Teaching Small Talk: Increasing On-Topic Conversational Exchanges in College Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Using Remote Audio Coaching

Abstract

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) often have deficits in interpersonal skills due to limited social-communication opportunities. Knowing how to engage in “small talk” or simple social conversational exchanges can be beneficial in postsecondary schooling, employment sites, community environments, and social gatherings. Recently, covert audio coaching (CAC) showed a positive impact on increasing conversational exchanges. As the COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for remote delivery tools, we explored the effectiveness of remote audio coaching (RAC) to teach this skill to college students with IDD. We used a multiple baseline design across participants to examine whether RAC might increase on-topic, small talk conversational exchanges. Results demonstrated that RAC effectively increased small talk skills between participants and a confederate. Upon removal of RAC, all participants still performed above their baselines, with two participants maintaining near mastery levels 2 weeks after the intervention was removed. Limitations and future research are discussed.

Keywords

postsecondary education autism social skills intellectual disability technology remote audio coaching covert audio coaching

Introduction

For the past two decades, the advancement of technology has affected social-communication. Technology allows some individuals without communication fluency to communicate without close prompting or physical contact. Due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the need for social distancing, many individuals have transitioned to communicating remotely with family, peers, educators, and employers—locally and across the world—using various remote platforms to communicate in real-time. Remote communication platforms have increased opportunities for individuals without disabilities to communicate remotely with peers, family members, and others. However, many individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have difficulty communicating with typical peers, instructors, employers, and others, particularly remotely.

Reciprocal communication, including engaging in “small talk,” is as essential for gaining social competence as more commonly targeted communication skills such as expressing wants and needs. Small talk is referred to as a communitive mode of social function within a conversation (Coupland, 2014). Individuals with IDD frequently experience difficulty with social-communication skills (Hughes et al., 2012). Deficits in social-communication skills present several challenges for people with IDD, including the ability to make and maintain relationships, obtain and maintain employment, and participate in typical community-based activities with neuro-typical individuals (Bennett et al., 2010; Gilson & Carter, 2016).

Numerous studies have been conducted showing how small talk affects different social variables that, in turn, affect human interaction (Coupland, 2003; Drew & Chilton, 2014; Holmes, 2000; Kuiper & Flindall, 2000). Social conversation skills play a substantial role in establishing situational, attitudinal, relational, and temporal parameters of social exchanges (Linguistics Society of America, 2020; Vaughan & Clancy, 2016). These various sociolinguistics can increase or decrease interpersonal relationships among individuals. Coupland (2003), for example, discussed the importance of increasing interpersonal relationships through small talk in various settings, such as “. . . a football game, a task in a workshop, and a dinner party” (p. 2). Within these various settings, different conversational topics are significant to small talk. Topics drive the social communication relevancy between individuals, and drive the social norms of the small talk. Small talk typically relies on topics that are related to current personal and real-world events. Unfortunately, many individuals with IDD have difficulty with small talk and staying on-topic.

Holmes and Fillary (2000) conducted a study on individuals with intellectual disability (ID) in the workplace and found that small talk was problematic for this population. The researchers often found that when the participants engaged in small talk with employees without ID, they frequently shared inappropriate topics (i.e., intimacy, family issues), had difficulty staying on-topic, and only engaged with the same few employees (not generalizing small talk skills to other employees). Like the Holmes and Fillary research, other studies have reported comparable findings of small talk generalization deficits that many individuals with IDD have when conversing with employers, employees, peers with and without disabilities, and in college classes (Black & Langone, 1997; Gilson & Carter, 2016; Hughes et al., 2012; Kearney et al., 2020; Mason et al., 2019; Oswald et al., 2018). However, these studies also suggest individuals with disabilities improve these skills given instruction and opportunities to practice on-topic conversations.

Covert audio coaching (CAC) is an intervention that has shown much promise for adolescents and adults with IDD, particularly in community employment contexts. CAC involves a practitioner providing coaching statements to individuals learning a new skill via “bug-in-ear” technology. These coaching statements are delivered at a distance, and can only be heard by the individual being coached through the earpiece (Randolph & Brady, 2018). Coaching statements have included praise (e.g., “You sorted those groceries perfectly.”), guidance (e.g., “Remember to say, ‘hi’ to customers.”), and corrections (e.g., “Say, ‘goodbye’ to that customer”) (Bennett et al., 2013a). Bennett et al. (2010) were among the first researchers to explore the impact of CAC on people who have significant disabilities—particularly with job performance skills of adults with IDD. After participants received coaching statements contingent on work performance, their job skills increased and maintained for several weeks following the intervention. Bennett et al. (2013a) reported similar results when coaching individuals with IDD while making photocopies. In a third study, Bennett et al. (2013b) explored CAC’s effects on the accuracy and speed with which individuals completed a laundry folding task, and found that participants were more accurate and quicker completing the task when provided with covert coaching statements. To date, several studies have demonstrated promising results when using CAC to improve the skills of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ID, and similar disabilities (Kearney et al., 2020; Randolph & Brady, 2018). However, very few studies in the peer-reviewed literature examined the effects of this strategy on participants’ social skills (Gilson & Carter, 2016; Mason et al., 2019).

As a result of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the need for coaching and instructional interventions to shift to remote delivery has become critical (Sawchuk, 2020). Adolescents and adults world-wide have shifted to remote learning, and training applications such as FaceTime, e-coaching platforms, and augmented reality have shown positive outcomes as the effectiveness of delivering instruction remotely has been evaluated (Boratto et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2018; Randolph & Brady, 2018). And although some remote coaching and telehealth applications have been evaluated with families of individuals with IDD (Morin et al., 2020; Pellegrino et al., 2020), there is a compelling need for increased research on remote teaching and coaching interventions for adults with IDD to increase their access to community employment and postsecondary settings. One such application could be remote training delivered in a manner similar to CAC.

Remote audio coaching (RAC) is the remote application of CAC using a videoconferencing application, such as Zoom, Skype, or other communication platforms. RAC was developed by this research team to encompass similar components of CAC but without the bug-in-ear. During a typical RAC session, the participant, confederate, data collector, and coach met via the desired videoconference application, such as Zoom or WebEx. The coach provided the topic to the participant, then turned off her camera for the data collection window. The data collector started the 6-minute timer and began collecting data on participant and confederate conversational exchanges. During the 6-minute session, if the participant was off-topic, the coach provided coaching prompts similar to the prompts used in previous CAC research (e.g., “[participant] remember, we’re talking about [insert previous designated topic]” or “[participant], tell [confederate] about your favorite [insert previous designated topic]”). After the 6-minute session, the coach turned her camera on and provided general praise to the participant. RAC was examined by this research team to determine whether it could become a viable teaching and coaching procedure for college students with IDD and other adults in various settings. As such, RAC could potentially be used to deliver coaching interventions similar to the manner CAC was delivered (e.g., Bennett et al., 2010, 2013a).

As universities and colleges search for methods to deliver remote instruction to all of their students, college students with IDD require effective remote interventions beyond classroom instruction. For these students, employment training, club activities, peer socialization, and the opportunity to experience campus life as college students also depend on remote communication skills, many of which have yet to be learned or validated. For example, inclusive college programs can increase social-communication interactions for students with IDD by providing opportunities on-campus to practice their small talk with typically developing peers. Studies that have targeted on-topic conversational exchanges have shown the importance of having regular opportunities to engage in these social skills across settings and people (Hughes et al., 2012; Mason et al., 2019). Any decrease or delay in these opportunities due to restrictions in on-campus access or overly complex technology can have negative effects for these students to learn and use social skills in typical community settings including college surroundings (e.g., courses, clubs, organizations, on-campus employment, cafeterias, dormitory life) (Hughes et al., 2012; Milek et al., 2018).

