examination also examines the tremendous stability of BC over approxi-
mately 20 years and the role these assumptions have played in limiting the evolution of
behavioral approaches to consultation in schools.

The relationship between school psychology as a psychological subspecialty and

consultation as an area of research and service delivery is long standing. It can be
argued that psychological consultation targeting children and American school
psychology began in Lightner Witmer's child psychology clinic at the University
of Pennsylvania during the 1880s(Henning-Stout, 1993; Mannino& Shore, 1986).
While the emphasis on consultation within school psychology may not have been
great during all of the years following Witmer's pioneering work, consultation has
emerged as an important area of research and theoretical discourse among school
psychologists. The regular appearance of journal articles related to consultation as
well as the preferences of practioners (Reschly & Wilson, 1995) attests to the
current importance of consultation to school psychology.
While Witmer's work was generative for both school psychology and consultation,
it is not strongly connected to current themes of consultation in schools. Witmer's
work could be characterized as mental health consultation (Henning-Stout, 1993);
however, the bulk of current writing regarding consultation has focused on behavioral
consultation (Alpert & Yammer, 1983; Gresham & Kendell, 1987). Behavioral
Consultation (BC) emerged during the 1970s and crystallized in 1977 with Bergan's
seminal book (Bergan, 1977). The routine inclusion of chapters on BC in school
psychology reference texts provides evidence of the fundamental nature BC has

Correspondence should be addressed to George H. Noell, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State

University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803.

189
 190 NOELL AND WITT

begun to assume within school psychology. BC may be as integral to the current

conception of school psychology as Winner's consultation was to its genesis.
Despite BC's profound impact on writing within school psychology and the
completion of new texts and chapters on the subject (Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990;
Silfer, Cataldo, Babbitt, & Cataldo, 1993; Martens, 1993; Rotto, 1995), it has
changed little since its crystallization 19 years ago. While some changes in
emphasis (e.g., ecobehavior analysis, Zins & Erchul, 1995) and variations in
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procedures (e.g, conjoint BC, Sheridan, Kratochwill, & Elliott, 1990) are evident
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in the consultation literature, the core procedures have remained essentially con-
stant. The glacial pace of BC's evolution provides evidence for both the logical
and popular appeal of the original conception and its weak scientific status. The
evolution of models is a critical product of scientific activity, if not the primary
product of science. BC has been surprisingly ineffective as a scientific heuristic for
examining the process of behavior change through a triadic relationship.
It is worth noting that stability is not necessarily an indication that a model is
scientifically impotent. Many principles (e.g., gravity and entropy) in the physical
sciences have remained stable for decades. The critical issue is whether these
conceptions have served as useful springboards for new findings that elaborate our
understanding of the phenomena of interest. The basic principles of operant reinforce-
ment provide a useful case in point from the domains of psychology and behavior
analysis. While the basic principles of reinforcement have remained unchanged for
many years, they have served as a basis for new conceptions and research programs
that elaborate on the original statement. Research programs examining matching
(Herrnstein, 1961; Herrnstein, 1990) and behavioral momentum (Nevin, 1988)
derived from the reports of reinforcement, have added substantively to a behavioral
"model" of the universe, but have not as substantively modified the basic principles.
In contrast, BC has neither produced new findings that have substantively changed
our conceptions of triadic behavior change, nor has the model evolved itself.
The argument could be advanced that BC should not be evaluated as a scientific
model for triadic behavior change, but as a model for delivering interventions that
have been validated through research that is independent of BC. However, this
argument is unsatisfying because it assumes that the factors controlling consultee
and consultant behavior are either unimportant or not subject to scientific analysis.
The factors controlling consultee behavior are clearly important when considering
issues such as treatment integrity and utilization (Sechrest, 1982; Witt & Elliott,
1985) and there is no compelling reason to assume a priori that the factors
controlling consultee behavior are beyond scientific understanding. A recent
investigation by the present authors indicates that the factors controlling consultee
behavior are susceptible to experimental examination (Witt, Noell, LeFleur, &
Mortenson, 1996). The service delivery component of BC serves to increase the
importance of its scientific adequacy because it is a theory of behavior change that
will be applied in an attempt to meet requests for assistance.
 CONSULTATION ASSUMPTIONS 191

