Student outcomes after 1 year of front line staff implementation of the PEAK curriculum
Teachers who get brief BST can run PEAK-DT for a full year and give students with autism a real language boost.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Dixon and team worked with the teachers in public schools.
Each teacher had 3-the students with autism in their class.
Teachers got a short training in PEAK-DT, then ran the full curriculum for one school year.
Researchers tested student language skills at the start and end to see what changed.
What they found
Students in PEAK-DT classes gained 16 new language items on average.
Students in regular classes gained only 6 items.
The extra 10-item boost equals about three extra months of typical language growth.
How this fits with other research
Slane et al. (2021) looked at 20 studies and found BST always helps teachers learn new ABA tools.
Dixon’s work is one of those success stories, showing the pattern holds for a full-year program.
Shawler et al. (2021) pushed further, proving even telehealth BST can train high-school teachers to run communication plans.
Agiovlasitis et al. (2025) used the same teacher-led model but swapped PEAK-DT for PRT and still got big language gains, showing the method travels across programs.
Why it matters
You do not need to be a BCBA in the room every day.
A short BST package plus PEAK-DT manuals let regular teachers deliver solid ABA for language.
If your district wants more inclusive services, this study gives you a year-long roadmap that already worked in real classrooms.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Systems‐level interventions built by behavior analysts often rely on others to implement, and this may be especially true in public education settings where behavior analysts are scarce. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Direct Training (PEAK‐DT) curriculum when implemented by school teachers and direct care staff. Thirty‐nine children with autism took part in the study (19 PEAK, 15 control), where the experimental group received applied behavior analytic instruction through the PEAK‐DT curriculum, and the quasi‐randomized control group received training as usual. The PEAK‐DT assessment was first administered to the participants at the onset of the study and again following 1 year. Participants who received PEAK training gained more skills on the PEAK‐DT assessment compared to the control group (PEAK: M = 16.0, SD = 17.8; control: M = 6.1, SD = 14.4, F(1,33) = 10.66, p < .05), suggesting that systems level implementation of behavior analytic procedures can be effective in teaching language skills as prescribed in a packaged curriculum designed by behavior analysts.
Behavioral Interventions, 2018 · doi:10.1002/bin.1516