Multitiered Consultation to Promote Preservice Teachers' Delivery of Behavior-Specific Praise in Early Childhood Education Classrooms

Early childhood educators often lack adequate preparation in the delivery of evidence-based practices. However, providing preservice teachers with ongoing implementation support during field-based training experiences may serve to occasion evidence-based practice delivery when they enter the field of early childhood education. Using a concurrent multiple baseline across participants design, this study examined the effectiveness of a multitiered consultation model to increase three early childhood preservice teachers' rates of behavior-specific praise in target and generalization settings. The results indicated all three preservice teachers' rates of behavior-specific praise increased across target and generalization settings, with evidence that praise rates maintained following removal of implementation supports. The results, limitations, and implications for research and practice are described.