Effects of Peer Coaching on Preschool Teachers' Implementation of Social Interaction Interventions in an Integrated Preschool

119 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997.The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of training two pairs of early childhood teachers to use reciprocal peer coaching to increase teacher support of social interactions between preschool children with delays in social interactions skills and typically developing peers. This study used a multiple baseline design across two classrooms with a replication. All four teachers showed an increase in their use of prompts on the days in which peer coaching took place. Fewer or no prompts were observed on days in which peer coaching did not take place and during weekly maintenance probes. Significant positive changes occurred in one child's play behavior and modest changes were seen for the other three target children. Content analysis of a sample of post-observation meetings indicate teachers were generally pleased with the target children's and peers' play behavior during the classroom observations and noted when children interacted without teacher intervention. Teachers reported intending to continue prompting interactions, selecting responsive peers and waiting for teachable moments in which to intervene with specific children. Suggestions for making peer coaching easier to implement in early childhood classrooms included more flexibility about when teachers prompt social interactions and observe one another.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD