Teaching Earthquake Preparedness Skills to Students With Developmental Disabilities: A Preliminary Evaluation.

Seray and colleagues worked with three high-schoolers who have developmental disabilities. The team ran small-group BST right in the classroom. They taught three skills: build an emergency kit, drop-cover-hold, and send a location ping with a safety app.

The researchers used a multiple-baseline-across-behaviors design. Each student learned one skill at a time while the others waited. Sessions lasted 15–20 minutes and happened twice a week.

All three students mastered every skill. They still showed the skills four weeks later and used them in a new room with a different adult. No extra teaching was needed.

The safety-app step was the hardest. Students needed two extra trials on average, but they still hit the mastery mark.

Slane et al. (2021) looked at 20 studies where teachers got BST. Every study saw better teaching fidelity. Seray’s work adds student data to that picture: when you run BST in a classroom, kids learn too.

Schaal et al. (1990) taught teens with severe disabilities to use a payphone in the mall. Same age, same diagnosis, same BST package. The 1990 study moved to the community; Seray stayed in class. Together they show BST works for safety skills in both places.

Shawler et al. (2021) used telehealth BST to train high-school teachers. Seray trained students face-to-face. Both saw gains, so you can pick the format that fits your district’s tech rules.

You can squeeze life-saving skills into short class periods. One para-professional can run the group while you coach. Keep an earthquake bin in the room so students practice with real items. After mastery, test them in the gym or library to be sure the skill travels.