Evaluating a Social and Communication Intervention for Preschoolers

In Phase 4, KKI staff trained Delaware preschool teachers to serve as model coaches and educators through the Delaware Autism Program. Families whose children were enrolled in participating classrooms were consented through DAP using the school's consent to be videotaped. Any families who did not consent for their child to be videotaped for this training received the nonparticipant consent form currently utilized in this study and staff videotaping took every effort to keep those children out of frame when taping. This cohort involved KKI study team members training 1-2 coaches, who then trained five Delaware school teachers. The IES model was implemented in the teacher's classrooms (n= 5-10 students participating in each classroom; 20-40 children total).

In the current phase of the study, Phase 5 and 6, KKI study team members will continue the evaluation of the IES model, by testing the efficacy of the intervention model in a larger sample (Phase 5) and then analyzing the corresponding data (Phase 6). The larger efficacy study (phase 5) will be conducted on teachers and students recruited from public school districts in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania using the same IES model and recruitment methods in the previous phases.