The stability of BC over two decades could be explained by the argument that it
is effective and does not need revision. The few studies available provide some
support for improvements in student functioning as a result of teacher contact with
consultants (Sheridan et al., 1990; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1989). However, the present
authors were unable to locate any experimental studies directly measuring consult-
ation's most direct effect: changes in teacher behavior as a function of BC contact.
At this point BC's ability to predict and control the phenomena of interest remains
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an open question with a very small body of supportive evidence. Equally as

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important as the status of the evidence supporting BC is the fact that powerful,
well-supported scientific models should still serve as heuristics in guiding the
development of their fields. In fact, the most strongly supported principle of
behavior analysis, reinforcement, has also served the strongest heuristic role.
Assuming that the heuristic value of a model is an important element in evalu-
ating its scientific merit, BC is deficient in this regard. Neither BC's special status
as a directly applied theory nor the current status of its supporting data account for
this failure. However, BC is clearly not logically deficient as an account of how
behavior change might work in a triadic process. If BC were logically deficient, it
is unlikely that it would have survived for approximately 20 years. Rather than any
conspicuous logical inadequacy, it is possible that BC's formalization may have
created a degree of orthodoxy that has stifled BC's continued evolution. BC may
have come to be regarded more like a crystal, elegant and rigid, than a scientific
model, evolving and subject to revision. The advocacy of a particular vehicle for
the application of behavioral technologies in schools may have interfered with the
re-examination of the vehicle and its continued evolution.

A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF FIVE ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING

BEHAVIORAL CONSULTATION

BC is a scientific model based on assumptions regarding controlling variables in a

triadic behavior change process. Due to the breadth of the model, these assumptions
are numerous. This article will seek to invigorate BC's evolution by reappraising
five fundamental assumptions on which BC is based (listed in Table 1). This
reappraisal identifies areas of investigation that may lead to strengthening BC as a
scientific model through confirmation of fundamental assumptions, or lead to
evolution of the model by the adoption of new assumptions. This reappraisal will
also seek to invigorate examination of BC by explicitly stating several of the
assumptions on which BC is based and considering the possibility that these
assumptions are in error. Given that part of the stimulus for this article is the absence
of data examining these assumptions, the discussion will draw selectively from the
applied behavior analytic literature. Alternative assumptions will be posited where
appropriate.
The authors also wish to acknowledge that the reappraisal of the assumptions
presented is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary consideration of the issues
 192 NOELL AND WITT

TABLE 1. Five Fundamental Assumptions made by Behavioral Consultation

Assumption 1: Consultation is a superior use of resources when compared to direct intervention.
Assumption 2: Consultation is most effective when conducted collaboratively.
Assumption 3: Talking to teachers is sufficient to cause them to change their behavior.
Assumption 4: Teachers will generalize problem solving skills developed in consultation to new
problem situations with other students.
Assumption 5: Direct contact between the consultant and client is unnecessary.
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discussed. A true scientific revolution would require an alternative model (Kuhn,

1970) which is lacking at this point. This reappraisal of fundamental assumptions
underlying BC is not intended as a rejection of the attempt to apply behavioral
technologies in classrooms, but as a stimulus for consideration of alternative ways
to approach this task. The bulk of the issues raised in this reappraisal would also
apply to the broader range of consultation in schools, such as school consultation
(Zins & Erchul, 1995). BC was chosen as the primary focus due to its higher degree
of specification and the greater volume of material on this subject.

Assumption 1: Consultation is a Superior Use of Resources When

Compared to Direct Intervention

The assumption that consulting is a superior use of resources when compared to

direct intervention is at the core of the development of BC. This assumption has
been either stated or implied in a variety of sources (Began & Kratochwill, 1990;
Martens, 1993; Zins & Erchul, 1995). Examined from a simple logical perspective
this assumption is necessary to justify the existence of BC. If direct intervention
with the client were a more efficient use of resources then it would be nonsensical
to advocate a less efficient method of service delivery. The superiority of consult-
ation over direct intervention with the client has been advanced on at least three
grounds. First, a consultative service delivery model is more efficient because it is
less time consuming than direct intervention. Second, consultation may be more
effective because it will permit implementation of the intervention in the client's
environment by the consultee. Third, consultative service delivery may be the only
viable alternative with the many competing responsibilities for professionals such
as school psychologists.
While efficiency is an important element in evaluating treatments, it is secondary
to consideration of effectiveness (Noell & Gresham, 1993). Efficiency is irrelevant
for treatments that do not produce desired or important changes in targeted
behaviors. If this latter statement is correct, then the efficacy of BC must be
established before the efficiency is considered. A number of reviews have con-
cluded that BC is effective (Alpert & Yammer, 1983; Medway, 1979; Medway &
 CONSULTATION ASSUMPTIONS 193

