Purpose: The purpose of this research was to conduct a cluster randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of the recently developed ASAP intervention. The major goals of the project included investigating whether children who experienced the intervention, when compared to those who did not, demonstrated greater gains in the proximal child outcomes of social-communication and play skills as well as the more distal outcomes of language development and engagement with classroom objects and peers. The study also examined whether child-level (i.e., developmental level, problem behaviors) and teacher-level (i.e., teacher burnout, general classroom quality) characteristics moderated the impact of the intervention, and whether the level of implementation fidelity mediated its impact on child outcomes.
Results: In this four- year, multi-site efficacy trial, classrooms were randomly assigned to ASAP or a Business-as-usual (BAU) control condition. A total of 78 classrooms, including 161 children, enrolled in this study. No significant group differences were found for the primary outcomes assessing generalized changed in children’s social-communication and play. However, children in the ASAP group showed increased classroom engagement. Additionally, participation in ASAP seemed to have a protective effect for one indicator of teacher burnout. For more information, see Boyd et al., 2018.
Personnel:
- Brian Boyd, PhD (PI)
- Linda Watson, EdD (Co-PI)
- Grace Baranek, PhD (Investigator)
- Betsy Crais, PhD (Investigator)
- Stephanie Reszka, PhD (Project Coordinator)
- Multi-site collaborators: Michael Alessandri, PhD and Anibal Gutierrez, PhD (Investigator, University of Miami); LeAnne Johnson, PhD (Investigator, University of Minnesota); Amy Donaldson, PhD (Investigator, Portland State University)