ERIC EJ798598: Further Evaluation of a Brief, Intensive Teacher-Training Model

2008·0.17 MB·English

by  ERIC

JOURNALOFAPPLIEDBEHAVIORANALYSIS 2008, 41, 243–248 NUMBER2 (SUMMER2008)
FURTHER EVALUATION OF A BRIEF, INTENSIVE
TEACHER-TRAINING MODEL
DOROTHEA C. LERMAN, ALLISON TETREAULT, ALYSON HOVANETZ,
MARGARET STROBEL, AND JOANIE GARRO
UNIVERSITYOFHOUSTON,CLEARLAKE
The purpose of this study was to further evaluate the outcomes of a model program that was
designed to train current teachers of children with autism. Nine certified special education
teachers participating in an intensive 5-day summer training program were taught a relatively
large number of specific skills in two areas (preference assessment and direct teaching). The
teachers met the mastery criteria for all of the skills during the summer training. Follow-up
observations up to 6 months after training suggested that the skills generalized to their
classrooms andweremaintainedfor most teacherswith brieffeedbackonly.
DESCRIPTORS: autism, direct teaching, generalization, preference assessment, teacher
training
_______________________________________________________________________________
Most teachers receive relatively little formal brief period of time and that the skills were
instruction in evidence-based practices for maintained for several weeks following the
childrenwith autism (National Research Coun- termination of feedback.
cil, 2001). Although the voluminous training Nonetheless, the study was limited in a
literature has shown that parents and teachers number of respects. First, baseline data on
canlearntoimplementbehavioralinterventions teacher behaviorwerecollectedduring role-play
with a high degree of integrity (for reviews, see sessions with the experimenters rather than
Noell,Duhon,Gatti,&Connell,2002;Reid& during teaching sessions with children, making
Green, 1990), the limited time that is available it difficult to directly compare pre- and
for teachers to participate in continuing educa- posttraining performance. Second, some skills
tionis onekey barrier to disseminatingresearch
acquired during role-play sessions did not
findings.
immediatelygeneralizetoteachingsessionswith
Lerman, Vorndran, Addison, and Kuhn
children. Third, data were not collected in the
(2004) reported the outcomes of a brief
teachers’ classrooms following the summer
summer training program for public school
training. Finally, a relatively labor-intensive
teachersofchildrenwithautism.Initialtraining
data-collection system was used to monitor
in the areas of reinforcer identification, direct
teacher performance. The success with which
teaching, and incidental teaching was conduct-
school administrators and personnel could
ed across 5 days via lectures, discussion, and
implement this complex model is questionable.
role play with the experimenters. Results
Efforts to transfer research findings on autism
showed that the 5 participants mastered a
into public schools would benefit from further
relatively large number of specific skills in a
evaluationofefficientteacher-preparationmod-
We thank Alexis Toupard for her assistance with els. In this study, we report the outcomes of a
training and Angela Mahmood, Shelley Mullin, Alice training model based on that described by
Keyl, and Melissa Waters for their assistance with data
Lerman et al. (2004). The original training was
collection.
Address correspondence to Dorothea Lerman, Univer- modified to increase the ease, efficiency, and
sity of Houston, Clear Lake, 2700 Bay Area Blvd., effectiveness of the program, as well as to
Campus Box 245, Houston, Texas 77058 (e-mail:
address some of the other limitations described
[email protected]).
doi:10.1901/jaba.2008.41-243 above.
243
244 DOROTHEA C. LERMAN et al.
Table 1
Procedural Components EvaluatedandSession Lengths for Training on Preference Assessments andDirect Teaching
Preferenceassessment(4trialsforsinglestimulusandmultiplestimulus;6trialsforpairedchoice)
1. Presenteditem(s)correctly(basedonformatused).
2. Waitedatleast5sforstudentresponse.
3. Permitted20-saccesstoitemselected(orconsumption,iffood).
4. Immediatelyremoveditems(s)notselected(pairedormultipleformats).
5. Blockedselectionofmultipleitems(pairedormultipleformats).
6. Encouragedsamplingifnoitemselected;item(s)re-presented.
7. Collecteddataappropriately.
Directteaching(10trials)
1. Securedandorganizedmaterialspriortoteaching.
2. Deliveredinstructionsonlywhenchildattending.
3. Deliveredclear,concise,andconsistentinstructionsthatspecifiedexpectedresponse.
4. Usedappropriateandconsistentpromptingstrategyfornoorincorrectresponses.
Thesamepromptingstrategywasusedcorrectlyoneachtrial(basedonpromptingtechnique);successivepromptsspacedbyatleast
5sbutnomorethan15s;eachpromptmoreintrusivethanpreviousone.
