Template Matching as a Strategy for Assessment of and Intervention for Preschool Students with Disabilities

Abstract

A template-matching strategy was used to develop an intervention for facilitating the transition between preschool and kindergarten for preschoolers with disabilities. Three classes of preschool students who would be entering kindergarten the following year participated: an Intervention group, an Assessment Only group, and a Control group. The study was conducted in two phases: In Phase 1, templates were developed to evaluate the differences between instructional environments in the sending preschool classes and the receiving kindergarten classes. The design of these templates was based on direct observations of the preschool and kindergarten classes using the Eco-Behavioral System for Complex Assessments of Preschool Environments (ESCAPE) and the Assessment Code/Checklist for Evaluating Survival Skills (ACCESS). Ecobehavioral variables were then graphed for each class. In Phase 2, an intervention focusing on some of the major differences found between the environments was designed in collaboration with the preschool staff and implemented for 8 weeks. This intervention was effective in more closely aligning the preschool environments, and teacher and child behaviors, with those reflected in the kindergarten data. At follow-up, preschool students involved in the intervention who were now in kindergarten exhibited fewer competing behaviors and were the recipients of fewer individual prompts during independent work tasks.