Updyke, 1985). While the studies contributing to these reviews have generally
reported that BC was effective, at least two serious concerns have been raised
regarding the data presented in many of these studies. The frequent absence of
adequate experimental control noted by Gresham and Kendell (1987) limits the
interpretability of many of the studies. Additionally, the over-reliance on teacher
report as the sole or primary dependent measure limits what is known about the
effectiveness of BC. Fuchs and Fuchs' (1989) component analysis of BC is
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illustrative because it included both behavioral observation and teacher report. The
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study revealed that positive changes in teachers' perceptions of the targeted

students were greater with more inclusive BC procedures, but that a corresponding
behavior change measured by direct observation did not occur. The specific BC
procedures studied appeared to be effective in changing teacher perceptions, but
apparently were not effective in changing student behavior.
While the applied behavior analytic literature does not provide direct evidence
regarding the efficacy or efficiency of BC, it does provide indirect support for BC' s
potential efficacy. Reviews of both the child behavior therapy (Webster-Stratton,
1993) and social skills training (DuPaul & Ekert, 1994) literatures indicate that
intervention is most likely to be effective when conducted in the targeted environ-
ment. Additionally, the behavior analytic literature has also demonstrated that
teachers can implement interventions in the natural environment when given
adequate support and training (e.g., Lalli, Browder, Mace, & Brown, 1993; Um-
breit, 1995) These factors provide support for the potential utility of developing
effective interventions that can be implemented by teachers.
While the available data are not overwhelmingly complete, pristine in their
scientific adequacy, or inclusive in their examination of critical dependent vari-
ables, they are generally supportive of BC's efficacy (Kratochwill, Elliott, & Busse,
1995). These generally positive results do obscure the failures of individual
participants in group studies such as Fuchs and Fuchs (1989) and studies that do
not provide support for BC (e.g., Wickstrom, 1995). What is glaringly absent from
these empirical data is comparison of BC to some other method of service delivery.
Simply put, BC has not been compared to direct intervention, child behavior
therapy, or a more behavior analytic approach to determine whether it is more
efficient than these approaches. The assumption that the time savings for the
consultant would necessarily make BC more efficient appears to have been
adopted. However, it is possible that the benefits of alternative approaches may be
sufficiently large to offset their costs and make them more efficient than BC. The
absence of these comparisons also precludes examination of the magnitude or
consistency of effectiveness. If significant differences in the magnitude or reliabil-
ity of behavior change exist, comparisons of efficiency may be unimportant.
Adoption of the logical negative of this assumption is not supported by the
available data. Additionally, assuming that alternative approaches to behavior
change are more efficient than BC is likely to end rather than accelerate BC's
 194 NOELL AND WITT

development. Exploring the boundaries of this assumption appears more likely to

be productive. It is certainly possible that the currently advocated three interview
(Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990; Martens, 1993) format for BC may not be the most
efficient form of consultation for some or all cases. The component analysis
discussed earlier (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1989) provides an excellent example of testing
this assumption. The reality that all cases will not be resolvable through BC seems
self apparent. This raises interesting questions regarding for whom and under what
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circumstances is BC efficient.
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Assumption 2: Consultation is Most Effective When Conducted

