Effects of Coaching on Teachers’ Use of Function-Based Interventions for Students With Severe Disabilities

This study used a delayed multiple-baseline across-participants design to analyze the effects of coaching on special education teachers’ implementation of function-based interventions with students with severe disabilities. This study also examined the extent to which teachers could generalize function-based interventions to different situations. In addition, this study examined the effects of function-based interventions on students’ problem and replacement behaviors. After an initial training on functional behavior assessment and implementation of function-based interventions, the experimenter coached each teacher. Results indicated a functional relationship between coaching and an increase in teacher fidelity scores. Teachers generalized the strategies to other situations with the target students. Although some improvement in student behavior was noted upon teachers’ use of function-based interventions without coaching, this improvement was not consistent for all students and across the replacement behaviors. A functional relationship was found between accurate implementation of the function-based interventions and an increase in the students’ primary replacement behaviors.