A Review of Absenteeism and Truancy: Interventions and Universal Procedures

Implementing and utilizing functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) for truancy and chronic absenteeism grew in acceptance in the 1990s in an attempt to better understand why students choose to miss school (Lauchlan 2003). As Lauchlan notes, the primary rationale for utilizing FBAs is to identify a primary cause or causes for missing school and subsequently focusing on this perceived cause for the individual student as a means to construct programs to reduce truancy. This method serves as the basis of the book, which also includes a section on intervention procedures that may reduce truancy school-wide. Studies examining early interventions have found that implementing school-wide interventions among at-risk students significantly reduces truancy and absenteeism (Marvul 2012). There are also some studies supporting community or group interventions at reducing absenteeism over individualized treatments (Fantuzzo et al. 2005). Similarly, interventions that include the family as well as the student suggest lower rates of truancy than other comparable individualized interventions (Skola and Williamson 2012). Clearly, by combining the options of both individualized and group treatments, a majority of students can experience reductions in absenteeism. Behavioral treatment packages aimed at reducing truancy have also been found to be relatively effective (Enea and Dafinoiu 2009). This indicates that, for students who do not demonstrate a specific cause of truancy, a combination of treatments may be effective at reducing absenteeism. Other factors such as race may also be associated with the reasons why students are absent from school. Thomas et al. (2011) found that individualized treatments were most effective with Caucasian students, so the group- or family-style treatments may be best suited for minority students. Thus, race can be another factor to consider as practitioners select treatments for students and develop new packages and procedures.