Effects of Peer-Delivered Functional Communication Training in an Inclusive School Setting for a High School Student with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Access to inclusive school settings is associated with many benefits for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the areas of academics (Agran et al., 2020; Kurth & Mastergeorge, 2010), social skills (Kleinert et al., 2015; Lyons et al., 2011; Schwab et al., 2015), and communication skills (Ballard & Dymond, 2017; Kleinert et al., 2015), among others. However, challenging behavior serves as a major barrier to inclusive school settings for some students with IDD (Agran et al., 2020; Gee, 2020; Giangreco, 2020; Kleinert, 2020). Given the benefits associated with access to inclusive school settings, it is critical that this barrier is addressed. One way in which challenging behavior can be addressed in school settings, including inclusive school settings, is through the use of function-based interventions. Function-based interventions are targeted interventions that are based on the results of a functional behavior assessment and are aligned with the function of a student’s challenging behavior (Gage et al., 2012; Jeong & Copeland, 2020). It is critical that the contextual fit of a function-based intervention is considered, as interventions that take contextual fit into consideration are more effective than those that do not (Monzalve & Horner, 2021). Functional communication training is an example of a highly effective function-based intervention that is implemented to teach functionally equivalent, socially appropriate communication skills and address challenging behavior. The literature on the effectiveness of functional communication training spans across age groups, settings, interventionists, and disability categories (Cooper et al., 2020; Hume et al., 2021), including students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Andzik et al. 2016; Walker, Lyon, et al., 2018). Although there is emerging evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of functional communication training implemented with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in inclusive school settings (Masud et al., 2022), the research is very limited. Further, there are no functional communication training studies that focus on a peer as an interventionist. The current study extends the literature on functional communication training for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities by demonstrating implementation by a peer mentor in an inclusive high school setting. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of peer-delivered functional communication training on the functionally equivalent communication responses and challenging behavior of a high school student with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the collateral effects of the intervention on various student communication behaviors, and the degree to which educator team member participants and student participant found the intervention to be socially valid. Results of this study indicated that the functional communication training intervention had no effect on student functionally equivalent communication responses or challenging behavior. However, there is evidence of positive collateral effects as the student participant’s rates of various communication behaviors increased after the intervention was implemented. Finally, all participants found the intervention to be socially valid across most measures, though there were some concerns about the limited amount of time and potential student discomfort. The dissertation includes a discussion of each of the research questions, limitations of the study, directions for future research, and implications for practice.