Abstract: Over the last century, diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has continuously increased, drastically changing education systems across the country as more and more students with autism, as well as other disabilities, are educated in public school settings. Higher rates of maladaptive and challenging behaviors are often observed in classrooms, as one significant area of development that is often associated with a diagnosis of autism is behavior regulation. The field of education continues to shift theory and practice to better accommodate and teach children of all abilities in public school settings. Further, school personnel are often required to implement high levels of intervention to support and meet the needs of all students in accessing presented curriculum and instruction. Research identifies an overall lack of training and behavioral skills in teacher preparation programs to effectively intervene on challenging behavior while maintaining high quality instruction. In order to meet the needs of all students educated in public school settings, Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) are increasingly utilized in a consultation model of collaboration, aiming to develop effective behavior interventions for students with challenging behavior. In order to create sustainable interventions in classrooms, one major factor that should be considered is the contextual fit of potential behavior plans. Further, it is critical that interventions include analysis of contextual fit during the development phase of interventions to ensure plans created by BCBAs can easily be implemented in the already occurring systems and supports of each unique classroom. This leads to higher positive outcomes of intervention for students and teachers, as intervention easily fits into the particular nuances of each classroom. Ultimately, this strong contextual fit leads to high fidelity of implementation of developed plans. This panel will discuss barriers and constraints that affect high fidelity of implementation in school settings, as well as present an interview protocol developed as a tool to guide BCBAs in development of intervention plans from the onset of the consultation experience. This interview tool aims to identify contributing factors to sustainability of interventions in each unique classrooms in order to develop behavior intervention plans that are individualized to the student and particular classroom, ensuring that they are effective, feasible, and sustainable. |