Training Teachers of Children With Moderate to Significant Support Needs to Contingently Respond to Child-Initiated Social Participation Behaviors During Centers

Abstract

Teachers of young children with moderate to significant support needs may have insufficient training to implement naturalistic instructional practices such as contingent responding. Naturalistic instructional practices are well researched, but limited studies exist on training teachers to use contingent responses to support children increasing child-initiated social participation behaviors during centers. We used a multiple baseline design across four special education teachers to measure the effects of a training package incorporating behavior skills training (BST) and emailed performance feedback (EPF) on increasing teachers’ contingent responses to children with limited child-initiated social participation behaviors during centers. Results indicate that BST with a checklist and EPF with graphs increased the four teachers’ percentage of contingent responses, and similar levels were observed during maintenance probes. Programming common stimuli during BST resulted in all teachers providing contingent responses to at least one other child in their classroom who had few child-initiated social participation behaviors.