Collaboratively

The term collaboration has been a fundamental tool in the construction of school-
based consultation. If the term did not exist, we would have invented it. BC and
school based consultation developed in a societal context where egalitarian notions
of human relationships are predominate over anything resembling a hierarchy. The
societal context converged with earlier work on consultation (e.g., Caplan, 1970)
to drive BC to develop a modus operandi which specifies a co-equal status between
psychologist and teacher. It is interesting to note that this co-equal status serves to
devalue any expert content knowledge (i.e., instruction, learning, and behavior
management) the consultant may possess because this would create an unequal
relationship. This subtle side effect of the collaboration assumption may have even
given some consumers the impression that content knowledge is unnecessary to be
an effective consultant.
Beyond the cultural milieu, a number of specific authors (e.g., Caplan, 1970) and
studies (e.g., Reinking, Livesay, & Kohl, 1978) have contributed to the adoption
of collaboration as an important element of BC. Unfortunately, the seminal studies
often cited in support of the importance of collaboration may are not as relevant to
intervention implementation in schools as the citations would make it appear. The
problem with many of the seminal studies in consultation and, for that matter, the
problem with most consultation studies is an over-reliance on the self-report of
teachers. If you ask someone, "Do you prefer to be involved in decisions about
what you will be doing and what will be happening in your classroom?," does
anyone really expect that they will say, no they don't like being involved?
Despite the early support for collaborative consultation (e.g., Parsons & Meyers,
1984), contradictory findings have also been reported. Studies by Erchul and his
colleagues (Erchul, 1987; Witt et al., 1991), using the BC model, produced data
which suggested that teachers actually exposed to consultants preferred those who
were more directive. Wickstrom (1995) systematically varied whether consultants
using the BC model were either expert or collaborative. Collaboration was opera-
tionalized as asking for and accepting input from consultees on several key aspects
of intervention development and implementation. Wickstrom (1995) found no
differences in either teacher satisfaction or the degree to which the intervention
 CONSULTATION ASSUMPTIONS 195

was implemented with integrity as a function of the consultant behaving is an expert

or a collaborative manner.
An important element of evaluating this small group of studies examining
collaboration is acknowledging that only one study (Wickstrom, 1995) examined
teacher behavior. The few studies examining the importance of collaboration have
produced mixed results, that may reflect methodological factors. Most of these
studies have examined teacher preferences, rather than a variable directly effecting
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the student (e.g., teacher behavior change). The only study examining implemen-
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tation (Wickstrom, 1995) did not provide support for the importance of collabora-
tion in producing treatment implementation.
While the collaborative assumption enjoys widespread support, there have been
significant barriers to its scientific examination. Collaboration is so integral to the
practice of consultation that collaboration is seldom considered to be an inde-
pendent variable; rather, if collaboration is not present, then whatever process is
being conducted is not consultation. Hence, there have been relatively few studies
conducted to examine specifically whether being collaborative enhances the effec-
tiveness of the consultant. Hampering research in this area is a clear definition of
collaboration or, more accurately, an operational definition. In order to study it we
must be able to measure it. Absent is a list of the specific behaviors, which, if
performed by a consultant, would cause the unbiased observer to conclude that
collaboration had occurred. Also, if one is not being collaborative, then what is it
that one is being? What is consultant behavior at the other end of the spectrum
called? Words like expert, domineering, and prescriptive begin to emerge.
In contrast to traditional collaborative processes, behaviorally oriented consult-
ants are producing promising results using procedures which are more prescriptive
than collaborative. Watson and Robinson (this issue), for example, discuss proce-
dures which achieve positive results but which are markedly prescriptive. Our own
work (Witt et al., 1996) casts the psychologist in the role of assessing the problem,
developing an intervention that is effective, testing the intervention on the child,
and, after determining the intervention is effective with the specific child, using
behavioral procedures to teach the intervention to the teacher and to insure that it
is used with integrity. While teacher input is taken into consideration, it is the
habilitative effects of treatment, rather than teacher preference, which ultimately
determines what is used (Witt, Gresham, & Noell, in press).
The possibility that consultation might be most effective if conducted in some-
thing other than a collaborative model is already being discussed and explored by
a small set of investigators. These investigators are examining the possibility that
technical assistance to teachers and expert consultant knowledge should play a
central role in consultation. This may lead to the rejection of the original assump-
tion, the development of an alternative set of procedures that are desirable for some
cases, or may ultimately support the original assumption. Whatever the results of
this new line of investigation, testing the collaboration assumption should serve to
expand our understanding of how to change student and teacher behavior.
 196 NOELL AND WITT

