Video-based mand training for three early interventionists teaching toddlers with autism : an additive component analysis

Ph.D. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2014.Includes bibliographical references.Professional development remains a foundational crux for training teachers and staff in evidence based interventions for teaching students with autism. Online training videos provide a viable component of professional development for early intervention and special education organizations facing budget constraints and challenges with complying with mandates for training their staff and teachers in evidence-based interventions for students with autism. Mand training is an effective evidence based procedure for increasing functional language and decreasing problematic behavior associated with autism spectrum disorders. Many students with autism possess limited mand repertoires, which is an important skill for learning to communicate. This dissertation replicated and extended with some procedural differences McCulloch (2011) and investigated the effectiveness of a video-based professional development program to teach mand training to early intervention teachers. Teacher-student dyads included two early intervention teachers and one speech pathologist who worked with students with autism. Intervention phases included (a) online training videos, (b) feedback, (c) coaching/modeling sessions, and finally (d) follow-up sessions. Outcomes in terms of student achievement, specifically the frequency of student spontaneous manding, were recorded during baseline. The teacher implementation of four-step manding procedure was also evaluated. Measuring both the student and the teacher behavior evaluated interventionists' competency improvement following and/or during different training components and concurrently measured student manding changes in frequency across each training component phase. Online training remains a valuable tool to efficiently and effectively train staff, however additional components may be necessary to result in optimal outcomes. Results indicated that student manding increased slightly when online training videos alone was used for one participant and with more significance when components of feedback and coaching/modeling were added. Social validity questionnaires suggest that both teachers and parents perceived the training effective and teachers indicated they believed that components of feedback and coaching/modeling were necessary to teach manding to their students with autism. These results and data from social validity measures support the hypothesis that feedback and modeling and coaching are all essential for teachers to learn to use mand training to increase communication with their students with autism spectrum disorder