Coaching Early Childhood Special Educators to Implement a Comprehensive Model for Promoting Young Children’s Social Competence

TLDR

Evidence shows that implementing promotion, prevention, and intervention practices is crucial for fostering children’s social‑emotional competence and addressing challenging behavior, yet research on supporting teachers—especially in early childhood settings—to faithfully apply comprehensive frameworks remains scarce. The study trained and coached three teachers to apply the Teaching Pyramid Model’s promotion, prevention, and intervention practices. Results demonstrate a functional link between training and coaching and teachers’ implementation of the model, highlighting challenges and underscoring the critical role of coaching.

Abstract

Growing evidence suggests the importance of practitioners implementing promotion, prevention, and intervention practices to foster children’s social-emotional competence and address challenging behavior within schools. Limited research exists, however, on how to support teachers of school-age children to implement with fidelity comprehensive frameworks that organize promotion, prevention, and intervention practices, and even fewer studies have examined implementation within early childhood classrooms. In this study, three teachers were trained and coached to implement promotion, prevention, and intervention practices related to the Teaching Pyramid Model. Findings from the present single-subject multiple probe across teachers’ experimental study offer evidence of a functional relationship between training and coaching and implementation of practices associated with the model. Results are discussed with respect to challenges related to supporting teachers to implement with fidelity a complex and comprehensive array of evidence-based practices and the critical importance of coaching.