Defining, Designing, and Delivering ABA School Programs for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Suzanne Letso, M.A., BCBA, Connecticut Center for Child Development
Introduction
There is now a substantive and growing body of research that clearly demonstrates that the application of educational strategies based on applied behavior analytic learning principles can result in significant learning outcomes for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (Sallows & Graupner, 2005; Howard, Sparkman, Cohen, Green, & Stanislaw, 2005; Eikeseth, Smith, Jahr, & Eldevick, 2002; Green, Brennan, & Fein, 2002; Smith, Groen, & Wynne, 2000; Weiss, 1999; Smith, 1999; Matson, Benavidez, Compton, Paclawskyj, & Baglio, 1996; Perry, Cohen, & De Carlo, 1995; Birnbrauer & Leach, 1993; McEachin, Smith, & Lovaas, 1993; Lovaas, 1987; Anderson, Avery, DiPietro, Edwards,& Christian, 1987; Fenske, Zalenski, Krantz, & McClannahan, 1985). This body of evidence has fueled the demand for educational services based on applied behavior analysis (ABA), which has dramatically increased over the last two decades, particularly for students with autism. Both public and private agencies are striving to create new educational programs, and to increase both the quality and availability of behaviorally-based services to meet this growing demand.
Defining ABA Programs
In general, private ABA school programs for children with autism are conceived as a special education classroom within a special education campus, and in-district public school programs are typically either a special education classroom within a regular education campus, or a pre-school classroom with both typical and special needs students (Leaf, Taubman, & McEachin, 2008, p. 17). Although there are some significant differences in the design and implementation of private versus public schools, there are a number of factors that remain constant across both program categories. In either situation, program developers must garner and sustain administrative and parent support; develop a management and leadership philosophy; generate individualized programming; determine staffing levels, structure, and implement a staff training protocol; allocate space, curriculum, and materials; develop accountability systems; and identify and measure student outcomes. Accomplishing all these requirements is no small feat, particularly for those with no previous experience in system development and the lack of published guides or manuals detailing the program development process specific to this educational genre and student population.
The Planning Process
Far too frequently, the planning process begins and ends with development of an individual student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Regardless of whether a program is being designed for a single student or a multi-classroom school program, effective educational programs require a great deal of planning and preparation beyond the goals and objectives identified in an IEP to ensure success. In addition to this misconception, there are a number of other common obstacles that can inhibit success of program design or implementation.
There is often the perception that ABA can operate as a separate design component offered independent from other services such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, or other special education instructional strategies. Each specialist may design unique goals, objectives, and instructional strategies based upon their discipline’s unique educational philosophies and competing problem solving models. Rather than generating a true team approach to education, this model results in educational “silos” that inhibit collaboration and comprehensive programming. The “Tell Me What’s Wrong” model of supervision also persists, where a behavior analysts periodically checks in on student progress, problems are identified, and solutions proposed, rather than a thorough assessment of student needs, development of customized instructional strategies, and staff trained to competently implement instruction and measure behavior change.
Some educators or administrators believe discrete trial instruction (DTI) to be synonymous with ABA or data collection; that data collection cannot occur in the general education environment; or assume that a one-to-one ratio of staf-to-students is always required regardless of the student’s individual profile. On the other hand, the expectation that one-to-one support can be provided throughout a school day with one paraprofessional assigned per student can also limit functional implementation of goals and objectives when daily scheduling of lunch and staff breaks, staff outages, or staff turnover functionally reduce the staffing ratio available to teach throughout the day.
School policies, such as limiting paraprofessional schedules to the hours of the school day when children are present, hinder the ability to adequately prepare materials, preclude graphic display of accumulated data and subsequent analysis, forestall staff updates regarding program modifications, and limits daily opportunities for staff training.
It is not uncommon for those in the process of developing a new classroom or program to try to replicate the administrative and clinical structure other successful programs. While it is important to assess the common characteristics of effective ABA programs, actual replication may either not be possible, or ineffective. Since the goal of an ABA program is to design unique solutions to human performance problems, grafting an existing model onto a different environment that encompasses unique student and staff needs may ultimately be less successful than customizing services within a novel program configuration. One alternative approach is to ensure that the basic design elements of an ABA program (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968) are embodied in the program, and those design elements are modified as needed to meet the emerging needs of a growing and changing student population including:
- Applying individualized programming that targets socially important skills and generating socially significant outcomes across environments and the life span;
Behavioral definitions that are observable and measurable;
- Analytic assessment based on direct observation, systematic data collection, and display for all behaviors of interest, in all environments of interest, and utilized to modify both instructional targets and teaching methods; Technologically valid instructional methods, and interpretation of relevant aspects of behavior change;
- Conceptually systematic strategies selected from empirically validated basic principles and teaching procedures;
- Effective interventions that produce new, socially valued repertoires of skills including skills that are only utilized in home or community settings; develop competence and independence; and reduce dangerous, maladaptive, stereotypic, and disruptive behaviors that interfere with life and learning;
- Generalization strategies designed to translate into other environments beyond the school setting, and across different people and conditions.
Publicly funded special education requires that a team assemble to develop an (IEP) based on an assessment of a student’s current level of performance; need for special education services; and identification of specific goals, objectives, and resources to adequately implement the student’s IEP. No additional planning or team collaboration is required, although generally imperative to successful implementation. Not only should additional planning occur for an individual child, but a written plan of action should be developed so that all of the team knows what will be done and who is responsible for accomplishing specific tasks regardless of whether the program is developed for one student, one class, or an entire school program. A written plan delineates the scope of the program, creates a time line, identifies staffing requirements, determines costs of human and other resources required, facilitates identification of differences of opinion or interpretation, helps builds consensus, and solidifies team member support of the activities and resources needed to achieve the desired results. The plan could include the following components:
- Student population, i.e., age, functioning level, and number of children;
- Location, configuration, and space requirements;
- Staffing requirements and credentials;
- Job descriptions for every person necessary for IEP implementation;
- Staff training plan and competency measures;
- Internal/external inspections and approvals, i.e., Fire Marshall, Health Department, State Department of Special Education, or school superintendent;
- Furniture, equipment, materials, and curricula;
- Timeline, man hours, milestones, and start date;
- Staffing ratios and schedules;
- Hierarchy and accountability systems;
- The cost of implementing versus not implementing the program;
- Getting the program up and running versus sustaining the program.
