Training Teachers to Implement Classroom Pivotal Response Teaching during Small-group Instruction: A Pilot Study

ABSTRACT

Background: Providing effective education to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) poses a significant challenge to educators. Although several evidence-based practices (EBPs) have been developed, few have been systematically implemented in educational settings. Pivotal response treatment (PRT) is a naturalistic behavioral intervention that has been adapted for implementation in the school context.

Methods: This pilot study used a concurrent multiple baseline design across seven teachers and students with ASD to examine the effectiveness of teacher training in classroom pivotal response teaching (CPRT) on teacher fidelity of implementation during small-group instruction and students’ communication skills and maladaptive behaviors in schools for special education in the Netherlands.

Results: Results indicated no replicated effect of CPRT training on teachers’ fidelity of implementation or children’s communications skills and maladaptive behavior, although teachers reported high satisfaction with the CPRT training.

Discussion: Implications for clinical practice and directions for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism spectrum disorder
• classroom pivotal response teaching
• fidelity of implementation
• special education
• staff training

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the teachers, students, and schools who participated in this study. We also like to thank Margreet Weide for her assistance during data collection and for coding videos and Malon Morsinkhof, Fleur Rijnhart, Maureen van Rossum, and Anke Suijkerbuijk for coding videos.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and data analysis were performed by Rianne Verschuur and Bibi Huskens. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Rianne Verschuur and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability Of Data

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Conflict Of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics Approval

The study was registered in the Netherlands Trial Register (NL5886) and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands (EC2013-1304-100a). All procedures performed were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.