Coaching in Early Education Classrooms Serving Children with Autism: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Coaching is gaining attention as a promising professional development approach in early education. However, in practice, many adult educators continue to rely on methods with inconsistent effectiveness, such as one-time trainings and workshops. In addition, there is limited evidence supporting the use of specific coaching models in early education. This article describes the development and pilot study of a coaching model developed to support early education teams in implementation of the supplemental intervention for preschoolers with autism, Advancing Social-communication and Play (ASAP). Two early education teams were assigned to each of the following groups: those who received ASAP training, those who received ASAP training and coaching, and a control group that received no support related to the intervention. Through descriptive analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, preliminary results of this pilot study suggest the coaching model impacted teams' collaborative practices and adherence to key elements of the intervention approach. Implications and practical applications are outlined for early education professionals and researchers who may implement coaching to support intervention efforts for students with autism.

An Analytic Study of the Professional Development Research in Early Childhood Education

“…Across the studies, there was a lack of specificity and consistency in the way in which researchers described their PD for teachers. Though the process studies (e.g., Powell, Steed, & Diamond, 2010;K. P. Wilson, Dykstra, Watson, Boyd, & Crais, 2012) were quite specific in how they implemented PD, providing a detailed model that could be used by other researchers, the intervention studies spent less time explaining how the PD was implemented.…”

Handbook of Early Childhood Special Education

“…While coaching requires a greater resource (e.g., time, administrator support) input than other less intensive models of professional development, it can support sustained teacher implementation of EBPs (Kucharczyk et al, 2012 ). In the context of schools, as well as in other learning environments, coaching is seen as a critical process used to support not only the use of EBPs, but their fi delity of implementation (Basu, Salisbury, & Thorkildsen, 2010 ;Rush & Shelden, 2011 ;Wilson, Dykstra, Watson, Boyd, & Crais, 2012 ).…”

Feasibility of Training Early Childhood Educators in a Community Child Care Setting Using a Caregiver-mediated Intervention for Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…A handful of training programs provided to ECEs in order to implement intervention strategies in their classrooms show success in increasing knowledge and understanding of ASD (Jocelyn, Casiro, Beattie, Bow, & Kneisz, 1998). Video feedback and coaching sessions with ECEs have been associated with improved fidelity of implementation, team planning, and progress monitoring (Robinson, 2011;Strain & Bovey II, 2011;Wilson, Dykstra, Boyd, & Crais, 2012). With coaching, ECEs have also been successful at generalizing the acquired strategies to other students and activities in the classroom (Robinson, 2011).…”

“…However, many of these results come from time-intensive interventions, with the greatest effects shown after long periods of coaching and training (e.g., up to two years; Strain & Bovey II, 2011). Ultimately, feedback from ECEs reveals that they feel more supported during coaching, more confident at utilizing these strategies in their classrooms, and that the children in their classrooms seem to benefit from the ECEs being trained (Meadan, Ostrosky, Zaghlawan, & Yu, 2012;Robinson, 2011;Wilson et al, 2012).…”