An Evaluation of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services on the Timeliness of Employees in a School for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

The current study aims to reduce tardiness of four direct care staff employed at a school that provides educational services to children with autism. The Performance Diagnostic Checklist – Human Services (PDC-HS; Carr, Wilder, Majdalany, Mathisen, & Strain, 2013) was administered to the participants and their supervisors and identified deficits in the task clarification and prompting; resources, materials, and processes; and performance consequences, effort, and competition sections of the assessment. During baseline, three of four participants were never on time for work and one participant was occasionally on time for work. The number of min that participants arrived to work late during baseline ranged from 0 to 156 min (M = 17.15 min). Several indicated interventions were implemented using a multiple baseline across participants or ABCDAC designs; the most effective intervention included task clarification, a problem-solving discussion, tokens exchangeable for back-up reinforcers, and weekly graphic feedback. Three of four participants demonstrated an increase in the number of days they were on time for work as evidenced by an increase in the slope of their data paths. Additionally, all participants showed a decrease in the number of min late to work ranging from 0 to 43 min (M = 5.38 min). Improvements maintained slightly when the intervention was discontinued for three of four participants. These results suggest that the PDC-HS identified the variables maintaining participants’ tardiness and an indicated intervention effectively addressed tardiness with some improvements maintaining after the intervention was discontinued. Moreover, social validity data were high indicating high acceptability for the interventions, particularly the component containing praise and a token.