Effective Staff Training
A critical aspect of program development and operation is design and implementation of an effective staff training protocol. There is a large body of research supporting the need for direct, hands-on training , and includes task clarification, modeling, prompting, performance feedback in addition to didactic instruction (Welsh, Miller, & Altus, 1994; Neef, 1995; Cook & Dixon, 2005; Mozingo, Smith, Riordan, Reiss, & Bailey, 2006; Seligson, Petscher, & Bailey, 2006; Gravina, VanWagner, & Austin, 2008). “The key to developing people is to pinpoint the behaviors that are critical to any job function and provided guided practice of those behaviors,” (Daniels & Daniels 2005, p. 176).
This is not to say that didactic training is completely without merit. Didactic instruction may be useful to foster a shared verbal repertoire, and identify classroom priorities. Common staff development elements might include delineation of signs and symptoms of autism and secondary diagnoses, discussion of what ABA is, how it is applied, basic concepts and terms, overview of basic strategies, defining socially significant outcomes and utility for staff, student, family, and community success.
Aspects of staff training and on-going supervision that may enhance direct instruction in a classroom setting include:
- Staff instruction occurring in the environment where the behavior will be needed;
- Focuses on basic behavioral strategies such as shaping and modeling;
- An initial focus on behavior that is needed with the highest frequencies to work with students such as delivering positive reinforcement and data collection methods;
- Begins with what staff can either already do, or are predicted to be successful at most of time;
- Builds from short to longer periods of staff independence;
- Builds from easy to more complex skills;
- Customized to students’ current level of performance;
- Clearly defined behaviors of interest for improved staff performance;
- Competency based measurement of both staff behaviors and student impact;
- Practice until staff achieve mastery;
- Pyramidal training or “teaching to teach others” (Page, Iwata, & Reid, 1982; Shore, Iwata, Vollmer, Lerman, & Zarcone, 1995; Parsons & Reid, 1995).
System Development
Although staff development is a major component of programmatic success, it is not synonymous with overall system development. System development includes generation of new resources and methods of creating or improving staff credentials and competencies so that either reliance on external resources such as consultants are reduced, or additional students or services can be added to the program. Administrative buy-in and support appear to be integral to the process of system development, although definitive research supporting this perspective is limited at this time because the social significance of administrative functions are difficult to measure, and direct effects on student welfare are hard to pinpoint (Reid, Parsons & Green, 1989, pp. 171-196).
Developing Motivational Systems
Motivating staff, parents, and the school community as well as students is an essential aspect of an ABA program. Data collection and measurement of both staff and student performance is not only a necessary for objective evaluation of results, but can become an integral component of effective motivational systems. Visual display of either staff or student progress can be a potent motivating factor. Determining other possible methods of reinforcing staff behavior is necessary, and pre-selection of personnel that appear to be intrinsically motivated by student performance may contribute to high rates of staff reinforcement.
Parent Involvement
Maintaining parent involvement is sometimes a challenge, particularly when a program is still evolving, or student progress is stalled. It is important to remember that a parent’s job description can be quite extensive and include a number of different areas of responsibilities such as teaching, parenting, evaluating progress, and program administration. Therefore, a clear understanding of the parent’s role and responsibilities may go a long way to ensuring clarity of purpose and reduction of conflict with school personnel. Select targets that positively impact quality of life for the student and family may also foster parent participation in training and home instruction. While student progress is a potent reinforcer for parents, it is not the only motivating variable and parents will benefit from positive feedback as much as the staff. Maintaining positive parent and school staff communications is also critical to on-going collaboration and parental support.
Program Evaluation
Measuring individual student outcomes, staff performance, and overall program parameters generates tools to ensure the continuing support of parents, employees, administrators, and the broader community. Data collection and accountability systems can ensure that team has a means of identifying problems before they become major issues, or are identified by outsiders rather than identified and addressed by the program leadership. Elements of program operation that can be measured include observable staff competencies following training, student progress, staff turnover, actual costs versus budgeted costs, task completion as compared to the written program development plan, parent satisfaction questionnaires or rate of accessing administrative remedies such as due process, and employee satisfaction surveys. An evaluation conducted by an external reviewer can also contribute useful information to ensure that the program remains viable and sustainable over time.
IDEA versus Professional Codes of Ethics
As professionals, we are each bound by our own code of ethics, which generally states that we will all strive to give our best efforts to those we serve. This is in direct contrast with our IDEA mandate that states that we shall provide a (minimally) appropriate education to students with disabilities. Is our professional code of ethics in conflict with our federal mandate? If so, then the challenge for us is to ensure that we continue to meet our legal and ethical obligation to provide the best services we can, and to work to enlighten and change the systems that imply that our best efforts are not vital to our student’s education and well being.
For some learners, including many with autism, excellence is the only standard of instruction that is minimally appropriate. Otherwise these children may not be able to learn very much, or anything at all. The onus is on us not only to strive for professional excellence ourselves, but to inspire professional excellence in others. “The best leaders produce the most new leaders,” (Daniels & Daniels, (2005) p. 84). Together we can create improved educational programs and a brighter future for children with autism.
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