Paraprofessional Implementation of Incremental Rehearsal

Location

CSU Ballroom

Start Date

20-4-2015 2:00 PM

End Date

20-4-2015 3:30 PM

Student's Major

Psychology

Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mentor's Name

Carlos Panahon

Mentor's Email Address

carlos.panahon@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Psychology

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Second Mentor's Name

Shawna Petersen-Brown

Second Mentor's Email Address

shawna.petersen-brown@mnsu.edu

Second Mentor's Department

Psychology

Second Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Third Mentor's Name

Cassandra Schreiber

Third Mentor's Deparment

Psychology

Third Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

Reading skills are an essential part of student success. These skills must be developed as soon as possible so that students can benefit from their education. However, many schools are plagued by a lack of resources to implement research-based interventions to enhance reading skills. One way to enhance the skills of at-risk students is to use paraprofessionals as interventionists. Incremental Rehearsal (IR) is an empirically supported, explicit intervention typically delivered one-on-one; it requires minimal training and therefore may be appropriate for paraprofessional use. Within IR, flashcards are used to target a basic skill (e.g. sight words). It is estimated that the success of IR may rely on the controlled and repetitive manner in which items are presented, resulting in less stress on the working memory in the brain (Peterson et al., 2014). The purpose of this study was to train paraprofessionals how to implement IR with at-risk students. Within this study, one paraprofessional was trained in IR and implemented the flash card intervention with one second-grade student and two third-grade students using a multiple baseline design. Unknown words were identified from a list of high-utility sight words. For 8 weeks, the three students were taught 15 words per week in 3-4 sessions. One-week retention was obtained for taught words. Results showed that all three students maintained words taught through IR at a higher rate than what would be expected if target words were not taught. Implications for future research as well as limitations are also discussed.

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Apr 20th, 2:00 PM Apr 20th, 3:30 PM

Paraprofessional Implementation of Incremental Rehearsal

CSU Ballroom

Reading skills are an essential part of student success. These skills must be developed as soon as possible so that students can benefit from their education. However, many schools are plagued by a lack of resources to implement research-based interventions to enhance reading skills. One way to enhance the skills of at-risk students is to use paraprofessionals as interventionists. Incremental Rehearsal (IR) is an empirically supported, explicit intervention typically delivered one-on-one; it requires minimal training and therefore may be appropriate for paraprofessional use. Within IR, flashcards are used to target a basic skill (e.g. sight words). It is estimated that the success of IR may rely on the controlled and repetitive manner in which items are presented, resulting in less stress on the working memory in the brain (Peterson et al., 2014). The purpose of this study was to train paraprofessionals how to implement IR with at-risk students. Within this study, one paraprofessional was trained in IR and implemented the flash card intervention with one second-grade student and two third-grade students using a multiple baseline design. Unknown words were identified from a list of high-utility sight words. For 8 weeks, the three students were taught 15 words per week in 3-4 sessions. One-week retention was obtained for taught words. Results showed that all three students maintained words taught through IR at a higher rate than what would be expected if target words were not taught. Implications for future research as well as limitations are also discussed.

Recommended Citation

Hayes, Rosa. "Paraprofessional Implementation of Incremental Rehearsal." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 20, 2015.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2015/poster_session_B/35