Paraprofessional Proximity and Academic Engagement: Students with Disabilities in Primary Aged Classrooms

Abstract

This study examines effects of proximity of a paraprofessional on the academic engagement and type of interaction of primary aged students with substantial disabilities. A single-subject, alternating treatments design (N = 3) was used to investigate the effects of proximity at two positions (less than 2 feet from the student and more than 5 feet from the student) on academic engagement (passive, active, waiting, and non-engaged), and the nature and frequency of interactions between students with substantial disabilities and the paraprofessionals assigned to assist them. The major research question was: In the setting of a general educational classroom, during an academic lesson with age- and functionally-appropriate materials, does proximity of a paraprofessional have an impact on the academic engagement of a student with substantial disabilities? The results indicate (1) moving a paraprofessional from within 2 feet to a position of more than 5 feet from the student co-occurred with a difference in the number of intervals of academic engagement and non-engagement for the student; (2) students were academically engaged during a significantly higher number of intervals when the paraprofessional was positioned close to the student; and (3) students and paraprofessionals were more likely to be verbally interactive than physically, gesturally, or non-interactive when the student was actively academically engaged.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 36 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.