TRAINING PARAPROFESSIONAL USE OF DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER BEHAVIOR PROCEDURES USING BEHAVIORAL SKILLS TRAINING

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Alexa A. Havlicek, for the Master of Science degree in Behavior Analysis, presented on November 3, 2017 at Southern Illinois University. TITLE: TRAINING PARAPROFESSIONAL USE OF DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER BEHAVIOR PROCEDURES USING BEHAVIORAL SKILLS TRAINING MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Ruth Anne Rehfeldt Students with disabilities often exhibit problem behaviors in the classroom. Differential Reinforcement of Other Behaviors (DRO) has been found to be an effective strategy in decreasing problem behaviors and increasing other appropriate behaviors for students with disabilities. Research has found that Behavioral Skills Training (BST) can be an effective and efficient way to train paraprofessionals to implement classroom procedures. There were three participants included in the current study. Diane was a 58 year-old female that had been working at the school for 9 years. Dale was a 29 year-old male who had been working for the school for 2 months. Gary was a 25 year-old male who had been working for the school for 3 years. Limited research has been conducted using BST to train paraprofessionals how to implement DRO procedures in the classroom. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of BST on paraprofessional’s percentage of correct implementation of DRO procedures using a multiple-baseline design. Results showed that Diane had a mean of 0% correct implementation of DRO procedures during baseline, which, increased to 89% following intervention. Dale had a mean of 1.7% and this increased to 90% following intervention. Gary had a mean of 5%, which, increased to 85% following intervention. Keywords: DRO, paraprofessionals, students with disabilities, BS