Association for Behavior Analysis International

Children with autism and other developmental disabilities experience the most significant and positive long-term outcomes when they are exposed to high dosages of well-delivered evidence-based practices, that are grounded in applied behavior analysis. Unfortunately, geographical and economical factors impede access to services (Yingling et al., 2021) resulting in poor long-term trajectories for individuals with disabilities. Alternative methods, such as training natural agents (e.g. teachers, parents, peers) to implement evidence-based practices in typical, inclusive settings and utilization of telehealth services can help to mitigate these disparities and ensure that children with developmental disabilities have frequent, ongoing exposure to effective evidence-based practices. This symposium explores the efficacy of training programs including teacher, paraeducator, and parents, as well as telehealth modalities aimed at increasing access to evidence-based practices for individuals with developmental disabilities. Attendees will learn strategies for provision of services for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities including via telehealth and training protocols.

BCBAs, faculty

Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience academic challenges, including poor reading comprehension skills. Engagement in challenging behavior can further exacerbate reading challenges and lead to missed instructional time and reading performance below grade-level standards. Multicomponent behavioral interventions that target academic and behavioral difficulties can lead to improvements across developmental domains. This study evaluated the effects of telehealth-implemented shared storybook reading, differential reinforcement, and contingent praise on reading comprehension and challenging behavior outcomes of an adolescent with ASD and a suspected learning disability using a multiple-baseline design across reading content areas. Results indicated that shared storybook reading increased independent reading comprehension scores for grade-level reading materials across content areas. Implementation of the behavioral intervention resulted in moderate to large decreases in challenging behavior. Qualitative and quantitative social validity analyses indicated that the participant with ASD and his mother found the interventions practical and effective. Recommendations for practitioners and implications for future research are discussed.

Students with moderate-to-severe developmental disabilities (MSDD) have complex educational needs, requiring more intensive support including evidence-based practices (EBPs) implemented with high fidelity. When EBPs are implemented with high fidelity, students are more likely to acquire academic skills, increase functional skills, and improve adaptive behavior. Often, paraeducators provide services to students with MSDD, although, they are often undertrained to deliver high-quality evidence-based interventions. Additionally, teachers report they are not adequately prepared to supervise paraeducators from their pre-service programs or professional developments. ParaImpact, a professional development package for teachers and paraeducators they supervise, provides a mechanism for ongoing professional development to increase paraeducator systematic instruction fidelity with the use of practice-based coaching (PBC) and online instruction modules. This study utilized a multiple baseline design across skills to investigate the effects of special education teacher-as-coach on paraeducator implementation fidelity of systematic instruction plus online instructional modules. Results suggest a functional relation between implementation of ParaImpact and increases in systematic instruction implementation fidelity. Further, supervising teachers utilized PBC with procedural integrity and teachers and paraeducators reported ParaImpact to be feasible and useable. Recommendations for extending research in special education teachers coaching paraeducators’ will be discussed.