Increasing the Use of Prompting Strategies: A Multiple Baseline Study across Pairs of Paraeducators of Students with Disabilities

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of a program designed to train paraeducators to use prompting strategies to teach students with moderate to severe intellectual and multiple disabilities. The paraeducator training program contained three components: a) an initial training on using task direction, time delay, most to least prompting, and error correction; b) observation and feedback; and c) video feedback. A multiple baseline design across paraeducator pairs was used with four paraeducator pairs serving four student pairs, ages 5-12, who were diagnosed with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities and multiple disabilities ages. Results indicated that the paraeducator training program did increase the paraeducators ability to correctly use task direction, time delay, most to least prompting and error correction. All participating paraeducators were also able to generalize these prompting strategies during another individualized teaching session when they were unaware they were being observed and continued to use the prompting strategies during a follow up observation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone [phone]. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]