Effective Professional Development for Educators
and Community Providers
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) prevalence is 1 in 35 children according to a recent CDC report. There is an ever-growing need for educators and community providers who interact and support individuals with ASD to have a better understanding of Autism and be more prepared to implement evidence-based practices with fidelity.
Traditional professional development (PD) training opportunities focus on didactic or lecture-only materials which are limited in their efficacy. What made this project’s PD training opportunity unique is it also included live demonstrations, hands-on practice, coaching feedback, leading to deeper and more active learning.
Participants: There were over 600 educators and community providers who supported individuals with ASD in some capacity participated in the original 5-day training spanning 15 years.
Procedure: PD training participants completed knowledge and application tests pre-training, post-training, and 6 weeks following the training, as well as self-reflection surveys to assess what learned during the training.
Analytical Software: Participant data was collected and managed using REDCap, Microsoft Excel, SPSS, and Power BI were used for the data set merging and analysis.
Sample Analysis 1 was conducted to see if the traditional in-person PD trainings were still effective when adapted to be a single week virtually or over multiple weeks virtually during the pandemic. The Autism Knowledge Survey (AKS) is an assessment to test participant knowledge of ASD.
The bar graph above illustrates Pre, Post, and Follow Up scores for all the training types; error bars represent standard error. A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted with training stage (pre, post, follow up) as a within-subjects variable and training group (Traditional, Single Week Online, Multi Week Online) as a between-subjects variable. There was a main effect of training stage (F(2, 322)=11.32, p<0.001). Post hoc comparisons revealed this main effect was driven by a significant difference between Pre and Post scores (t(322)=-7.63,pbonf<0.001) and Post and Follow up scores (t(322)=-6.58,pbonf<0.001). There was not a significant main effect of training group nor an interaction between training stage and group.
This analysis and similar ones demonstrated that the in-person and virtual training formats were effective of increasing ASD knowledge following the training and this knowledge was successfully maintained for at least 6 weeks following the training (most often the start of the new school year). These and other assessments highlight the efficacy of this PD training for educators and community providers, regardless of the training format.
Sample Analysis 2: was conducted to examine how successful the adaptation of the training framework and curriculum by an international education institute who also supported students with ASD was initially. Training participants in both in the United States and Singapore (the international site) rated their satisfaction on different training components on a 5-point Likert scale (1=Completely disliked, 5=Completely liked).
The level of satisfaction across different training components was high for both groups, with the US consistently being higher compared to the Singapore group. While the training was effectively adapted internationally, there was still room for improvement. Follow up collaboration and discussion with the Singapore site helped identify and address avenues of improvement.
Key Takeaways:
The current training, which included not only a passive lecture only component, but also demonstrations and hands-on training, was effective in increasing Autism knowledge and the implementation of evidence-based practices, regardless of training format (in-person or virtual) or location (US or Singapore).
Due to its success, this PD training opportunity has been adapted for different stakeholder groups including school administrators and medical personnel.
Through this project I gained experience with complex database management and harnessing the power of data to guide and incrementally improve ongoing trainings and other initiatives.
Check out the following poster presentations to learn about this project: