Effects of Teaching Early Interventionists to Use Discrete Trials During Ongoing Classroom Activities

Abstract

This study evaluated the effects of a teacher-training package that included sequential components (activity-based intervention [ABI] and ABI with discrete trials) on the rate of instructional opportunities presented to young children with disabilities. Three teachers and three children participated. A multiple-probe design was used with four conditions: classroom baseline, ABI, ABI with discrete trials, and generalization. Although the rate of instruction increased during the ABI condition, substantial increases were not seen until teachers received instruction on how to organize and conduct instructional trials using a discrete trials format. Concurrent observations revealed that the percentage of intervals in which teachers engaged in obligatory interactions (those that required a response) and nonobligatory interactions (those that did not require a response) increased as the rate of instruction increased and that the amount of time teachers engaged children in interactions that were nondirective remained unchanged following the introduction of the discrete trials format. As the rate of instruction increased, child engagement either increased or stayed the same, and all three children showed a higher rate of independent correct responses to target learning objectives in the ABI with discrete trials condition. These findings suggest that an important ingredient in the successful application of systematic instructional procedures in classroom settings may be related to how proficient early interventionists are at organizing and conducting an instructional trial.