A Randomized Evaluation of Group Training for Paraprofessionals to Implement Systematic Instruction Strategies With Students With Severe Disabilities

Abstract

Paraprofessionals are often tasked with providing instruction to students with severe disabilities despite little or no training in evidence-based practices. Previous studies have demonstrated that specific strategies (i.e., didactic instruction, modeling, and immediate performance feedback) in a 1-to-1 format can enable paraprofessionals to implement practices with fidelity; however, training all paraprofessionals exclusively in a 1-to-1 format with immediate feedback is not feasible. We tested two modifications to improve feasibility: delivery in a group and delayed performance feedback from video recordings. We randomized 17 paraprofessionals to a control condition or group training condition focused on simultaneous and least-to-most prompting. Paraprofessionals in the training condition implemented the prompting strategies with better adherence to steps (d = 0.91 and d = 1.56), better implementation quality (d = 0.60), and their students made more progress (d = 0.29). These findings provide evidence that effective coaching strategies can be utilized in a group context.