Selection and Implementation of Skill Acquisition Programs by Special Education Teachers and Staff for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Special-ed teachers often skip core DTI pieces—check trial flow today.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kodak et al. (2018) asked special-ed teachers how they run receptive-ID lessons.
They used a survey. Staff described the steps they take during trial-based teaching.
What they found
Teachers often skipped or changed key DTI steps.
Prompts, reinforcement, and error correction looked different from the book.
How this fits with other research
Parsons et al. (1981) showed kids learn fast when each trial links the response to the reward. Tiffany’s data say teachers rarely build that link today.
Heinicke et al. (2012) reviewed 687 small-group lessons. When staff followed every prompt step, almost every child hit mastery. Tiffany shows the same steps are now missing.
Colón et al. (2019) found RIRD still works at 50% fidelity. That sounds like a free pass, but Tiffany’s gaps go lower and break DTI completely.
Why it matters
Your staff may run “DTI” that is not DTI. Use a one-page fidelity checklist before each session. Circle yes/no for prompt, response, consequence. Fix one missed step next trial.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present investigation examined special education teachers' selection and use of teaching strategies for receptive identification training with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in their classrooms. Teachers first responded to a survey in which they provided examples of receptive identification tasks taught in their classrooms, rated the efficacy of teaching strategies, described how they determined whether skills were mastered, listed any assessments they conducted to identify relevant prerequisite skills prior to receptive identification training, described how they selected teaching strategies for use in their classrooms, and listed their years of experience as a teacher and working with children with ASD. Subsequent observations of implementation of teaching strategies during trial-based instruction occurred in a proportion of teachers' classrooms. The results of the observations showed that participants did not consistently implement components of trial-based instruction as described in the literature, and there were differences in implementation depending on the types of skills targeted during instruction.
Behavior modification, 2018 · doi:10.1177/0145445517692081