Peer Training: Option or Requirement?
(Para 1.) Inclusion: Implications for peers. With the “deinstitutionalization movement” of the mid seventies came a policy priority on inclusion, placement in the neighborhood school, placement in the regular classroom, and more recently, access to the general curriculum. A common assumption underlying many federal and state policies suggests that such physical proximity will increase the quality and quantity of social interactions for students with disabilities. Recent IDEA policy requirements emphasize the importance of intensive, explicit, targeted instruction, a very different emphasis from the less explicit “meeting social needs via proximity.” In the recent posting on Social Stories, reference was made to the explicit teaching of social skills and the use of peer modeling as an instructional tool. In peer modeling and the Social Stories intervention, the persons targeted are students with disabilities, not their typically developing peers. Recent research asks: Should these typically developing peers also be the instructional targets and should these peers be systematically and explicitly taught behaviors such as peer initiation, and peer response in social communications with students with disabilities?
(Para 2.) The proximity assumption. In a 2006 research report, it was noted than students with “high functioning autism” in regular classrooms “experienced lower centrality, acceptance, companionship, and reciprocity.” Researchers note that we have well validated methods to train peers to respond to and increase the quality and quantity of social interactions with students with disabilities. A December 2007 research summary states:
“Despite successful research outcomes of peer tutoring approaches, the use of peer mediated interventions appears to be rare in schools. In practice, educators are not likely to be aware of the positive and negative functions of peers in the quality of life of children with Autism…. One impediment is concern about interference in the academic learning of peers…… group lessons with students with disabilities including autism do not produce decreased gain scores for typically developing students —- effective instruction and teaching strategies appear to be more important for group lessons than the presence or absence of students with disabilities.” Kathleen Whitbread’s research summary documents the positive impact on peers and the importance of peer training to achieve the promise and requirement for inclusive settings.
(Para 3.) Curriculum for the peers. A 2005 research report documented substantive improvements in the social interactions of students with autism when their typically developing peers were trained in specific social interaction skills. The curriculum for these typically developing peers included modeling and teaching:
1. Getting attention by touching and speaking.
2. Allowing children with autism to choose play materials.
3. Paying attention and waiting.
4. Demonstrating play activities.
5. Including verbal statements.
6. suggesting activities.
7. Turn-taking.
8. Narration of play activities.
9. Providing help.
10. Sharing activities.
11. Explaining.
12. Reinforcing attempts to extend play activities.
13. Using eye contact to communicate.
14. Using gestures to communicate.
15. Respecting personal space.
A review of this curriculum suggests that many students with disabilities would benefit from peer interactions targeting needed social and communication skills. Extending this curriculum to siblings of students with disabilities would substantively extend the instructional day and increase alignment between home and school. The 15 peer skills listed above were based on a peer curriculum developed in the late 1980’s by Bob Koegel who trained under Ivar Lovaas at UCLA. The intervention was known as Pivotal Response Training ( PRT) because the training emphasized teaching skills “pivotal” to functioning in a wide range of settings. For example, teaching turn-taking has wide and life-long implications. Kogel also emphasized the use of “natural consequences” such as teaching the language command to open a glass jar with a visible candy in the jar. He also suggested that social interaction instruction should first use a play activity the student already likes, rather than compound the social skill difficulty by using a new or disliked activity as well as a social interaction. See the Pivotal Response Training Manual for use in a range of school, peer and home settings.
(Para 4.) Implications for school and beyond. The peer training curriculum suggested above can substantively expand the instructional day because peer social interactions occur in class, during breaks and on school transport vehicles. Some of the goals of inclusive instruction are long term and societal. Students without disabilities serving in a peer tutoring role, improve their own general curriculum skills and social skills. The social and communication instructional skills will generalize to their home and community settings as siblings, to their adult life as parents of young children, and to their adult community life as they interact with adults with disabilities. For those students with disabilities needing extensive and intensive instruction in social and communication skills, the training of their peers as members of the instructional team is not an option — it is a requirement.
Al :: Mar.29.2008 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »
