Preparing Interventionists via Telepractice in Incidental Teaching for Children with Autism

Abstract

Telepractice has emerged as a potentially effective means of preparing parents and educators as interventionists for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of telepractice to train interventionists to implement incidental teaching with preschool children with ASD. Three interventionists were taught to implement incidental teaching using a telepractice training package consisting of an online module, self-evaluation, and delayed performance feedback delivered via videoconferencing. A single-case multiple-baseline across-participant design was employed to evaluate the effects of the telepractice training package on interventionist acquisition and maintenance of incidental teaching. The distal effects of interventionist implementation of incidental teaching on child mands were also evaluated. Results showed that following the telepractice training program, interventionist implementation fidelity improved and child mands increased. Within six telepractice sessions, all interventionists reached the preset performance criteria of four consecutive sessions above 90 % fidelity. Changes in interventionist and child behaviors maintained at 2-and 4-week follow-up sessions. Taken together, these results suggest that telepractice is a promising method of providing instruction in incidental teaching to interventionists of young children with ASD.

Training Individuals to Implement Applied Behavior Analytic Procedures via Telehealth: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…Studies were conducted by research teams primarily located in the USA, with one study conducted by a research team in Norway. Where information was reported on the distance over which telehealth support was provided, distances varied from a different room in the same building (Higgins et al 2017;Machalicek et al 2009b), a different location under 100 miles away (Barretto et al 2006;Gibson et al 2010;Lindgren et al 2016;Machalicek et al, 2009a;Machalicek et al 2016;Neely et al 2016), between 100 and 200 miles away (Barretto et al 2006;Lindgren et al 2016;, or over 200 miles away (Knowles et al 2017;Lindgren et al 2016;Wacker et al 2013a, b). In three cases, training was provided for trainees in a different country located 300 (Wainer and Ingersoll 2015), 5863 (Barkaia et al 2017), and8333 (Alnemary et al 2015) miles away from the trainer.…”

“…Some researchers cited practical difficulties with offering support in-person, such as large waiting lists for support or costs and time involved with traveling around rural areas (Barretto et al 2006;Gibson et al 2010;Hay-Hansson and Eldevik 2013;Knowles et al 2017;Machalicek et al 2009aMachalicek et al , b, 2010Machalicek et al , 2016Neely et al 2016;Wacker et al, 2013a, b;Wainer and Ingersoll 2015). Alnemary et al and Barkaia et al further cited a lack of behavioral expertise and support available internationally in Saudi Arabia and Georgia, respectively.…”

“…Other researchers cited knowledge gaps relating to effectiveness, efficiency or agent fidelity when training is conducted via telehealth Suess et al 2014). Finally, some researchers highlighted the need to compare delivery formats (Lindgren et al 2016) 1 3 J Behav Educ (2018) 27:172-222 or evaluate the use of particular training techniques and behavioral procedures (Higgins et al 2017;Neely et al 2016;Wainer and Ingersoll 2015), while others cited methodological considerations relating to telehealth research including the use of a randomly controlled or multiple baseline design (Fisher et al 2014;Higgins et al 2017), the incorporation of telehealth into existing support models , or the use of specific technology and software Machalicek et al 2009b). …”

“…Where the characteristics of the trainer were stated, these individuals were most commonly professionals who had had prior experience or training in behavior analytic approaches. For example, in six articles (Higgins et al 2017;Machalicek et al 2009aMachalicek et al , b, 2010Machalicek et al , 2016Neely et al 2016), it was explicitly stated that trainers were Board Certified Behavior Analysts. Trainers were often Doctoral or Master's students Higgins et al 2017;Knowles et al 2017;Lindgren et al 2016;Machalicek et al, 2009aMachalicek et al, , b, 2010Suess et al 2014Wacker et al 2013a, b) and trainees had varying levels of experience using behavioral approaches, ranging from one ) to 20 years' experience of implementing behavioral techniques (Wacker et al 2013a).…”

“…Children were aged between 12 months and 16 years (where it was possible to determine age) and in thirteen studies (78 children) children reportedly displayed challenging behaviors such as self-injury, property destruction, aggression or noncompliance (Alnemary et al 2015;Barretto et al 2006;Fischer et al 2016;Gibson et al 2010;Knowles et al 2017;Lindgren et al 2016;Machalicek et al 2009bMachalicek et al , 2010Machalicek et al , 2016Suess et al 2014Wacker et al 2013a, b). Only seven studies (Barkaia et al 2017;Gibson et al 2010;Machalicek et al 2009bMachalicek et al , 2010Machalicek et al , 2016Neely et al 2016;Wacker et al 2013b) reported on client's communication abilities. However, across these studies, they had a range of abilities from no spoken language to fluent speech.…”