Comparison of effectiveness and efficiency of pre-service teacher delivered constant time delay with high and low treatment integrity

This study was designed to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of pre-service teacher delivered constant time delay procedure with high and low treatment integrity in promoting learning object naming. The effects of both interventions were tested on acquisition, maintenance, and generalization levels. Efficiency data were collected in the study to compare the efficiency of both procedures and semi-structured interviews were conducted with pre-service teachers to examine the social validity of the study. The pre-service teachers who were the trainers of the study were the senior students at Special Education Department at Anadolu University. Three preschoolers with developmental disabilities (pervasive developmental disoreders and autism spectrum disorders) were the participants of the study. They were attending at a university unit at Anadolu University. The independent variables of the study were constant time delay intervention with high and low treatment integrity. Low treatment integrity was defined as delivering controlling prompting with 70% treatment integrity during intervention in terms of the timing of prompting. The dependent variable of the study was learning the names of objects (i. e., the names of school materials, recognizing numbers, and the names of animals). An adapted alternating treatments design was used in the study. The results showed that pre-service teachers were able to implement constant time delay intervention reliably, constant time delay intervention with high and low treatment integrity were equally effective in two participants in promoting learning of object naming. However, this result was not replicated with the third participant. In this participant constant time delay delivered with high treatment integrity was found to be more effective than the other. Generalization findings showed that participants were able to generalized the acquired skills across persons and materials. Due to summer vacation maintenance data were collected only in one participant and these data showed that one, two, and four weeks after the intervention, the participant was able to maintain the acquired skills. Mix results were obtained for the efficiency of both procedures. Social validity findings were positive in general. Based on the data the findings of the study was discussed and recommendations were made for future research and practice. Keywords: constant time delay, effective teaching, evidence-based practices, social validity, treatment integrity.