Assumption 3: Talking to Teachers is Sufficient to Cause Them to

Change Their Behavior

This may be the most pervasive assumption permeating BC. The procedures for
BC outlined by various authors (Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990; Kratochwill, Elliott,
& Rotto, 1995; Martens, 1993) describe a series of verbal interchanges or inter-
views that constitute the core BC process. However, BC does not assume that the
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referral problem resides within the teacher and that talking with them will change
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the problem. The assumption made is that as a result of these interviews, the teacher
will return to the classroom and emit new behaviors that were planned in the
interview. These behaviors include both assessment activities, such as collecting
baseline data, and implementing the intervention. It is then assumed that these new
teacher behaviors will result in remediation of the referral concern.
The empirical support for this assumption is limited. The current authors were
unable to locate any experimentally controlled studies which measured teacher
behavior change as a function of BC. A previous survey of practicing school
psychologists reported that approximately half of the teachers receiving consult-
ation services implemented the intervention (Happe, 1982). This estimate was
based on the retrospective and subjective evaluations of consulting school psychol-
ogists. The relationship of these consultant recollections to more direct measures
of treatment integrity is unknown. The studies that were located reporting on
teacher intervention integrity as a result of BC (e.g., Sheridan et al., 1990) relied
upon teacher self-report. The exclusive reliance on teacher self-report of treatment
integrity is particularly damaging in light of recent findings. Wickstrom (1995)
found that all 33 teachers studied reported high levels of treatment integrity.
However, direct observation revealed that the teachers were implementing the
intervention on less than 10% of the relevant occasions, despite an observer being
present in the classroom. Although this study has not yet been subjected to peer
review, it does indicate that the historic reliance on teacher report may have led to
gross inflations of estimates of the actual rate of treatment implementation.
The larger data base of applied behavior analysis also casts doubt on the viability
of this assumption. The assumption that teachers will carry out intervention plans
developed in consultation can be considered a generalization problem. The assump-
tion could be restated as: verbal descriptions of behaviors by a consultant in one
setting are sufficient for teachers to emit those behaviors at another time in another
setting. A cursory examination of the generalization literature indicates that this
assumption is unlikely to be correct. For example, a recent review of generalization
in studies of preschool children's social skills (Chandler, Lubeck, & Fowler, 1992)
found that the studies that were most likely to produce generalization employed a
combination of antecedent (e.g., prompting) and consequent strategies (e.g., feed-
back) to establish the behavior, while the least successful studies relied more often
on antecedent strategies alone (e.g., instructions). This finding is particularly
crucial for BC given the nearly exclusive reliance on antecedent descriptions of
 CONSULTATION ASSUMPTIONS 197

behavior (Problem Analysis Interview, Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990) as a teacher

behavior change tactic. Interestingly, even the brief follow up contacts suggested
by Bergan and Kratochwill's (1990) text do not constitute a truly consequent
strategy for behavior change, as they are not dependent upon an assessment of
treatment integrity.
Despite the weak empirical support for the assumption that teachers will imple-
ment interventions as a function of verbal interactions with consultants, it retains
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its appeal based on the observation of everyday behavior. On at least some

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occasions individuals do change their behavior following verbally presented infor-

mation. Based on readily available data and common sense it appears more
plausible to assume that teachers will change their behavior on some occasions as
a result of consultation interviews, but not on others. This is not a very satisfying
assumption on which to base a model for behavior change and service delivery.
However, adoption of this assumption opens BC to a wide range of important
inquiries that could yield important changes in what school psychology knows
about consulting with teachers. Adoption of this assumption clarifies the need for
programmatic research examining the individual and contextual variables that
determine when interventions will be implemented. This type of research would
create the necessity for a more elaborate description of how to obtain adequate
treatment integrity and should reinvigorate the evolution of BC.

Assumption 4: Teachers Will Generalize Problem Solving Skills

Developed in Consultation to New Problem Situations with Other
Students

Examined from a behavior analytic perspective, this assumption and assumption 3

are simply different dimensions of the same issue. Are the currently accepted BC
procedures sufficient to produce generalization across relevant persons as well as
time and settings? Will the teacher use the intervention developed through consult-
ation or its component elements again with another student? Increasing consultee
competencies has been identified as one of the goals of consultation (Bergan &
Kratochwill, 1990; Martens, 1993). This increased competency would be evi-
denced when the teacher emitted the intervention behaviors previously acquired
through consultation to meet the needs of a different student. Within the consult-
ation literature issues of initial treatment integrity and this long term change in
teacher competency have been discussed as substantially different issues. Given
the limited extent to which teacher treatment integrity has been measured, it is not
surprising that empirical examination of intervention use after the initial case has
been limited.
Some indirect evidence for long term effects of consultation services on teacher
behavior is provided by reports of implementation of prereferral consultation
services. Several studies have reported decreases in the rate of psychoeducational
evaluations for referred students following implementation of consultation and
 198 NOELL AND WITT

