Classroom teachers as interventionists: evaluation of a pilot early intervention behavioral skills program

The effectiveness of early intervention programs is often limited by funding shortages, staffing challenges, and inconsistencies across providers. One means of addressing these limitations is to train early childhood teachers as interventionists in their own classrooms. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the impact of a pilot Tier 1 preschool behavioral skills training intervention on students’ classroom behavior. Fourteen preschool aged children enrolled in a six-week, school-based early intervention program received the pilot behavior program, which focused on increasing adaptive skills and reducing challenging behavior. Results suggest improvement across skill domains (d = 2.3), along with a 20-point increase in teacher-reported self-efficacy. Total consultation time across classrooms (M = 5.8 hours) suggests these procedures may be scalable to other settings. These findings suggest that teachers can be trained to implement efficient and effective behavior change procedures with relatively few external resources.