INCORPORATING APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS TO ASSESS AND SUPPORT EDUCATORS’ TREATMENT INTEGRITY

Abstract

For evidence‐based interventions to be effective for students they must be consistently implemented, however, many teachers struggle with treatment integrity and require support. Although many implementation support strategies are research based, there is little empirical guidance about the types of treatment integrity, implementers, and contexts these strategies are best suited to address. To facilitate the data‐driven identification of implementation supports, treatment integrity and the implementation context could be evaluated through an applied behavior analysis (ABA) lens. That is, teachers’ engagement in intervention implementation or competing behaviors could be considered to be occasioned by antecedents (e.g., prompts, setting) and maintained by consequences (e.g., escape intervention, access to attention). This article describes the conceptualization of treatment integrity within an antecedent‐behavior‐consequence framework. The current landscape and limitations of school‐based treatment integrity research are reviewed and the application of ABA technology to address implementer behavior is described. Further, the article provides practical strategies for how school psychologists might apply this conceptualization to support teachers. A case study is provided to illustrate associated research‐based strategies. Last, implications and limitations are described.