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The ecobehavioral relationship between teachers' and disabled preschoolers' behaviors before and after supervisor training

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Abstract

A previous study (Hundert & Hopkins, 1992) demonstrated the functional relationship between preschool supervisor training and increased child and teacher behaviors. The present study describes a ecobehavioral analysis to suggest how the intervention worked. Following a baseline phase, three preschool supervisors were trained in a collaborative team approach where classroom and resource teachers jointly developed strategies to promote peer interaction of preschoolers with disabilities in three integrated classes. The results indicated that after the intervention: (a) the frequency of children's interactive play doubled during both training and generalization sessions; (b) covariations of peer interaction and teacher behaviors shifted from being related to the presence of a resource teacher in the class, to classroom teacher focus on groups that included a child with disabilities; and, (c) these shifts in child-teacher relationships were not clearly associated with changes in the frequency of teacher behaviors. The contribution of an ecobehavioral analysis to the understanding of complex environment-behavior relationships before and after an intervention is discussed.

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Hundert, J. The ecobehavioral relationship between teachers' and disabled preschoolers' behaviors before and after supervisor training. J Behav Educ 4, 75–91 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01560510

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