Training of Paraprofessionals by Their Classroom Teachers: A Descriptive Evaluation of Pyramidal Training Outcomes

Pyramidal training may offer an efficient approach for disseminating behavior analytic teaching practices into public schools serving students with autism. In this study, we evaluated 16 teachers’ use of behavioral skills training (BST) while they trained paraprofessionals to use discrete-trial teaching (DTT). All paraprofessionals demonstrated high levels of procedural integrity following the training, although six of the 16 teachers received experimenter feedback to increase the integrity of the paraprofessional’s performance. A descriptive assessment of the training indicated that the majority of teachers used vocal instructions, modeling, and role play while training their paraprofessionals to implement DTT but only half of the teachers collected procedural integrity data to monitor the paraprofessionals’ performance. Although all teachers provided feedback to their paraprofessionals during the in situ portion of the training, the teachers were more likely to deliver feedback for errors than for correctly implemented components. These findings suggest that training teachers to implement BST with their paraprofessionals is an effective and socially valid approach to dissemination.