Project Description:
The aims of our school-based project are to provide innovative solutions to two primary barriers in providing effective and preferred school-based services for students with autism in Nebraska: (a) Many teachers receive little or no didactic training in teaching students with autism using the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA), and (b) there is a shortage of autism experts available to develop and monitor behavioral interventions with teachers. In response to the disparity in services and teacher training, experts at the Munroe-Meyer Institute (MMI), in collaboration with AAP, have begun a project to show that highly effective and empirically supported interventions can be implemented with high fidelity in rural and urban schools by leveraging the latest web-based technologies. AAP has provided the initial seed money and fostered strong relationships with many school systems through their exceptional outreach efforts.
With this partnership, we plan to use video-conferencing technologies and in-classroom wireless cameras to allow our credentialed experts at MMI to help teachers and paraprofessionals design and monitor behavior-management and skill-acquisition for the children they serve, regardless of their geographic location. Over the last two years, we have identified affordable software platforms that allow user-friendly and secure interactions between teachers at school and experts at our center. In addition, we have identified internet-protocol wireless cameras that can collect video and audio recordings of adult-child interactions in their natural settings and efficiently transfer the recordings to experts at MMI via a secure connection. The use of asynchronous and synchronous methods allows us to provide services to teachers and students in an efficient manner that is less disruptive to teachers schedules.
With asynchronous methods, our virtual-care technologies also record segments of students one-on-one instructional time throughout the week to obtain direct measures of teachers procedural integrity and identify potential factors (e.g., challenging student behaviors) that may interfere with the teachers effectiveness. The web-based technologies address concerns regarding the practical constraints of repeatedly visiting classrooms to observe teacher-student interactions at school and teachers reactivity to the presence of a consultant observing their performance during scheduled visits. As a complementary method, synchronous interaction allows experts to view teacher and student behavior during instructional moments in real-time, using encrypted video-conferencing software. During these periods, we provide immediate feedback to help guide teachers and paraprofessionals while they implement the specific instructional strategies.
We already know that ABA services can dramatically improve cognitive, language, social, and adaptive skills, as well as reduce aberrant behavior for children with autism. The current project will demonstrate that we can deliver ABA services effectively and efficiently to students in schools that would not otherwise have these services. Our hope is that by providing these services we will (a) help children with an ASD improve their language, social, and academic skills as well as challenging behavior and (b) will help relieve daily stressors or worries that teachers and paraprofessionals may experience in their classroom.
