Division Coaching and the Autism Program Rating Scale

I was recently invited to attend the Regional CoLA Summer Institute in Richmond, Va. This fantastic Community of Learning is put on by the experts at VCU's Autism Center for Excellence and the VDOE's TTAC. I learned so much in my two days and I am excited to share these ideas with my readers. It is my goal to share what I learn along the way with other teachers, parents and community leaders so we can work together to improve services for our students with Autism in public schools.

The first session, I attended was on Division Coaching. Division Coaching is important in the public school system because more often than not, our special education teachers never took a course on Autism and have little experience with children who have Autism. And let's face it, with the number of children affected by Autism on the rise, we NEED qualified and knowledgeable professionals working on the front lines. Having a Division ASD Coach is vital in order to breed the kind of success we are looking for in our Autism Programs. They can provide support to classroom teachers and monitor progress. The session I took part of explained how the Division Coaches could accurately assess the progress of their school divisions Autism programs. One of the ways they suggested doing this is by using a tool called the APERS (Autism Program Environment Rating Scale). Using the APERS, coaches can accurately measure the quality of each classroom that supports students with Autism. They are able to determine the strengths of the program as well as the areas that need improvement. There is a pre-assessment and post assessment, used to measure this. It can be intimidating to the classroom teacher who has to experience this. However, division coaches work to build trusting professional relationships with teachers in order to achieve the best outcomes from coaching. When I went through this process a few years ago, I was very intimidated, but early on, I developed a relationship built on the mutual understanding that we all wanted to what was best for these Kiddos.   Only then was I able to relax and really buy in to the whole coaching experience.  So, let’s take an in depth look at Division Coaching and using the APERS as a means of implementing Evidenced Based Practices in Autism classrooms.

Who are our Division Coaches?  Some of our local school divisions (I’m in VA) have selected Special Education Coordinators as division coaches, Teachers who hold ASD certificates or have extensive experience with ASD.  While other divisions have identified their related service personnel as a coaches.

What are some of the obstacles that a division coach may face?  Well, inevitably, when we try to implement anything “new” it is usually met with some resistance.  Let’s face it, teachers are pretty routine and territorial creatures, and some may see Coaching as an evaluative measure.  So in order to successfully implement coaching, it is important to select coaches who are empathetic with great interpersonal skills.

Next, the coaches will want to determine the developmental needs of the autism program.  Observations, Interviews Surveys and the MERC have all been used to assess ASD programs in the past.  As part of the NPDC (National Professional Development Center of Autism) grants, many of our local school divisions in VA have been trained on the APERS.  The APERS is a structured assessment that comes in two formats:  one for Preschool and Elementary programs and the other for Middle and High Schools.  The APERS is organized by Domains and sub domains and can be used to assess self-contained and inclusive programs.  It is scored on a five- point scale and summarized scores are provided in a visual format.

This is an example of the results of the APERS given in a graph format.
Notice the different domains being assessed.

In the Pre-Assessment Phase, Coaches and teachers are able to use the results from the APERS to set program goals and objectives.  Now remember:  the basis of using this tool is to implement EBP’s into your Autism Programs.  Using the APERS as a guide, coaches are able to determine what’s working and what’s not working with the current program, which EBP would work best to achieve the desired outcome (goals and objectives), and the steps needed to successfully implement the EBP to fidelity.  The On-Going Phase will involve observations, hands on coaching and team meetings.  When I went through this process, our Team met once a month.  I would be given an “assignment” to work on, such as prompting.  The coaches would demonstrate how to implement, then come back in a month, observe it in practice as delivered by my staff and myself, and provide immediate feedback (this was SUPER helpful).  We would then have our team meetings to discuss how the observation went.  Everything was recorded in a Collaborative Log.  The Collaborative Log records the progress towards the EBP Progress Plan and provides evidence toward mastery that is used in the Post-Assessment Phase.  

During the Post-Assessment Phase, the team will once again go through the formal APERS assessment.  This includes the teacher interviews and parent interviews, and observations.  The results of the assessment are then discussed and the whole team can congratulate themselves on their program’s growth. 

It is the responsibility of the Division Coach to guide this process, provide the support, and staff training needed to facilitate this entire relationship.  Divisions across VA that are using the APERS and Coaching have reported great success and improvement in the quality of their Autism Programs.