prereferral intervention (Graden, Casey, & Bonstrom, 1985; Gutkin, Henning-

Stout, & Piersel, 1988; Ponti, Zins, & Graden, 1988). Several limitations with
regard to generalizing from these studies to BC should be noted. First, the delivery
of consultation was not controlled and may not have been congruent with the BC
model. Secondly, the strength of the evidence for the controlling effect of prerefer-
ral consultation is equivocal in each study individually due to the absence of
experimental control. Finally, no direct measures of teacher intervention use were
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obtained in these studies of large scale system change.

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While these three case studies do not provide clear indications of how interven-
tion usage may be related to changes in the rate of psychoeducational assessment,
they do raise a number of interesting questions. Did the rate of psychoeducational
evaluation drop due to the use and generalization of effective prereferral interven-
tions? Did the rate of evaluation drop due to greater advanced scrutiny of potential
evaluation cases, with improbable candidates being diverted from evaluation? Did
the rate of evaluation drop due to the greater opportunity cost (e.g., time and
meetings) for initiating referrals? While these studies provide evidence of the
impact of more generic consultation at a systems level, the types of dependent
variables employed in evaluating changes in systems do not provide information
regarding the consultation procedures which were effective at an individual level.
Examining the issue of teacher skill development and generalization of interven-
tions to new referral concerns raises an interesting and complex issue regarding the
appropriateness of this generalization. It would appear that the most probable basis
for teacher generalization of interventions would be recognition of a similar
problematic behavioral topography. The topography rather than the function of
behavior is more likely to be salient and distressing to the teacher. If the original
intervention was successful because it was based on an accurate assessment of the
controlling variables and/or skill levels for the original referral student, it may or
may not be effective for the subsequent student. The original intervention may have
been effective because it correctly targeted a student's critical skill deficit, while
the student presenting the apparent generalization opportunity exhibits a perform-
ance deficit which requires different intervention elements, despite similarities in
topography. Similarly, the time out that was a functional and effective intervention
for the student whose behavior was maintained by social reinforcement is likely to
prove disastrous with a student whose behavior is maintained by escape (Plummer,
Baer, & LeBlanc, 1977; Solnick, Rincover, & Peterson, 1977). The interesting
subtlety evident when this level of generalization is considered from a behavior
analytic perspective is that it is a discrimination as well as a generalization task.
Specific data on how to prepare teachers to generalize interventions to appropri-
ate opportunities and discriminate these from topographically similar, but function-
ally dissimilar opportunities does not exist within BC. It is worth acknowledging
that this is a level of refinement that will not be relevant until a more definitive
understanding of the procedures necessary to achieve adequate treatment integrity
are understood. Extensive consideration of alternative assumptions appears to be
 CONSULTATION ASSUMPTIONS 199

premature for the same reasons. It is worth stating that there is considerable
empirical basis for assuming that teachers will not consistently generalize and
accurately discriminate in the absence of some type of programming for this distal
BC outcome (Johnston & Pennypacker, 1993; Stokes & Baer, 1977; Stokes &
Osnes, 1989). However, consideration of this type of issue does highlight the
potential wealth of understanding that could be developed regarding the application
of behavior analytic principles in educational settings.
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Assumption 5: Direct Contact Between the Consultant and Client is

