Effects of a Teacher-Implemented Social Skills Intervention for Elementary Students with Autism and Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

Social deficits are often a core area of development for students in special education, thus schools are charged with providing social skills interventions. Although many strategies are available, few schools successfully employ evidence-based interventions for students with autism and related disabilities. A way to address these concerns while simultaneously supporting teachers is the enactment of consultative services. Behavioral skills training (BST) is an empirically validated type of direct training used to teach new skills that can be used within the consultation process. The purpose of the current study was to expand the literature by using BST to train a special education teacher to implement Superheroes Social Skills for students with autism and developmental disabilities. Dependent variables included skill acquisition in the training setting, skill acquisition in the generalized setting, and teacher treatment integrity of the social skills intervention. A multiple probe design across target skills with concurrent replication across participants was utilized to evaluate the effects of a teacher implemented Superheroes Social Skills. Results demonstrated immediate increases for all skills across participants in the training context, with increases in generalized skill acquisition for four of the five participants. Teacher integrity remained above 83% across intervention sessions. Implications for practitioners related to implementation of evidence-based social skills interventions and future research are discussed.

Disclosure statement

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest: Keith C Radley is a coauthor of the Superheroes Social Skills program. He does not benefit financially from the commercial sale of the program, nor were the data included in the article part of research funded by the commerical publisher.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate A. Helbig

Kate A. Helbig, Ph.D., BCBA-D, NCSP is an Assistant Professor in the School Psychology Program at the University of Utah. She is a licensed psychologist, board certified behavior analyst, and nationally certified school psychologist. Dr. Helbig’s research interests include social skills teaching for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities within educational settings.

Stefanie R. Schrieber

Stefanie R. Schrieber, Ph.D., BCBA, is a licensed psychologist and board certified behavior analyst at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO. She provides behavioral consultation to caregivers and conducts developmental assessments through the Autism Clinic in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Sciences. Her research interests include application of behavioral interventions in educational settings.

Keith C Radley

Keith C. Radley, Ph.D., BCBA-D, NCSP is an Associate Professor and Director of the School Psychology Program at the University of Utah. Dr. Radley’s research interests center on the application of behavioral interventions within academic settings, particularly for individuals with developmental disabilities. Further, his research focuses on data collection, visualization, and decision making in both research and applied contexts.

James R. Derieux

James R. Derieux, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in East Brunswick, NJ. Dr. Derieux specializes in evidence-based treatment of social skills, feeding disorders, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and challenging behavior. In addition to providing services to children and adolescents, Dr. Derieux also provides behavioral parent training to caregivers of children with challenging behaviors.