Effects of a Teacher-Implemented Social Skills Intervention for Elementary Students with Autism and Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social deficits are often a core area of development for students in special education, thus schools are charged with providing social skills interventions. Although many strategies are available, few schools successfully employ evidence-based interventions for students with autism and related disabilities. A way to address these concerns while simultaneously supporting teachers is the enactment of consultative services. Behavioral skills training (BST) is an empirically validated type of direct training used to teach new skills that can be used within the consultation process. The purpose of the current study was to expand the literature by using BST to train a special education teacher to implement Superheroes Social Skills for students with autism and developmental disabilities. Dependent variables included skill acquisition in the training setting, skill acquisition in the generalized setting, and teacher treatment integrity of the social skills intervention. A multiple probe design across target skills with concurrent replication across participants was utilized to evaluate the effects of a teacher implemented Superheroes Social Skills. Results demonstrated immediate increases for all skills across participants in the training context, with increases in generalized skill acquisition for four of the five participants. Teacher integrity remained above 83% across intervention sessions. Implications for practitioners related to implementation of evidence-based social skills interventions and future research are discussed.