Implementing an Evidence-Informed Teaching Approach for Autistic Students in Bengaluru, India

There is a lack of evidence-informed teaching approaches for autistic students, particularly in culturally diverse, low-resource settings. This study implemented a manualized, evidence-informed teaching approach called Classroom Pivotal Response Teaching (CPRT) in an urban special education school in Bengaluru, India. CPRT provides teaching strategies that addresses student motivation, initiation, and generalization during implementation of learning goals. All students in the study had diagnoses of moderate to severe autism, and some also had intellectual disability.

We assessed the acceptability, feasibility, and implementation fidelity of CPRT using a mixed-methods approach. Eight special educators were trained in CPRT over ten weeks.

All eight educators were successfully trained to fidelity, and six of eight teachers maintained fidelity 1.5 to 4 months after training. Further, qualitative data indicated that CPRT was considered acceptable and beneficial, particularly to student engagement, skill acquisition, and speech, as well as teachers' self-efficacy. CPRT was feasible to educators in individual teaching settings and for high-priority learning goals, as opposed to group settings for all learning goals, due to time and resource constraints.

Overall, this study demonstrates the promise of CPRT in special education settings in India, suggesting the need for a larger-scale efficacy trial.