Systematic prompting is a versatile evidence-based practice that can improve a range of outcomes for students with disabilities, but many teachers and paraeducators are not familiar with systematic prompting or may struggle with implementation. In this systematic review, the authors identified 28 articles that evaluated training practices for…

Paraeducators play an important role in the education of students with significant disabilities. They can best contribute to improving student outcomes when they are skilled in using evidence-based practices. Tiered training is a practical and promising solution for how teachers can train teams of paraeducators to use evidence-based practices.…

Federal law allows for paraprofessionals to provide instruction to students with developmental disabilities if they are adequately trained and supervised, but how to best provide this training and support remains unclear. In this paper, we update a systematic review of experimental studies that test the efficacy of paraprofessional-implemented…

Early childhood education represents a pivotal opportunity to improve the developmental trajectories of young children, and evidence-based practices (EBPs) are scientifically proven to improve these outcomes. Furthermore, federal law mandates that early childhood practitioners implement EBPs. However, because EBP has not been clearly defined in…

Coaching with live observation and immediate performance feedback is an effective means to train paraprofessionals, but might not always be feasible. We used a multiple baseline across participants design with six paraprofessionals who taught elementary students with severe disabilities to test the efficacy of two innovations designed to improve…

Coaching with live observation and immediate performance feedback is an effective means to train paraprofessionals, but might not always be feasible. We used a multiple baseline across participants design with six paraprofessionals who taught elementary students with severe disabilities to test the efficacy of two innovations designed to improve…

Students with significant intellectual and developmental disabilities deserve access to instruction on academic skills in addition to functional skills. Many teachers, however, report challenges with identifying appropriate evidence-based practices to teach academics to these students. The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize and…

Despite broad consensus that a research-to-practice gap exists in the education of students with autism, the extent of this gap has not been well studied. We surveyed 99 teachers in Ohio about their highest priority goals for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), their approach for addressing these goals, the degree to which students had…

Effective professional development strategies are needed to enable special educators to provide evidence-based instruction and support to students with severe disabilities. In this single-case design study, we measured the efficacy of video modeling and brief coaching to enable three elementary special education teachers to implement constant time…

Peer support arrangements involve peers without disabilities providing academic and social support to students with severe disabilities (i.e., students eligible for their state's alternate assessment) in general education classrooms. We conducted a systematic literature review of studies published through 2016 to determine whether peer support…

Students with complex communication needs require well-designed supports to communicate effectively in school settings. Although paraprofessionals are often charged with supporting these students, they are rarely trained in how to promote communication, and there is limited research on how they might be trained. In this study, we used a multiple…

Most paraprofessionals are not well trained to implement evidence-based practices that can improve student outcomes. In this study, we trained a paraprofessional to use evidence-based instructional practices with an elementary student with a severe disability who exhibited challenging behavior. Through functional analysis, we determined the…

Peer support arrangements are an evidence-based practice for increasing interactions between students with severe disabilities and their peers in general education classrooms, but it is unclear how interactions vary across instructional formats or generalize outside the classroom. In this single-case design study, we tested the efficacy of peer…