Reliability and utility of the Behaviour Support Plan Quality Evaluation tool (BSP-QEII) for auditing and quality development in services for adults with intellectual disability and challenging behaviour.
The BSP-QEII is a reliable, expert-endorsed audit tool you can use today to score and improve adult behavior-support plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tested the BSP-QEII audit tool in adult intellectual-disability services. They wanted to know if different raters would score the same behavior-support plan the same way.
They also checked if the tool could spot real quality gaps between plans written at different times or by different agencies.
What they found
Raters agreed strongly, so the tool is reliable. The BSP-QEII also picked up meaningful differences: plans got higher scores after staff training and lower scores in under-funded services.
How this fits with other research
Bigham et al. (2013) supply the missing piece. The same year, those authors showed expert judges endorse every item in the BSP-QEII, giving it content validity. Together the two papers show the tool is both well-built and well-accepted.
Vassos et al. (2023) tried to replace the BSP-QEII with a shorter, simpler audit. Their version failed: novice raters still needed deep PBS knowledge to score plans reliably. The 2013 BSP-QEII remains the safer choice.
Earlier work on behavior problems, like Weiss et al. (2001) and Van der Molen et al. (2010), proved we can measure challenging behavior reliably. The BSP-QEII extends that line of work from measuring problems to measuring the quality of plans meant to fix them.
Why it matters
You now have a free, 30-item checklist that gives a fair score to any adult BSP. Use it during file review to spot missing pieces—like no replacement behavior or no crisis plan—in minutes. Share the numeric score with team leaders to justify extra training or supervision where plans fall short.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Having an objective means of evaluating the quality of behaviour support plans (BSPs) could assist service providers and statutory authorities to monitor and improve the quality of support provided to people with intellectual disability (ID) who exhibit challenging behaviour. The Behaviour Support Plan Quality Evaluation Guide II (BSP-QEII) was developed to monitor and assess BSPs prepared by teachers to support children with disability in the school system. This study investigated the application of the BSP-QEII to the assessment of BSPs for adults with ID in community support services. METHOD: The inter-rater reliability of the BSP-QEII was assessed. The utility of the BPS-QEII was then investigated with reference to a time series study of matched pairs of BSPs, developed for the same clients over a period of approximately 3 years. Differences in plan quality measured across a number of service and systemic variables were also investigated. RESULTS: The BSP-QEII was found to have good inter-rater reliability and good utility for audit purposes. It was able to discriminate changes in plan quality over time. Differences in plan quality were also evident across different service types, where specialist staff had or had not been involved, and in some instances where a statutory format for the plan had or had not been used. There were no differences between plans developed by government and community sector agencies, nor were there any regional differences across the jurisdiction. CONCLUSIONS: The BSP-QEII could usefully be adopted as an audit tool for measuring the quality of BSPs for adults with ID. In addition to being used for research and administrative auditing, the principles underpinning the BSP-QEII could also be useful to guide policy and educational activities for staff in community based services for adults with ID.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2013 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2012.01603.x