Unnecessary

This BC assumption is the least central of those reviewed in this article. Obviously
this is not an assumption that has been advanced as an advantage of the traditional
BC model. Rather than explicitly stating that direct assessment or contact with the
client is unnecessary, the model emphasizes collecting data regarding client behav-
ior through the Problem Identification and Problem Analysis Interviews. In addi-
tion to these data, the teacher would typically be asked to collect baseline data
between these interviews. As a result of strict adherence to the procedures outlined
by Bergan and Kratochwill (1990) it would be perfectly plausible to consult without
ever seeing the target student/client. The authors were unable to locate any test of
the importance of student - consultant contact in the consultation literature. We
simply do not know anything empirically about the validity of this tacit assumption
ofBC.
The strong emphasis on direct measurement in the behavior analytic literature
has not lent itself to comparison of interventions derived from interview alone
versus direct assessment. Behavior analytic assessment techniques such as func-
tional analyses and observational measurement have required direct contact with
the participants. A recent report of combined functional and descriptive analyses
performed on the same participant by Umbreit (1995) provides some insight into
this issue. The assessment activities, functional analysis, observations, and inter-
views (including a student interview), contributed different data that led to the
inclusion of additional elements in the final intervention package. If the interven-
tion had been developed solely on the basis of the teacher interview data reported,
it would not have had elements addressing all of the maintaining variables identi-
fied through direct assessment. The case presented in the Umbreit (1995) study
serves an important reminder that assessment results are dependent on assessment
methods and that exclusive reliance on one method, such as interview, will
necessarily affect results (Campbell & Fiske, 1959).
Two equally self-apparent statements derive from the discussion above. First,
the exclusive reliance on teacher interview will inevitably bias and limit assessment
results. Secondly, any other form of assessment is time consuming and reduces the
efficiency of BC. The conflict between these statements communicates the tension
between time efficiency and procedures that are sufficiently comprehensive to be
 200 NOELL AND WITT

reliably effective across referrals. Consultants may be able to design some effective
interventions based solely on teacher reports and observation, but this single
assessment tool is unlikely to be reliably accurate.
Alternative hypotheses regarding the functions of direct assessment in BC cover
a wide range of possibilities. Direct assessment may serve to decrease teacher
resistance by increasing the apparent legitimacy of the assessment procedures and
the resulting intervention recommendations. The consultant's recommendations
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seem more plausible and reality-based, because she or he has met with, observed,
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or assessed the target student. An additional hypothesis is that direct assessment of

the target student is particularly important, because the teacher is likely to have a
poorer understanding of referred student's behavior than the typical student. The
teacher's request for assistance may be driven in part by a lack of understanding
of this particular student's behavior. This lack of understanding or misunderstand-
ing may in turn prevent effective instructional planning for this student, which in
turn generates problems producing referral. The most obviously plausible hypothe-
sis is that some level of direct assessment of client functioning will be beneficial
or necessary. The more complex and interesting task would be to develop useful
tools and guides for selecting when to use which assessment tools within BC.

SUMMARY

The five fundamental BC assumptions that are examined in this article have all
remained static for at least 19 years. The retention of these assumptions over this
period of time has served as the basis for only limited examination of other issues
related to a triadic behavior change process. The lack of research production in the
area of BC may reflect more on the difficulty of conducting consultation research
(Gresham & Kendell, 1987) and on the contingencies in place for those individuals
conducting research. Whatever the nature of the contingencies in the research
community, BC has not served as a sufficient stimulus for development of pro-
grammatic research.
As noted in the introduction, the absence of change in the core BC model does
not necessarily indicate that its assumptions are incorrect. It simply indicates that
it has not been a theoretically stimulating heuristic. The early adoption of an
orthodox BC with little substantive competition in the behavioral domain may have
served to dwarf BC's development. This same orthodoxy may also have stifled
examination of plausible alternative models for the application of applied behavior
analysis in a triadic format. The review presented in this article attempted to
challenge this orthodoxy by reevaluating fundamental assumptions, noting
contradictory evidence, and considering the possibility that these assumptions are
incorrect.
While the fundamental assumptions underlying BC reviewed above were pre-
sented as an attempt to invigorate the evolution of BC, it is possible that they could
provoke revolutionary activity. Reconsideration of fundamental assumptions could
 CONSULTATION ASSUMPTIONS 201

serve to spark the emergence of an alternative model for the delivery of behavioral
intervention in schools. The emergence of a competing model for triadic behavior
change designed to solve problems is almost certain to create controversy. While
controversy and completion between paradigms can be uncomfortable, it can also
serve to guide science to the examination of critical variables and accelerate the
development of science (Witt, 1993). The fusion of school psychology, behavior
analysis, and consultation would benefit from such an acceleration, whether it
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

originates in an evolutionary change in BC or a revolutionary new model, taking

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

investigation in an entirely unanticipated direction.

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Action Editor: George H. Noell

Acceptance Date: May 20, 1996