Implementation of the PPSI in Psychoeducational Settings

Abstract

The most important principle underlying the PPSI is its ecological implementation—in children’s natural educational setting (preschool), while involving their own natural social partners (preschool peers) as change agents, and with their own on-site teachers or therapists as the intervention facilitators. This chapter presents practical guidelines for implementing the entire ecological PPSI model, beginning with description of facilitators’ recruitment and training, continuing with systematic procedures for evaluating the child’s social profile and designing each child’s personalized intervention, and concluding with monitoring and generalization processes. Specifically, this chapter presents initial screening and evaluation procedures to construct each individual child’s social profile; guidelines for modifying the PPSI protocol to deliver the various curricula sequentially or simultaneously, as tailored to fit each child’s own peer engagement needs; corresponding selection of each child’s social goals; methods for monitoring the child’s progress during and after the intervention as well as the program’s reception in the wider preschool environment; and ways to promote generalization of learned skills to the child’s ongoing preschool activities as well as at home.