5. Deliveredpraise,token,food,drink,ortangibleitemwithin5sforcorrectresponses.
6. Pairedhighlypreferredtangiblereinforcerswithpraise.
7. Deliveredvariedreinforcers(i.e.,differentpraisestatements,verbalandphysicalattention,ortwotypesoftangiblereinforcers).
8. Deliveredpraiseortangibleitematleastonceforattendingoron-taskbehavior.
9. Withheldreinforcementuntildesiredbehavioroccurred.Reinforcementnevergivenwhenchildwasofftask.
10. Removeddistractionsimmediately.Ifchildbegantointeractwithmaterialsunrelatedtotheinstruction,thesematerialswere
immediatelyremoved.
11. Managedproblembehaviorappropriately.Saidnothingaboutthebehavioranddeliveredthemostintrusivepromptpossiblewithin
5s.Newtrialbeganwithin5s.Noreinforcementdelivered.
12. Insertedbriefintervalbetweeninstructionaltrials.Intervalnomorethan10s;iftangibleitemdelivered,intervalfrom10sto30s.
13. Collecteddataappropriately.Atleast80%oftrialsscored.
METHOD attending summer school at the three training
sites participated. Their ages ranged from
Participants and Settings
3 years to 18 years, and basic learning skills
A total of 18 certified special education
varied from poor (i.e., did not imitate or follow
public school teachers participated in three
simple instructions) to good (i.e., followed
separate training groups (6 teachers from each
multiple, complex instructions). Nearly all of
of three school districts). They were selected by
the children engaged in problem behavior
their school districts to participate after re-
during instruction (e.g., aggression).
sponding to an announcement about the
training. All participants taught children with
developmental disabilities and received stipends Response Measurement and
from their districts for attending. Of the 18 Interobserver Agreement
teachers, 9 were available for the pretraining Thedependentvariablewasthepercentageof
and posttraining observations in their regular skill components performed correctly by the
classrooms. The participants, aged 33 to teacherintwomainareas:preferenceassessment
55 years, hadbeen teachingfrom 1 to 14 years. and direct teaching. More than one approach
(Contactthefirstauthorforfurtherinformation wastaughtineacharea(i.e.,threedifferentways
about the participants.) All instruction took toassesspreferences,threedifferentwaystofade
place in classrooms at schools selected by the prompts)sothattheteacherscouldchoosefrom
three districts. The rooms contained desks, among multiple procedures when working with
tables, chairs, and materials necessary to students in their classrooms. The components
conduct the training. scored for each skill, as shown in Table 1, were
Sixteen students who had been diagnosed drawn from the literature on preference assess-
with developmental disabilities and who were ment (e.g., DeLeon & Iwata, 1996) and direct
INTENSIVE TEACHER TRAINING 245
teaching (see Cooper, Heron, & Heward, Training. Training on the 1st day and from
2007). (Contact the first author for a complete 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on the remaining
description of scoring criteria.) Skill compo- 4 daysconsistedoflectures,discussion,androle
nents were evaluated on a session-by-session play. A variety of topics were covered during
basis. Each skill component was scored as thisportionofthetraining(e.g.,basicprinciples
correct, incorrect, or not applicable (no oppor- of learning, managing problem behavior). The
tunity) based on the teacher’s performance afternoon training sessions focused on the
during the entire session. Thus, a component specific skills that would be evaluated when
was scored as correct only if it was performed the teachers worked with the students during
correctly on each opportunity during the the following morning sessions. The in-class
session. Each session consisted of a predeter- training, which consisted of modeling and
mined number of trials (see Table 1). The total practice with feedback, was conducted from
numberofcorrectlyperformedcomponentswas 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on 4 consecutive days.
