It is often necessary for the behavior analyst practitioner to work across a variety of settings, including home, school, and community, in which it is common practice for those practitioners to provide training to caregivers and direct-care staff, who may have limited knowledge and experience within the field of applied behavior analysis. A…

Lack of progression to higher education amongst those who complete an Advanced Apprenticeship in England and the country's need for higher level skills led to the introduction of Higher Apprenticeships in 2009. Whilst Higher Apprenticeships would be expected to facilitate learner progression, the volume of these has remained low. In this paper,…

Existing approaches for training paraeducators rely heavily on intensive one-to-one coaching and may not be feasible in practice. In this study, we test a tiered training model in which all paraeducators first received group training, and then coaching was provided only for the subset who did not meet performance criteria after group training.…

Paraprofessionals spend the most time with the neediest students, but receive the least amount of training and support. All target students in the study had developmental disabilities, were between the ages of three and five, and had a history of challenging behavior. Paraprofessionals in the study were recruited because they had the least…

Individuals with complex communication needs (CCN) who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to communicate in school and community activities often have paraeducators as communication partners. For individuals who use AAC, successful communication often depends upon their personal skills as well as the skills of their…

Intervention efforts in turnaround elementary schools in the U.S. have focused on academic interventions, missing the important link between students' social emotional competence and academic outcomes. The current study describes implementation of a multi-tiered approach to support young students' social emotional competence in an urban turnaround…

The report addresses the need for retraining direct service personnel in community based programs as a result of deinstitutionalization. The state of the art regarding state practices in job descriptions and classifications for paraprofessionals indicated the existence of few systematic attempts to retrain current instituional staff. Few examples…

An analysis of the threats to effective single parent leadership gave rise to a problem-solving training package for the single-parent family. This package was designed to meet the clinical intervention needs of single-parent families with preadolescent and adolescent children. Highly structured procedures and professional supervision permit…

This Training Manual for Student Service Program Development is being published by the WICHE program Improving Mental Health Services on Western Campuses as a result of work done on a grant from the Experimental and Special Training Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health. The manual presents processes used during on-site campus…

This article provides analysis of a site-based professional development model that is grounded in teacher best practices. Developed by the administration and teacher leaders of a racially/ethnically, socioeconomically, linguistically and academically diverse school in the USA, the teacher-centered coaching model described is an example of an…

This final report discusses the outcomes of a North Carolina project designed to prepare professionals and paraprofessionals to deliver quality services in inclusive settings to young children with disabilities and their families. The primary component of the project was to develop and implement an on-site, inservice collaborative consultation…

Three strategies for evaluating training programs for paraprofessional human service workers are offered. The first concerns the assessment of the differential usefulness of selection versus training of helpers. The second focuses on factors producing effective training. The final strategy entails an evaluation of the impact of systematically…

A 12-hour training program combined what is known about basic communication dimensions with the use of simulation and role playing in a housing setting. Analysis by covariance found significant increases for the treatment group on three communication scales. (Author)

Since there are large gaps between the culture, economy, and education of Native Americans and mainstream Americans, the recruitment and training of Native Americans as paraprofessionals in the schools appears to be a promising opportunity to deal with all three gaps simultaneously. Three model programs which are currently bridging these gaps with…

This paper assesses the present state of training, licensing, and certification of early childhood personnel in Pennsylvania. Assessment is based on assumptions requiring conceptualization of (1) certification based on competency or performance, (2) education and training that includes both formal and informal experiences, and (3) planning and…