Supporting the inclusion and retention of autistic students: Exploring teachers' and paraeducators' use of evidence-based practices in public elementary schools

Abstract

IntroductionEducators in public schools are required to serve students in their least restrictive environment. While many evidence-based practices (EBPs), defined as practices and strategies shown by research to have meaningful effectson outcomes for autistic students are documented in the literature, less is known about EBP use among educators in public schools.MethodsEighty-six general and special education teachers and para educators completed a survey about familiarity, training, and EBP use for included autistic children.ResultsAcross roles, educators reported familiarity (98.8%), use (97.7%), and training (83.7%) in reinforcement. They reported the least familiarity with behavioral momentum (29.1%), training in both video modeling and peer-mediated instruction and intervention (18.6%), and use of video modeling (14.0%). Follow-up interviews (n = 80) highlighted mixed understanding of EBP definitions and use.DiscussionImplications for inclusive education are discussed including autism-specific EBP training within pre-service teacher preparation programs.

Educators’ Perspectives on Training Mechanisms That Facilitate Evidence-Based Practice Use for Autistic Students in General Education Settings: A Mixed-Methods Analysis

“…To capture a broad range of experiences, we recruited a stratified sample of educators (i.e., paraeducator, special educator, and general educator) across elementary schools (Kindergarten-fifth grade) located in different districts in the (Locke et al, 2021(Locke et al, , 2022 United States. We used https://thegeneralizer.org to select schools that are representative across the school (size, % free and reduced-price lunch, gender, race, urbanicity) and district characteristics (number of schools, % English Language Learners, % language at home, English only, and urbanicity; Tipton & Miller, 2022).…”

“…While our data uncovered a sizable percentage of situations in which people reported EBP use but no training and training but no use, we can-not know to what extent any bias may have occurred. Although participants were asked to describe their use of practices, and we only qualitatively coded the "training" code when they were explicitly describing training in an EBP (i.e., if a participant started describing training in a non-EBP, this was excluded), there is potential for varied construct definitions of EBPs between researchers and educators (Locke et al, 2022). We also do not identify which training type is explicitly associated with different EBPs given the mixed-method sampling design and approach.…”