Efficacy of Individualized Clinical Coaching in a Virtual Reality Classroom for Increasing Teachers’ Fidelity of Implementation of Discrete Trial Teaching

Abstract

Discrete-trials teaching (DTT) is an evidence-based practice used in educational programs for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Although there is strong demand for preparing teachers to effectively implement DTT, there is a scarcity of published research on such studies. A multiple baseline across participants design was utilized to determine if there was a functional relationship between individualized clinical coaching within the TLE TeachLivE TM virtual classroom laboratory and teachers’ fidelity of implementation of discrete trial teaching when working with a student with ASD. Following intervention, participants’ DTT accuracy improved on average from 37% to 87%, a 50% increase over a maximum of six, 15 minute sessions. These results indicate that such training has considerable potential for teaching DTT to educators. Implications and suggestions for future research for teacher preparation that utilizes individualized clinical coaching within a virtual classroom are discussed.