Training Paraprofessionals to Facilitate Social Interactions Between Children with Autism and Their Peers in an Inclusive Summer Camp Setting

Robert L. Koegel, Eileen F. Klein, Lynn Kern Koegel, Mendy Boettcher, Lauren Brookman-Frazee, & Daniel Openden

The literature suggests that paraprofessional support personnel frequently engage in hovering behavior, which could impede the social development of children with autism in inclusive settings. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to assess, within a multiple baseline design, whether paraprofessionals could be trained to facilitate social interactions between children with autism and their typically developing peers. The results showed: a) at baseline, the paraprofessionals engaged in high levels of hovering and low levels of social facilitation; b) at baseline, the campers with autism engaged in low levels of social behaviors; c) the paraprofessionals could easily learn to decrease hovering behavior and increase their social facilitation behaviors; d) concurrent with the change in the paraprofessionals' support behaviors, the social behavior of the children with autism with their nondisabled peers increased. Generalization measures indicate that the paraprofessionals continued to use their skills when they worked with new children.