Purpose of Study

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of RAC to increase on-topic small talk exchanges in social-conversations in college students with IDD. The research questions addressed in this study were:

Does RAC increase the on-topic small talk exchanges in social-conversation among college students with IDD?

If RAC is effective in increasing small talk, will students’ on-topic small talk exchanges maintain after the RAC intervention is withdrawn?

Method

Participants

Three college students (aged 20–30) enrolled in an inclusive postsecondary education (IPSE) program in the Southeastern region of the United States participated in this study. All students were diagnosed with ID based on their most recent psychological evaluation on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) (Wechsler, 2008), and on their last Individual Education Program (IEP) from high school. Two students had a secondary diagnosis of ASD, and one student also had a visual impairment. Participants were recruited for this study based on recommendation by instructors of the IPSE program. The recommendations was based on the participants’ need to improve their social communication skills with both peers and staff. Instructors identified potential participants from informal observations during class time, group activities, and social time between classes. The instrucotrs also observed potential participant small talk skills among peers with and without disabilities. From these informal observations, the instructors recommended the three participants chosen as individuals who were most likely to see significant benefit from joining the study. None of the students had prior experience with CAC or RAC.

London was a 20-year-old Caucasian male with a secondary diagnosis of ASD. His most recent WAIS score was 57. London communicated his wants and needs verbally, but frequently needed to be prompted to provide specific information. London also had limited spontaneous on-topic discussions. He sometimes initiated on-topic conversational language, but then remained silent until a conversation partner changed the topic. When speaking, London had difficulties staying on-topic and needed frequent redirections to return back to the topic.

Candice was a 24-year-old African American female with a secondary diagnosis of ASD and a visual impairment. Her most recent WAIS score was 51. Although Candice communicated her wants and needs verbally with peers and instructors in the IPSE program, she often had difficulties staying on-topic when speaking. When Candice drifted off-topic, she typically discussed her preferred topics of Disney and her family.

Michael was a 30-year-old Caucasian male, with a WAIS score of 57. Michael had taken various on-campus courses including elective courses with typically developing students. Michael also had experience in several employment settings. However, Michael had difficulty staying on-topic during discussions with peers on- and off-campus. He frequently drifted off-topic and rarely returned to the topic without insistent prompts from his conversation partners. Michael also frequently held self-discussions on a preferred topic in the presence of peers, without reciprocation from the conversation partner.

An investigator in the study approximately 10 years older than the students served as the confederate and conversational partner for each student. The investigator was not a part of the IPSE program, but she did have experience working with adults with IDD and with college-aged students as a result of her background in vocational rehabilitation. None of the students were familiar with the confederate prior to the study.

Prior to baseline, the study was approved by the University’s institutional review board (IRB); verbal and written assent was obtained from all students, and written consent was obtained from parents or guardians. Inclusion criteria for the study included consistent attendance and satisfactory performance in students’ current classes. All students had prior experience using Zoom for video conferences, advising meetings, and coursework for at least two semesters. Recommended participants were emailed the assent/consent form and met with a researcher via Zoom to discuss details about the study and review the assent form. Parents and legal guardians were informed of the study protocols, and were informed that participation was voluntary. The researcher watched the students, parents, and guardian sign the form on Zoom, and the participant emailed the signed form to the researcher.

Setting and Materials

This study took place remotely on Zoom, using a professional Zoom account to conduct all sessions. All students and researchers downloaded the Zoom software onto their computers to schedule a recurring link that students and researchers inserted in their web browsers. Students and researchers used their own personal laptops or computers as the primary device for each meeting, but all had secondary mobile devices in case the primary device had technical issues. Each primary and secondary device was equipped with a camera and a microphone.

During each session, data collectors removed their names from the screen, muted their microphones, and left their screens black while in the session. This resulted in each student seeing an investigator or coach running the session, the confederate, and him or herself (the student who received the RAC), but not the data collectors. This was done to limit potential reactivity and distraction that might occur during the sessions. Students waited in the virtual waiting room until they were admitted individually for the session.

