Assessing treatment integrity in behavioral consultation

The trend in school psychology services is a shift from an emphasis on an assessment-based paradigm to one of consultation problem-solving and behavioral intervention. A critical component of consultation-derived interventions and behavior change is treatment integrity. Treatment integrity (or fidelity) refers to the extent to which an intervention is implemented as intended (or planned). Although its importance has been acknowledged in the literature, this construct has largely been neglected in consultation research and practice. This article describes practical approaches for assessing and monitoring the integrity of treatments implemented during the problem-solving process. A treatment-monitoring interview (TMI) is proposed as an initial step towards developing a technology to assess and facilitate treatment integrity in behavioral consultation practice. Limitations, implications for practice, and future research directions are discussed