The Effects of a Bug-in-Ear Coaching Package on Implementation of Incidental Teaching by Paraprofessionals in a K-12 School

Paraprofessionals play a critical role in the instruction of students with disabilities and yet they often receive inadequate training in using evidence-based teaching strategies. A promising avenue for improving paraprofessional training is distant bug-in-ear coaching (BIE), where a paraprofessional receives in-the-moment coaching on a teaching strategy from a coach at a different location. This study examined a BIE coaching package to support paraprofessionals in using incidental teaching for teaching self-advocacy skills to students with disabilities. The package included an initial individual didactic teaching session followed by distance BIE coaching. A multiple-baseline across participants design was used to assess the impact of the intervention on both the skills of the paraprofessionals and on student acquisition of self-advocacy statements. BIE coaching was associated with increases in both the accuracy and rate of incidental teaching trials and with use of self-advocacy statements by the students with disabilities.