Using Immediate Feedback to Increase Opportunities to Respond in a General Education Classroom

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of immediately prompting a general education teacher to increase her rate of Opportunities to Respond (OTR) through bug-in-ear technology on the academic engagement of a first-grade student with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In addition, the study investigated if raising the rate of OTR would increase the teacher’s positive feedback while decreasing negative feedback. Using an ABA single-subject design, results indicated that student academic engagement increased as the intervention was introduced and continued to stay at elevated levels during a maintenance phase. Results on teacher feedback were mixed, with both positive and negative feedback increasing when OTR was increased. Implications for using immediate feedback to increase OTR for rural educators are discussed