Monitoring the fidelity with which implementers implement behavioral procedures is important, but individuals tasked with monitoring fidelity may have received little training. As a result, their data may be affected by variations in implementers' performance, such as the frequency of fidelity errors. To determine the extent to which the frequency…

At present, treatment fidelity measures are reported mostly in research. Little is known about the measurement of fidelity in practical application. This project surveyed those providing behavioral services to determine familiarity and attitudes toward using treatment fidelity measures in clinical application. Respondents were familiar with and…

Procedural fidelity is the extent to which an intervention is implemented as designed and is an important component of research and practice. There are multiple ways to measure procedural fidelity, and few studies have explored how procedural fidelity varies based on the method of measurement. The current study compared adherence to discrete-trial…

Naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBIs) are considered one of the best practices for autistic children and their families. Most NDBIs include a component of providing training and/or coaching to caregivers to enhance skill acquisition and generalization. The procedures to implement these NDBIs are often clearly delineated in…

Student outcomes depend on the implementation of intervention practice elements, which are the specific behaviors that front-line implementers deliver as part of their direct interactions with students. Tier 1 PBIS is a well established practice in schools but existing guidance on practice elements is often conflated with guidance…

School-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS) is an effective and widely adopted school-wide framework for promoting positive behavioral, social, and academic outcomes for students. However, over the past decade, the degree to which schools were able to implement specific SWPBIS practices with fidelity has emerged as a…

Multitiered support for professional development (MTS-PD) is emerging as a research-supported, three-tiered framework to support teachers' classroom management skills through targeted training and ongoing coaching. In this study, we applied MTS-PD to increase elementary general education teachers' treatment fidelity of a targeted behavioral…

The present pilot study explored the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a multicomponent social narrative intervention to teach behavioral expectations. We conducted a multiple probe design across three children to evaluate the effects of the intervention on student behavior. In addition, we measured the fidelity of teacher implementation…

Although functional analysis (FA) is often recommended as a behavioral assessment tool, researchers have identified barriers limiting its use in schools. Trial-based FA (TBFA) was designed to address some of those limitations. However, few studies have examined classroom-based training methods for teachers to implement TBFA, and none have assessed…

Problematic anxiety in students impairs academic functioning. Teachers are often the first among school personnel to interact with these students, but they rarely receive training in evidence-based anxiety reduction strategies. This study assessed the feasibility of a brief teacher-administered school-home intervention (TAPES; Teacher Anxiety…

Effective interventions are needed to help alternative high school teachers manage challenging student behaviors. One such intervention, class-wide function-related intervention teams (CW-FIT), is a classroom management program based on positive behavior interventions and supports principles. CW-FIT involves teaching appropriate classroom…

Treatment integrity is an important component of rigorous educational research. Information about the extent to which an intervention was implemented as planned provides necessary context for interpreting student outcomes. In the context of increasing use of tiered systems in schools, treatment integrity takes on additional practical importance.…

Due to the increasing number of students in need of special education services and the shortages of licensed special education personnel, paraeducators have become critical in the education of students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and other disabilities in school settings. As a result, the training of paraeducators has become a major…

This study examined the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on teachers' implementation fidelity of a reading racetrack (a board game designed to increase sight word fluency) with elementary students identified as struggling readers. BST, an alternative to traditional professional development, is a performance-based protocol incorporating…

Science is being criticized within scientific domains and society. To address this, we suggest that researchers in special education, broadly, and those working in the behavioral disorders field, specifically, consider three critical facets of research: (a) importance of rigor, (b) value of replication, and (c) transparency of reproducibility in…