Equipping the Village: Empowering Parents, Educators, and Paraeducators with Evidence-Based Tools becomes clinically important the moment a team has to turn good intentions into reliable action inside school teams and classroom routines, telehealth contacts and remote supervision. In Empowering Parents, Educators, and Paraeducators with Evidence-Based, for this course, the practical stakes show up in clinically sound remote service delivery, clearer caregiver support, and decisions grounded in observable interaction, not in abstract discussion alone.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via ABA Centers
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →Supporting autistic learners requires equipping the entire "village"—parents, educators, and paraeducators—with practical, evidence-based tools to address both academic and behavioral challenges. However, many of these stakeholders lack access to flexible, high-quality training that builds the confidence and skills necessary for implementation. This session draws from recent applied research and implementation projects to offer actionable strategies for building capacity across the village. I will share findings from my research demonstrating that parents trained remotely via telehealth successfully implemented the Cool Versus Not Cool (CNC) intervention, improving adolescents' social skills and achieving generalization and maintenance across settings (Dumproff & Dowdy, 2024). I will also highlight research on asynchronous Behavioral Skills Training (BST), which effectively prepared pre-service special education teachers to conduct MSWO preference assessments with high fidelity, a critical skill for identifying reinforcers and increasing engagement. Building on these lessons, I will present insights from Project IMPACT-Autism, our DoD-funded initiative designed to improve paraeducator implementation of evidence-based behavioral interventions through a web-based professional development model incorporating video modeling, expert feedback, and adaptive coaching. Attendees will leave with practical takeaways for designing and delivering scalable training to non-expert stakeholders, leveraging technology to enhance sustainability and fidelity, and fostering greater consistency and collaboration across home and school environments. The ultimate goal: empowering all members of the village to support autistic learners with greater confidence, competence, and compassion.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
Art Dowdy, PhD, BCBA-D is a faculty member at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he teaches in both the Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education programs. He is the Principal Investigator of Project IMPACT-Autism: Internet-Based Model for Paraeducators to Augment Comprehensive Treatment for Autistic Learners, a federally funded research grant supported by the U.S. Department of Defense. Dowdy, a first-generation college graduate, has been fortunate to experience the professions of special education and applied behavior analysis both as a practitioner and researcher. Prior to his current appointment, Dowdy was a clinical Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D), implementing behavioral interventions for children with severe challenging behaviors. He has developed positive behavior intervention plans across school, home, and community settings to address challenging behavior and teach adaptive skills. Dowdy has also spent years as a certified special education teacher. He has presented meta-analytic and single-case experimental design research at both national and international conferences. Positioned at the intersection of special education and applied behavior analysis, Dowdy’s research has been published in Autism, Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavior Analysis in Practice, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, and Perspectives on Behavior Science, among others. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Remedial and Special Education, Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavior Analysis in Practice, and Child and Family Behavior Therapy. Dowdy is currently accepting potential advisees interested in pursuing their master’s or PhD degrees and can be contacted at dowdy@temple.edu.
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.