Dependent Variable

The dependent variables were students’ (a) prompted on-topic small talk exchanges with the confederate, (b) unprompted on-topic exchanges with the confederate, and (c) off-topic conversation exchanges. We also included one confederate code, Confederate Initiations, that served as a control code to assure that student increases were due to the intervention and not due invitations from the confederates. Confederate initiations were coded if, after 10 seconds of silence from the participant, the confederate spontaneously initiated the conversation without a prompt from the coach. As a member of the research team, the confederate knew that zero confederate initiations should occur in each session; however, the research team added this code to data collection procedures to ensure no confederate initiations occurred. Finally, we also tracked the sources for the talk codes: Participant Talk, Confederate Talk, and Coaching Prompts. See Table 1 for code definitions.

Table 1.

Small Talk Code Definitions.

Terminology	Definition
Participant talk	Engages in conversation with a confederate. If this code is recorded, then record if on- or off-topic. Does not include self-talk.
Confederate talk	Engages in conversation with participant.
Confederate initiation	Confederate spontaneously begins a conversational exchange after at least 10 seconds of no verbal communication from the student.
Coaching trompt	Coach delivers a direct or indirect comment to the participant designed to evoke conversation after 10 seconds of silence from both participant and confederate.
On-topic	Conversation exchange follows the content of the topic (or is related to the content of the topic) provided by the coach.
Off-topic	Conversation exchange is unrelated to the content of the topic provided by the coach. This includes repetitive topics that are idiosyncratic to the participant.
Special rule on vocalizations	Utterances that clearly indicate affirmation or negation are coded as on-topic or off-topic, depending on the type of talk during the previous exchange. For example, if the topic is music, and the participant and confederate are talking about music when the participant says, “Uh-huh”, then “Uh-huh” is coded as on-topic.
Special rule on vocalizations	Utterances that do not indicate affirmation or negation are not coded.

Data Collection; Interobserver Agreement; and Procedural and Treatment Fidelity

Two investigators served as data collectors during all sessions and conditions. This enabled us to collect primary data, interobserver agreement data, and data to assess treatment fidelity. Both data collectors had advanced degrees in special education or rehabilitation, and both had experience working with adults with ID and ASD. Both data collectors were hidden to the students being observed. All sessions lasted 6 minutes. Data were collected during the 6-minute period using a partial interval system with 10-second intervals. To prompt data collectors, a 6-minute interval audio recording was created. Any occurrence of any of the codes during the interval was recorded.

To determine interobserver agreement (IOA), data were collected live and concurrently by two observers during 35% of all sessions. During all IOA sessions, Observer 1 called Observer 2 via a personal cellphone. Observer 2 played the prerecorded 6-minute audio recording via a mobile tablet that provided the observers with the verbal cues “Look” and “Record.” Observer 2 placed her phone onto the mobile tablet to decrease feedback from computer speakers, then distanced the mobile tablet and phone at least three feet away from computer speakers. Observer 2 played the audio recording before each session to determine if Observer 1 could hear the recording. Agreement was determined by counting the number of agreements on the small talk code sheet by both observers, and dividing that number by the total number of opportunities for agreement, then multiplying by 100. Total agreement for each participant ranged between 95% and 96%. See Table 2 for individual participant IOA data.

Table 2.

Interobserver Agreement.

Participant	London (%)	Candice (%)	Michael (%)
Baseline sessions with IOA	33	25	33
Intervention sessions with IOA	38	42	33
Follow-up sessions with IOA	50	50	50
On-topic agreement	92	91	91
Off-topic agreement	97	95	96
Coaching prompt agreement	100	100	100
Total agreement	96	95	96

To establish procedural and treatment fidelity, the investigators created a seven-step checklist summarizing the experimental protocol and intervention. A data collector gathered fidelity data across all students during 37% of baseline, intervention, and follow-up sessions. During each observation, the coach implemented the experimental procedures and intervention with 100% fidelity.

Experimental Design

A multiple baseline across participants design was used to determine the effectiveness of RAC on increasing the participants’ on-topic engagement in small talk conversations (Kennedy, 2005). The staggered introduction to the intervention demonstrated that the increase in skill acquisition was due to the onset of intervention rather than chance. For each student, a follow-up condition was implemented to evaluate whether any increases in small talk would persist after the RAC intervention was removed.

Experimental Procedures

Baseline

No intervention was delivered during baseline, and the confederate was instructed previously not to initiate a conversation, but always to engage with the student if a conversation was initiated by the student. Each baseline session began with the confederate, the data collector, and the coach logged into Zoom. The student was admitted from the virtual waiting room into the session by the coach. The coach greeted the student, did a sound check, and then provided an organizing statement-a conversation topic previously selected by an investigator-to the student to begin the session (e.g., “Hey Candice, say something about your favorite music band.”). The coach would then turn off her video, and the confederate would turn on her video. Baseline sessions were held until at least three data points demonstrated either a decreasing trend or a stable low rate of unprompted, on-topic small talk exchanges.

Intervention

The independent variable was remote audio coaching (RAC). RAC is a personal coaching method designed to be delivered remotely to individuals. Prior to the intervention, conversation topics were selected randomly from a hat by an investigator. Topics ranged from music, movies, college courses, job internships, pandemic safety, nutrition, fitness, and favorite restaurants. Topics were written onto tablet paper, cut into thin strips, and placed in a hat. To avoid duplication of topics, after each session, the topics were removed from the hat once used.

Intervention sessions began with the coach, data collector, and confederate logged into Zoom with their screens blackened and their microphones on mute. The coach turned on her screen and microphone, and admitted the student into the session from the virtual waiting room. The coach then blackened her own screen, and the confederate turned on her microphone and screen. The coach kept the video screen off, but the microphone on throughout the session to give a quick coaching prompt when needed. This protocol assured that only the student and confederate were visible to one another, but investigators could see them both.

At the beginning of an intervention session, the coach provided a suggestion that the student should talk about a specific topic (e.g., “London, when [confederate] appears you can talk to her about [insert previously selected topic].”). All prompts were delivered to the student, and began with the student’s name. Identical to baseline, the confederate had been instructed previously not to initiate a conversation, but always to engage the student after every conversation that was initiated by the student. The coach provided a coaching prompt contingent on two scenarios:

If 10-seconds elapsed without any conversation from the student;

If the student shifted to an off-topic discussion during the conversation.

For off-topic discussions, the coach prompted the student to return to the topic at the first natural break in the conversation.

Coaching prompts were delivered using the Kearney et al. (2020) 2-step hierarchy of indirect and direct prompts. If a coaching prompt was needed:

The first prompt was indirect (e.g., “Michael, remember we’re talking about movies”).

If 10 seconds went by with no conversation from the student, the coach delivered a second prompt. The second prompt was direct (e.g., “Michael, ask [confederate name] what her favorite movie is.”

Once the observation was over, a data collector notified the coach by sending a private chat on Zoom to the coach, “Done.” The coach then thanked the student for his or her time and provided general verbal praise (e.g., “Thank you London for participating. See you tomorrow.”). When the student’s on-topic data stabilized at 90% or higher for four consecutive days, the intervention was discontinued.

Follow-up

To determine if the student maintained the skill, follow-up data were collected 1 and 2 weeks after the last intervention session was delivered for each participant. During the follow-up sessions, procedures were identical to baseline, with no intervention occurring at all.

Data Analysis

Data were first analyzed using traditional visual inspection procedures. This involved the researchers calculating central tendency measures and determining data ranges for each student during each of the conditions. Measures of central tendency helped researchers determine the level, trend, consistency, and overlap of data within and across baseline, intervention, and follow-up conditions, and to make decisions regarding condition changes (Kratochwill et al., 2013). Following the visual inspection, the researchers used Tau-U to define the effect size of the intervention. The Tau-U web-based calculator was used for a post-hoc analysis to determine effect sizes for individual participants, as well as an omnibus effect size (Vannest et al., 2016). All calculations were adjusted for baseline trends.

Results

The results of the RAC intervention are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Percentage of conversational exchanges on-topic and off-topic.

London

During baseline, London’s on-topic small talk averaged 6% of the intervals (range = 0–17%), and his off-topic conversation averaged 65% (range = 61–67%). After three days of baseline, London started the RAC intervention. On the first day of intervention, the coach delivered five coaching prompts to London, resulting in 61% of the intervals with on-topic communication exchanges, and a reduction in his off-topic exchanges to 3%. During the remainder of the intervention sessions, London received a mean of two coaching prompts per session (ranging from 0 to 5). His on-topic small talk averaged 83% of the intervals (range = 56–100%), and his off-topic mean was 2% (range = 0–6%). London reached on-topic small talk mastery criteria (90% or higher with for four consecutive sessions) after 13 intervention sessions. After the intervention was removed, London continued to maintain a high level of on-topic conversational exchanges. During the first follow-up probe, 7 days after intervention was removed, London remained on-topic for 92% of the conversational exchanges, with 0% of exchanges off-topic. During a follow-up probe 14 days after the intervention was removed, he remained on-topic for 94% of the conversational exchanges, with 0% of exchanges off-topic.

Candice

During Candice’s first baseline observation, 53% of her intervals contained on-topic communication exchanges, but this declined sharply over the next few baseline sessions. Candice’s off-topic comments also steadily increased during baseline. By the fourth day of baseline Candice’s conversational exchanges were on-topic 0% of the time, and off-topic 92% of the time. On the first day of intervention, the coach delivered five coaching prompts to Candice, increasing her on-topic conversation to 78%, and decreasing off-topic exchanges to 14%. During 12 intervention sessions, Candice’s on-topic communication exchanges averaged 88% (range = 69–100%), and her off-topic exchanges averaged 4% (range = 14–0%). Across these intervention sessions, Candice received a mean of two coaching prompts per session (range = 0–5). Candice reached 90% on-topic exchanges or higher for four consecutive sessions after 12 intervention sessions. After the intervention was removed, Candice continued to engage in a high level of on-topic conversational exchanges, with 86% of the exchanges on-topic, and 8% of exchanges off-topic. During a follow-up probe 14 days after the intervention was discontinued, Candice remained on-topic for 81% of the conversational exchanges, with 11% of exchanges off-topic.

Michael

During baseline, Michael’s on-topic conversation averaged 13% (range = 0–31%), and his off-topic exchanges averaged 81% (range = 67–94%). Michael moved to intervention after 6 baseline probes. During his first intervention session, Michael received five coaching prompts, reached 78% on-topic conversational exchanges, and reduced his off-topic exchanges to 17%. During the entire intervention condition, Michael’s mean on-topic exchanges was 83% (range = 69–94%) and his mean off-topic exchanges was 9% (range = 6–19%). Michael received an average of three coaching prompts per session during intervention (range = 0–5), and reached mastery criteria after nine sessions. Michael’s follow-up data were more variable than the other two students. Michael’s on-topic conversations surpassed his baseline conversations, but dropped noticeably once the intervention was removed. During his first follow-up probe, Michael remained on-topic for 42% of the conversational exchanges, with 58% of exchanges off-topic. During his second follow-up probe, Michael increased his on-topic exchanges to 64%, with 31% of exchanges off-topic.

Post Hoc Analysis and Effect Size

Using the Tau-U web-based calculator (Vannest et al., 2016), the researchers determined the Tau-U post hoc analysis of the on-topic exchanges. The combination of baseline to intervention contrasts for all students combined showed an overall effect size of 1.0417. Tau-U contrasts for individual students resulted in 1.0 for London, 1.1250 for Candice (with a corrected baseline trend using the online calculator), and 1.0 for Michael. These results indicate that the intervention was strongly effective for increasing on-topic conversational exchanges (Parker et al., 2011).

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to determine if RAC would have a positive impact on teaching college students with IDD to use small talk by increasing on-topic conversational exchanges. Additionally, the researchers sought to determine if the on-topic conservational exchanges would maintain at high levels once the RAC intervention was removed. All students who received the RAC intervention substantially increased their on-topic conversational exchanges and decreased their off-topic conversational exchanges with the confederate. For all students, the effect size of the intervention was very strong. For two of the three participants, these skills maintained at high levels when the intervention was removed.

Although the experimental protocol called for the coach to give a coaching prompt at any point during an intervention session, fewer coaching prompts were required than researchers anticipated. After the first couple of days of intervention, both London and Candice surprised the researchers with the limited number of coaching prompts needed to engage in high levels of on-topic exchanges, and to minimize the off-topic exchanges. Both of these students had multiple sessions during the intervention condition where no coaching prompts were needed (London had four sessions without prompts, Candice had two). There were lulls in the conversation during these sessions, but the lulls did not reach the 10-second threshold needed for the coach to deliver a coaching prompt. That is, the pace of the conversations did not imply any deficit in students’ abilities to hold on-topic conversations.

Social Validity

Like other behavioral researchers, we also wanted to examine the social validity of our findings. We first explored this using a subjective measure, by asking the students and their family members about their reactions to (a) the social importance of the goals, (b) whether the RAC intervention was socially acceptable, and (c) whether the improvements were socially significant. Three weeks after the final follow-up probe, we contacted students and their family members using Zoom calls to administer a three item survey, with a 5-point Likert response rating for each item (with 1 = Completely Disagree to 5 = Completely Agree). Both groups provided strong indications of the social validity of the outcomes. Students (5.0) and families (5.0) reported strong agreement with the importance of the goals, the social acceptability of the RAC (5.0 and 5.0, respectively), and the social significance of the improvements (4.7 and 4.0, respectively).

We also sought a more objective indicator of social validity using observational measures of students’ pre- and post-intervention performance against normative comparisons (Ledford et al., 2014). To obtain a normative sample of small talk data, we collected data on seven college classmates in education and rehabilitation courses (five undergraduate and two graduate students) who did not have IDD. One remote observation per student was collected using the same observation codes and data collection system (6-minutes, 10-second intervals) used in the study. These observations were conducted remotely with the norm group from students’ homes, again using Zoom. No coaching was provided. The resulting data provided a normative estimate of the on-topic and off-topic small talk conversation exchanges of similar-aged college students. Across the norm group, students’ on-topic small talk averaged 61.4% of the intervals, and their off-topic conversations averaged 26.7% of the intervals. Although limited, these data indicate that prior to receiving the RAC intervention, the students with IDD displayed substantially lower on-task small talk (16%) than their college peers, and substantially greater off-topic (70%) conversation exchanges. The comparison to normative data also demonstrates that when the students with IDD received the RAC intervention, their on-topic small talk matched or exceeded the conversation exchanges of their peers, and their off-topic exchanges diminished below that of their peers. Thus, on both subjective and objective measures, the RAC intervention gained strong social validity support.

Limitations and Future Research

This study, like all studies, had limitations. First, due to COVID-19, participants were home during this time and completed all sessions at their personal computers. Although researchers instructed caregivers not to provide any training during this time, and they never observed a caregiver do so during any of the sessions, there could be some unwarranted influence that was unknown to investigators. Another potential limitation involves how familiar the students already were with Zoom technology. All three students had been using Zoom for one semester or more at the point of this study. Perhaps if they had been less familiar with the technology used, they would have had a more difficult time learning the skill, and that issue must be considered as educators implement this intervention with students with IDD who have no such familiarity with remote communication applications. A third limitation is the need for reliable Internet service; although students in this study all had reliable internet service, we recognize that is not universal. It is likely that unreliable Internet access will be a barrier for some future participants.

Additional baseline sessions for participants such as Candice could have supported the intervention’s effectiveness to show the relationship between Candice’s behavior and the researcher’s behavior. Possibly two or three baseline data points would have made this correlation apparent. Baseline data collection was administered consecutively with each participant. However, one participant (Michael) was absent for a session, which created a break in this participant’s baseline and is a limitation in the study’s design.

Perhaps the most substantial limitation in this study was the absence of a generalization measure. Although previous CAC research has shown strong evidence of generalized outcomes (Bennett et al., 2010; Randolph & Brady, 2018), this outcome has not yet been part of with the RAC intervention, and such information is crucial if RAC is to become a more commonplace technology. Future studies should determine the impact of RAC across conversational partners (peers, employers, professors), environments (home, school, work), technology media (smartphone, tablet, computer), and software platforms (WebEx, FaceTime, Google Meet). Future studies should also have maintenance measures further separated from the intervention sessions. This study only had maintenance probes 6 to 14 days after intervention was removed. Obviously, replications are needed to determine the durability of this intervention. Finally, researchers have yet to evaluate the effectiveness of RAC to teach other skills, such as daily living, employment, or self-advocacy skills, and with other populations of students. Examining the impact of RAC with other skills, routines, and populations will help determine how effective this intervention could become.

Conclusion

Increasing the ability for adults with IDD to engage in small talk and maintain high levels of on-topic conversational exchanges is beneficial in various settings, including employment and postsecondary environments (Chezan et al., 2020). Conversational exchanges are a component of social competence that helps ensure access to various inclusive community environments. Individuals who lack social competence often have higher levels of social isolation on campus (Prohn et al., 2019) and difficulty obtaining and maintaining employment (Chezan et al., 2020). Conversely, individuals with IDD who display social competence by engaging in on-topic conversational exchanges are often valued members of inclusive communities (Chezan et al., 20209). Displaying this behavior in a natural environment results in community members perceiving a high-level of social competence and often results in group cohesion (Oswald et al., 2018).

Researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of CAC to teach many skills (Bennett, 2013; Bennett et al., 2010, 2013a; Gilson & Carter, 2016; Kearney et al., 2020), but the current climate has prioritized the importance of training skills virtually through the use of video-based conferencing apps such as Cisco WebEx or Zoom. RAC couples the power of CAC with virtual flexibility, providing opportunities for coaches to see participants in real time, and deliver coaching support as needed—including in a covert manner.

Like other forms of covert audio coaching, RAC is a discreet coaching method that can be implemented remotely. This study demonstrated that participants were able to increase their small talk skills with this intervention. The findings in this study are promising, but additional research is needed to determine the longer term impact of RAC to teach new skills to college students and other adults with IDD.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Brianna Joseph

Kelly B. Kearney

Author Biographies

Brianna Joseph, EdD, is a visiting instructor in the Department of Exceptional Student Education at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). She is an instructor for the Academy for Community Inclusion at FAU. Her work focuses on employment and well-being quality of life outcomes for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Kelly B. Kearney, EdD, BCBA, is a visiting instructor in the Exceptional Student Education Department at Florida Atlantic University. She is a coordinator for the Academy for Community Inclusion at FAU and a board certified behavior analyst. Her work focuses on inclusive employment and living for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Michael P. Brady, PhD, is a professor and chair of the Department of Exceptional Student Education at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton Florida. He has administrative responsibility for 14 Department faculty members and programs on three FAU campuses. He oversees bachelor’s degree programs in Exceptional Student Education (ESE), and Early Care and Education, master’s degree programs in ESE with concentrations in applied behavior analysis, autism spectrum disorders, early childhood, and related disability areas, and a doctoral program in ESE.

Angelica Downey, MEd, is a doctoral student at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida pursuing her PhD degree in Special Education. Her interest areas for research include vocational and rehabilitation, inclusion employment, and quality of life outcomes for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Ayse Torres, PhD, is an assistant professor of Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling at Florida Atlantic University. As a licensed mental health counselor and a nationally certified rehabilitation counselor, Dr. Torres has extensive experience in working with individuals with a wide range of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional disabilities.

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