divided by the total possible components and The practice sessions focused individually on
multiplied by 100% for each session. single-stimulus, paired-choice, and multiple-
A second observer independently collected stimulus-without-replacementpreference assess-
dataduringatleast30%ofthesessionsforeach ments and direct teaching using least-to-most
teacher and skill. For each skill component, the prompting, most-to-least prompting, and de-
observers’ records were compared to determine layed prompting. These six skill areas were
agreement on the occurrence of a correct taught in a sequential order. The criterion for
response, an incorrect response, or no opportu- successful mastery of each skill area was two
nity for a response. The number of agreements consecutive sessions with 100% accuracy (or,
was divided by the total number of agreements for some teachers, one session at 100% foreach
plus disagreements, and the quotient was preference assessment). However, the number
multiplied by 100% to obtain the percentage of practice sessions received by each teacher
of interobserver agreement for each session. depended on other factors, including time
Mean interobserver agreement was 90% (range, constraints and teacher requests. Teachers were
61% to 100%). paired with three different students each
morning.
Procedure Follow-up (postinstruction observations). Two
The effects of the instruction on teacher to3 monthsaftertheconclusionofthesummer
behavior were evaluated in a multiple baseline training, each teacher was observed while
acrossteachersdesign.Baselineswereconducted working with a student in his or her own
concurrently. S1, S3, S4, S5, and S6 partici- classroom. The teacher was asked to conduct a
pated in the first training sessions; S2 and S4 preference assessment and to work with a
participated in thesecond trainingsessions; and student on a new skill during each observation.
S7,S8,andS9participatedinthethirdtraining Theteacherselectedthestudent,task,materials,
sessions. and format.Eachteacher wasobserved on three
Baseline. Observations were conducted in the separate occasions with approximately 4 weeks
teacher’s classroom approximately 4 weeks pri- between each visit. One teacher received only
ortotheendoftheschoolyear.Theteacherwas two of the three scheduled observations because
asked to select any student for the observations she resigned from her teaching position for
and to show how he or she (a) identified reasons unrelated to participation in this study.
reinforcers for the student and (b) taught a skill Another teacher declined additional follow-up
to the student. observationsafterreceivingthefirstonebecause
246 DOROTHEA C. LERMAN et al.
Figure1. Percentageofcorrectproceduralcomponentsforthesingle-stimulus,paired-choice,andmultiple-stimulus
preference assessments during baseline (BL),training, andfollow-up for each teacher.
INTENSIVE TEACHER TRAINING 247
Figure 2. Percentage of correct procedural components for direct teaching across the three prompting strategies
during baseline (BL),training, andfollow-up for each teacher.
248 DOROTHEA C. LERMAN et al.
she said that she was too busy. Immediately relatively conservative but economical measure-
following each observation, the experimenter mentsystemalsowasused.Resultsoftreatment
provided brief feedback to the teacher by acceptability surveys completed by the partici-
describing the skills components that had been pantsafterthetrainingindicatedthattheyliked
performed correctly and incorrectly. the procedures taught and felt that they were
appropriate for use in their classrooms (survey
and results are available from the first author).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Limitations of this analysis include the
All but 1 of the teachers reported indirect circumscribed nature of the follow-up observa-
methods for identifying reinforcers during
tions and the varying number of practice
baseline and showed rapid mastery of the three sessions across teachers. In addition, data on
preference-assessment formats during training
maintenance were limited to the assessment
(Figure 1). Furthermore, performance general- formatandpromptingtechniqueselectedbythe
ized and was maintained at or near 100%
teacher during follow-up. The impact of the
accuracy when the teachers returned to their
training on student behavior also was not
classrooms in the fall, with the exception of S1,
evaluated. Further research is needed on the
who reported that she did not conduct
long-term outcomes of this brief training
preference assessments because her current model, including those related to student
students ‘‘work well with praise.’’ Teachers
performance, and on the application of this
showed varying levels of accuracy with the model to other skills (e.g., behavioral assess-
direct teaching skills during baseline (Figure 2).
ment).
All of the teachers met the mastery criterion
when using at least one of the three prompting
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