Culturally Focused Classroom Staff Training to Increase Praise for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder in Ghana

Abstract

This study examined the impact of culturally focused classroom staff training on delivery of praise and its collateral effects on student on-task behavior. Training involved self-monitoring and performance feedback to promote staff delivery of culturally adapted praise to students. Four classroom staff and four students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Ghana participated in the study. The outcomes of the study were evaluated using a concurrent multiple baseline across participants (dyads) design with an ABC sequence. Results indicated that staff training using self-monitoring and performance feedback procedures successfully increased staff delivery of behavior-specific praise, but the procedures did not produce desired student outcomes. Culturally relevant adaptations to the topography of praise and implementation support were necessary to improve on-task behavior. This experiment provides an impetus for further examination of how common behavior-analytic training procedures can be culturally adapted for children with ASD in non-Western contexts.