Degree Discipline

A Preliminary Investigation of How to Teach Undergraduate Students How to Build Rapport and Create Meaningful Interactions with College-Aged Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (open access)

A Preliminary Investigation of How to Teach Undergraduate Students How to Build Rapport and Create Meaningful Interactions with College-Aged Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

University peer-mentoring programs have shown to increase the retention rates of students, including students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and improved satisfaction with the college experience. The perceived quality of a mentee-mentor relationship may predict satisfaction with a peer-mentoring program; therefore, teaching peer mentors to engage in behaviors that could contribute to a high-quality mentee-mentor relationship may be beneficial. The current study identified target outcomes, operationally defined target behaviors, and developed a computer-based instruction (CBI) training module. The CBI training module was divided into four submodules that incorporated teaching through examples and nonexamples and discrimination training. The efficacy of each CBI submodule was evaluated using a pretest/posttest design with two mentors in a university peer-mentoring program. Results suggested that the CBI training module produced an increase in the frequency of correct responses in seven out of eight submodule posttests across both participants. The CBI training program also produced an increase in the frequency of target behaviors emitted by both participants across all submodules. These findings suggest that this CBI training module can be used to teach peer-mentors the behaviors that may improve their relationship with their mentee.
Date: August 2021
Creator: Espericueta-Luna, Williams A
System: The UNT Digital Library