Teachers Training Paraeducators to Implement Systematic Prompting Practices for Students with Significant Disabilities

Teachers are often tasked with training paraeducators to deliver instruction to students with significant disabilities, but there is little research that involves teachers training paraeducators. In this single-case design study, we supported teachers to deliver tiered training that first involved group training for teams of paraeducators, and then follow-up coaching for the subset who did not meet criterion-level implementation fidelity. Three teachers at three different schools delivered tiered training on systematic prompting to nine paraeducators who taught students with significant disabilities. After tiered training, all nine implemented simultaneous prompting in both targeted (d = 0.73) and generalization situations (d = 0.76), as well as least-to-most prompting in both targeted (d = 0.65) and generalization situations (d = 0.37). Five met criterion-level adherence with group training alone, and four required coaching. Eight of the nine paraeducators also improved their implementation quality. Students made progress on individualized goals aligned with paraeducator-delivered instruction both in targeted (d = 0.99) and generalization situations (d = 0.14). These findings suggest that teachers can effectively implement tiered training that enables paraeducators to deliver evidence-based instruction to students with significant disabilities.