In 2011, OAR’s Scientific Council selected seven applied research projects for funding. This month, we describe a study being conducted by researchers at the Koegel Autism Center at University of California, Santa Barbara.
Training Paraprofessionals to Provide Appropriate Social Opportunities for Children with ASD
Robert Koegel, PhD, and Lynn Kern Koegel, PhD, Koegel Autism Center at University of California, Santa Barbara
To systematically investigate the effectiveness of training paraprofessionals to provide appropriate structured socialization opportunities (SSOs), in the form of lunch clubs, for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
As a result of a lack of paraprofessional training, children with ASD typically are not receiving adequate social support in the school setting, resulting in limited responsiveness, limited or nonexistent social initiations, minimal conversational reciprocity, and an overall difficulty sustaining social engagement with typical peers.
Twelve paraprofessionals will be selected for detailed analysis according to the following criteria:
These selection criteria are likely to insure a high degree of homogeneity with respect to the paraprofessionals’ entering skill repertoires. It is important to note that all paraprofessionals at the participating schools will be invited to attend the training, but only 12 paraprofessionals will be selected for detailed analysis.
Children from the same schools will also be selected. The children will be between 5 and 11 years old, with an ASD diagnosis and severe impairments in social functioning level with a presence of verbal expressive language at a minimum of the 3-year-old level (vocabulary of at least 200 words and ability to combine words with a mean length of utterance of three words). Each club will typically have approximately one child on the spectrum and 10 typically developing peers.
Paraprofessionals will be trained to implement and facilitate structured socialization opportunities (SSOs) in the context of a lunch club using PRT’s motivational components. The Koegels are the developers of PRT, which focuses on motivation. The clubs will take place during lunchtime similar to other lunchtime clubs that are already available to students. The clubs will be advertised throughout the school campuses as being open to all students via flyers.
For the training component, paraprofessionals will attend two 1-hour workshops. Specifically, the paraprofessionals will be taught to:
In addition, during the workshops, paraprofessionals will be given opportunities to practice using PRT. Verbal feedback will be given until they meet 80 percent fidelity of implementation.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Robert Koegel, director of the Koegel Autism Center at University of California, Santa Barbara, has focused his career in the area of autism, specializing in language intervention, family support, and school integration. He has published over 200 articles and papers relating to the treatment of autism. He is presently editing two books on the treatment of autism and positive behavioral support, and is the editor of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions. Models of his procedures have been used in public schools and in parent education programs throughout California, the United States, and other countries. He has trained many health care and special education leaders in the United States and abroad.
Co- Principal Investigator: Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel, the clinical director of autism services in the UCSB Autism Research Center and the Director of the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Center for Asperger’s Research, has been active in the development of programs to improve communication in children with autism, including the development of first words, grammatical structures, pragmatics, and social conversation. In addition to her published books and articles in the area of communication and language development, she has developed and published procedures and field manuals in the area of self-management and functional analysis that are used in school districts and by parents throughout the United States, as well as translated in other major languages. Dr. Koegel is the author of Overcoming Autism and, most recently, Growing Up on the Spectrum with parent Claire LaZebnik.
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